Milwaukee officer who killed black man charged with sex assault

[October 21, 2016]  (Reuters) - Police in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Thursday said the officer whose killing of a black man in August sparked nights of rioting has been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting another man just a day after the deadly shooting.

Dominique Heaggan-Brown, 24, was charged with five crimes, including two counts of second degree sexual assault, according to Wisconsin's online court record system. The records indicate Heaggan-Brown sexually assaulted an intoxicated victim on Aug. 14, a day after he fatally shot 23-year-old Sylville Smith.

Heaggan-Brown could not be immediately reached on Thursday night. But the Milwaukee Police Association told local broadcaster WDJT in a statement that while it condemns criminality, "it is imperative that fact(s) are allowed to dictate the outcome."

WDJT published a copy of the criminal complaint online, which states Heaggan-Brown and the victim met through Facebook. The complaint said the two sat at a bar discussing their aspirations in music and watched television broadcasts of the unrest unfolding over the deadly shooting.

The complaint said the two left the bar and the victim could not recall what happened between leaving and when he was brutally raped by Heaggan-Brown. The complaint said Heaggan-Brown then drove the victim to the hospital, where the victim said he was raped.

In addition to the alleged Aug. 14 rape, Heaggan-Brown was also charged with having sex with prostitutes and sexually assaulting another person between December 2015 and July 2016, court records show.

Two nights of rioting erupted after Heaggan-Brown shot Smith dead on Aug. 13. Police said Smith was armed and refused to drop his gun before he was shot.

Police violence against African-Americans has set off intermittent, sometimes destructive, protests over the past two years, igniting a national debate over race and policing and giving rise to the a renewed civil rights movement named Black Lives Matter.

The Milwaukee Police Department said Heaggan-Brown was arrested on Wednesday evening, following the filing of the sexual assault charges.

Police said an internal affairs investigation was also launched and he has been suspended with pay from the force. The department in a statement declined to provide additional information citing the "sensitivity of this investigation."

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

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