Police Brutality / Individual record
Sylville Smith
The Washington Post's Fatal Force database records Sylville Smith in a fatal on-duty police shooting on 2016-08-13 in Milwaukee, WI. Individual circumstances and legal outcome require case-specific review.
- Record ID
- PB-497
- Incident date
- August 13, 2016
- Outcome
- Fatal
- Location
- Milwaukee, WI
- Agency
- Milwaukee Police Department
- Category
- Fatal on-duty police shooting
- Age (reported)
- 23
What happened
Sylville Smith, 23, was shot twice and killed by Milwaukee Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown on August 13, 2016, after a vehicle stop and foot chase. Police said Smith had a handgun; the officer's body camera recorded the encounter, including Smith moving near a fence. Prosecutors argued that a second shot came after Smith threw the gun away. A Milwaukee jury acquitted Heaggan-Brown of reckless homicide in 2017. The death sparked Sherman Park protests. Smith's family filed a federal civil-rights action, and a federal judge denied the officer's request for summary judgment in 2019 because factual disputes remained. The acquittal does not settle every question raised in the separate civil litigation.
Investigation & findings
Individual legal and investigative outcome not yet reviewed.
Washington Post Fatal Force v2; 2015–2024
Source record details
- Source incident ID
- 1780
- Race code in source
- B
- Race source method
- not_available
- Gender (source)
- male
- Armed status (source)
- gun
- Flee status (source)
- foot
- Agency IDs (source)
- 253
Sources & records
- Primary source
- Additional source
- Methodology and national police killings trackingMapping Police Violence · Dataset/methodology
- Fatal Force v2 — fatal on-duty police shootings, 2015–2024The Washington Post · Dataset