MILWAUKEE — Ashanti Hamilton, Director of the Office of Violence Prevention in Milwaukee, spoke about his efforts to rally the city against violence after a police officer was shot and killed.
Milwaukee Police Officer Peter Jerving died Tuesday after trying to arrest the suspect of an armed robbery. Police say Officer Jerving and his partner were working on the city's far north side when their suspect, 19-year-old Terrell I. Thompson, drove away.
Thompson was seen again on the city's south side near 14th and Cleveland. There was a foot chase and a struggle. During the struggle, both Officer Jerving and Thompson were shot. The suspect died at the scene. Officer Jerving later died at Froedtert Hospital.
Officer Jerving, a lifelong Milwaukee resident, was 37 years old and had served on the Milwaukee Police Department for four years. Last year, he received an MPD Lifesaving Award for heroically providing life-saving care to a shooting victim "during extremely dangerous conditions."
Hamilton works closely with Milwaukee police officers to help prevent violence in the city.
"This is a very difficult time for the city," Hamilton said on Tuesday while speaking with TMJ4's Steve Chamraz. "This has been a great partnership working with MPD and the importance that they have in our violence prevention efforts in the city has been immeasurable."
The suspect in the incident was in court on Monday. He pleaded guilty to hit-and-run. Hours later, the deadly situation unfolded.
"I'm not very familiar with the specifics of this case," Hamilton said. "What we wanna be able to do is recognize folks who are a danger to the community and have interruption strategies to try and deal with that and hopefully be able to remove some of the weapons, the firearms that are easily accessible to so many people in our community. We need to have different ways of being able to keep firearms out of the hands of people that should not have them."'
Hamilton says in order to get guns off the streets is to preach the message to people that "it is far more likely that they will hurt themselves or someone that they love if they are carrying a firearm than they are to protect themself."
The incident is a setback to the Office of Violence Prevention's efforts, Hamilton said.
"We want to take every opportunity to teach people about the impact of firearms in our community and the impact of violence," he said. "This is a moment for us to reflect that no one, no one is safe from this type of recklessness in our community."
Watch Hamilton's full conversation with TMJ4's Steve Chamraz in the video at the top of this article.
