Time to check out of the hotel to start my final day in Milwaukee at the RNC.

I drove to my regular parking spot and began with Red Arrow Park, the designated protest area. Once again, no one was there. So I made my way to the main entrance of the convention, the spot where the real crazies are lingering. Not much was going on, so I sought out a coffee shop to get an iced latte and get some things done on my computer. 

Who knew finding a coffee shop would be so difficult? I finally found a place in the lobby of a bank building, not exactly the environment I was looking for, but it would have to do. And surprise, surprise, the iced coffee was one of the best I’ve ever had (besides the ones I make myself!).

I spent the rest of the day wandering. Occasionally, a random group of five or ten people protesting would straggle by with signs. It got to the point where I didn’t even care where people were heading anymore. 

Most of the time was spent at the main entrance. Not a lot was going on, and bored photographers were much more chatty. I met a few, and this was the only day they were here and were asking me about how things were working here and how the past few days had gone. Yeah, this was not the day to pick if you were only come one day. One of the men was a freelance photographer from LA and on assignment for CNN. We actually had an interesting conversation about the media’s coverage of events such as this and how unreliable it is.

That didn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of material for photos.  

The day was filled with protesters taunting attendees, preachers singing and evangelizing, RNC visitors dressed in patriotic outfits entering the restricted area, and photographers.

One thing that became increasingly clear is that I really think a lot of these protesters are either hired or are purposely being provocative and offensive simply for content and clicks. That they don’t actually believe what they are saying. And that goes for the protesters as well as for the people interacting with the protesters. Today made that glaringly obvious.

So how does that work? You have two guys in COVID masks holding a sign stating “SMASH MAGA: Trump Zombie Apocalypse. They shout outrageous statements and select specific to call people names, baiting them. Someone bites. That someone gets in their face and shouts back at them. In the meantime, the two holding the banner have a third person who you wouldn’t never notice unless you spend some time watching. That third person’s job is to record the whole thing. No surprise that those who are baited are always holding their iPhone up, recording their reaction. Once they have their content, they wander off.

One woman kept trying to get people on the side lines to stop, explaining that both sides are paid agitators. I spoke with photographers who knew that some of the protesters were content creators, one even saying that a particularly loud, anti-abortion protester admitted to getting paid.

Nothing is real.

But one crazy moment occurred when the SMASH MAGA guys were arguing. The man I mentioned on Day 2 who had a laminated poster of Thomas Matthew Crooks with the words “An American Hero.” At this point, no one was paying attention to him, but he was on the outskirts of the crowd around the SMASH guy. I caught his eye and he laughed and shook his head. He asked me, “Why are they so angry??” Insane.

Finally, I received a press release the a press conference and rally would be held at 4:30 in Red Arrow Park. I mentioned in another post that there was a police shooting during the convention. All I knew was that a Columbus, Ohio, police officer shot and killed a man holding two knives who was in a fight with another man. The story I heard was that the man with the knives did not follow police instructions to drop them and instead lunged either at the cop or at the other man. So the cop shot and killed him.

A ton of media, no surprise, formed a semi-circle around the family of Samuel Sharpe, Jr., the man shot, and the family of D’Vontaye Mitchell, a man who was killed June 30th. And one by one, they also spoke to the media and the crowd gathered behind them with signs and flags and outrage.

I have seen these press conferences more times than I wish. The family of a black man who has been killed, crying as they try to explain what he meant to them. And expressing outrage about slow investigations and/or coverups. But I had never attended one before. 

Between the press conference and some research, here is what I found out.

The police report that thirteen Columbus, Ohio, bicycle cops were in the area. Let me also note that these groups of bicycle cops were literally everywhere; I even saw them far from the convention center, such as the Third Ward. This spot was a mile away. They then noticed two shirtless homeless men fighting, and they realized that one of them had a knife. They began running toward the fight, yelling, “Drop the knife! Drop it!” Then the man with the knife lunged toward the other man, and five cops opened fire, shooting 27 times.

The body cam video was released, pretty much showing exactly that. However, in the greater context, the Ohio police are resting in the park, chatting about the protests they have seen when one of them notes, “He’s got a knife.” There are two men fighting in the street about a half block away. Immediately, the cops race toward the men. The body cam is from only one cop who is running full speed, so the video is quite shaky and it is difficult to see exactly what was happening. But it appears that neither man even looks towards the cops. And the knife certainly is not dropped. Fifteen seconds after initially spotting the knife elapsed before police began shooting.

In the press conference, we learned from Sharpe’s sister that her brother wanted to live among the homeless. He could have lived with their mother, who had redone the basement for him. But he wanted “all of the houseless people to know that Jehovah loved them and hadn’t forgotten about them.” He was “moving in as a neighbor to pray with them, help however he could.” As she spoke, she held her brother’s well used and annotated Bible.

This is where these press conferences get difficult. The family is obviously devastated, as they should be. But you have to wonder about someone choosing to be homeless and getting into a knife fight in the street.

But another interesting piece of information Sharpe’s sister shared was that he had multiple sclerosis, which impacted his ability to get around. (This is also confusing to me – living on the streets doesn’t seem like the best choice for someone with MS. I only say this because it seems to me there must be an element of mental illness in this case.)

His sister claimed that he wasn’t lunging, but he was probably stumbling because of MS. He had trouble walking. “Everyone that knew him knew he walked like he was drunk,” she said.

The family complained that other methods could have been used besides shooting him. At the press conference, I completely agreed with that. Watching the body cam, it is hard to tell if that was even possible. The whole thing went down so fast. The cops weren’t close enough and there wasn’t time to tase him, and Sharpe seemingly wasn’t acknowledging the cops. 

Once the body cam video is broken down frame by frame, it’s certainly clear that the man with the knife, Sharpe, is lunging (or running) at the other man, knife outstretched in front of him. He certainly is not stumbling. And again he never seems to acknowledge the cops.

This brings up another topic I feel pretty strongly about. We need more community policing. Sharpe’s sister complained that if the cops knew her brother, they would know he has MS and would interpret his movements differently. One complaint about those protesting the RNC was the decision to bring to Milwaukee police and sheriffs from all over the country because they don’t know the city or the people of the city. And this event tragically proved them right. However, I’m not  convinced this couldn’t have happened with Milwaukee police. Around the country, our cops don’t walk the beat and don’t live in the neighborhoods they are assigned to work in.

The other family at the press conference was that of D’Vontaye Mitchell, who have been trying to get information on Mitchell’s death on June 30^th.  Four security guards from the Hyatt Regency downtown have been fired for causing Mitchell’s death after beating him and pinning him to the ground. They also have all been charged with felony murder. But the story gets murky. People claim Mitchell was in the hotel causing a disturbance and wouldn’t leave so was dragged out. One report says he was in the women’s restroom (perhaps to escape security). Outside, the four held him face first on the ground, their knees on his back to pin him down.

Apparently the group them held a march near the convention center. I had tickets to a live podcast recording that evening and had to leave before the march began.

I certainly learned a lot. I am so glad that I didn’t become discouraged and leave Tuesday. Most of the important info I got came on the other days. So I think I am as prepared as I can be for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. 

It will be interesting. I’m anticipating chaos, but the RNC was so much more uneventful than I expected that I really am not sure. Of course, if the rumors about Biden stepping down are true, I don’t see how there can be anything but chaos.

---

Read RNC Day 1, RNC Day 2, RNC Day 3