MILWAUKEE — A man carrying a gun and a ski mask was stopped a few blocks away from the Republican National Convention earlier this week, police said.
About 1 p.m. Monday, U.S. Capitol police “observed the suspect looking suspicious, wearing a ski mask and a large tactical backpack” in the 1200 block of North 11th Street, according to a statement from Milwaukee police. That’s about four blocks away from the downtown arena hosting most RNC events.
Officers stopped the 21-year-old man and found a gun in his backpack, police said. He didn’t have a concealed carry permit, according to police. Wisconsin is an open-carry state.
Charges were pending late Tuesday, police said.
Police shoot, kill man near GOP convention site
Out-of-state police officers fatally shot a man blocks away from the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, raising questions about a security plan that had otherwise gone smoothly to start the week.
An unspecified number of police officers from Columbus, Ohio, opened fire on the man in the afternoon near King Park, authorities said.
That’s about four blocks away from the inner downtown security perimeter where GOP delegates are gathering in support of presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump. Officers from more than 100 departments nationwide — including Chicago — are in Milwaukee to help with convention security.
Columbus police said the shooting happened “within the operational zone to which our officers were assigned.”
“At this time, it does not appear that this incident was related to the convention,” Columbus police said in a statement.
Nearby residents and activists rejected that police narrative, saying they’d been promised by Milwaukee police that out-of-town officers would be stationed near the downtown arena where convention events are being hosted through Thursday.
Wanda Campbell said she lives near the shooting scene and saw the shooting happen near an encampment for unhoused people near the park.
“They shot him in the back,” said Wanda Campbell, who said she lives near the shooting scene and saw the shooting happen. “They shot him like a dog… None of this would’ve happened if the RNC wasn’t happening.”
A woman who said her brother had been shot declined to share more details.
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s office confirmed a fatality at the location near 14th and Vliet streets but didn’t release the man’s name or the circumstances of his death.
Milwaukee police called it a “critical incident” but didn’t immediately release additional details. A press conference was expected later Tuesday afternoon.
Laray Sharpe, who said she was the victim’s cousin, identified him as Samuel Sharpe Jr., a man in his 40s who lived in the King Park encampment.
“What are you doing in our city anyway, coming here and shooting people down?” she said in tears.
Teenagers Jaquan Thomas and Amarion Washington said they were playing basketball in King Park when they saw at least four police officers ride into the park on bicycles toward the encampment, where two people appeared to be wrestling.
“They didn’t have to kill that man,” Thomas said.
Trump-owned firm selling sneakers with image of his bloodied face
A company is now selling $299 sneakers showing an image of Donald Trump with streaks of blood on his cheek and pumping his fist in the air after he was the target of an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
The white high tops are being sold as “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT High-Tops” for $299 on a website that sells Trump-branded shoes that is run by CIC Ventures LLC, a company Trump reported owning in his 2023 financial disclosure. The company said the new shoes are limited edition with only 5,000 pairs available and are estimated to ship in September or October. It also said 10 pairs will be randomly autographed.
“These limited edition high-tops, featuring Trump’s iconic image with his fist raised, honor his unwavering determination and bravery,” it says. “With only 5,000 pairs available, each one is a true collector’s item. Show your support and patriotic pride with these exclusive sneakers, capturing a defining moment in history.”
CIC Ventures is the same company that debuted “Never Surrender High-Tops,” shiny gold sneakers with an American flag detail on the back, for $399.
Beware Project 2025, Democrats say
Democrats on Tuesday tried to tie the far-right platform “Project 2025” directly to former President Donald Trump and his vice president pick JD Vance — calling the sweeping policy plan “dangerous for our country.”
Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page blueprint for the next Republican administration, and it’s being highlighted by Democrats this week during the RNC.
Trump has tried to distance himself from the project, posting this month that he knows “nothing” about Project 2025 and didn’t know who crafted it. But Vance has publicly praised it.
The project, written and crafted by several former Trump appointees, calls for cutting the Department of Education, putting the Justice Department and the FBI directly under presidential control, building camps to detain children and families at the border, sending the military to deport millions of people who are in the country illegally, and prosecuting anyone mailing abortion pills, among many other plans.
“It’s incumbent on us to call out what we see from the stage and what we know that Trump and Vance are proposing for America,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Ben Wikler said. “It’s all written down in Project 25, which JD Vance proudly said was full of good ideas. But we know that these ideas aren’t just bad, they’re dangerous. They’re dangerous for our country.”
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler framed the plan as anti-union and said it will rip away the Affordable Health Care Act, since it includes putting Medicare on a path to privatization.
“Will my life be better when they gut the Affordable Care Act and rip away affordable health care? When they end Social Security and Medicare as we know it? Programs that workers have earned and paid into their entire lives?” Shuler said. “Programs that Trump’s new running mate JD Vance calls the biggest roadblocks to fiscal sanity?”
Trump, Vance will rally in Michigan Saturday
Trump and Vance will speak Saturday at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The scheduled rally comes just a week after the attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally last Saturday, where Trump was injured, an attendee died and two others were seriously wounded.
Michigan, a key swing state, went narrowly to Trump in 2016, by about 11,000 votes out of about 4.5 million cast. Biden carried the state by about 155,000 votes in 2020.
Trump’s speech could reset national tone, Pennsylvania GOP chair says
Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Lawrence Tabas said he hoped Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump would reset the tone nationally, beginning with the former president’s speech to the Republican National Convention on Thursday.
“I think his speech could be very important. Notice during his appearance (Monday), he was more subdued than normal, almost humbled,” Tabas said in an Associated Press interview after the Pennsylvania GOP’s delegation breakfast in suburban Milwaukee. “After a brush with death, I do believe — going through that — that his message will be better, and I think will appeal to our better emotions.”
“He has an enormous amount of compassion and empathy that doesn’t always come through,” he said.
Chicago’s ‘rooftop pastor’ to speak at GOP convention
The Rev. Corey Brooks of Chicago will deliver the final prayer Tuesday, the second night of the convention.
The South Side pastor who routinely crisscrosses the city among shooting scenes said on social media he was “grateful for this opportunity and looking forward to giving a shoutout to Chicago.”
Brooks is a Republican who has boosted GOP candidates.
Southern Illinois delegate and state Rep. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, said his slot showed the GOP is a “big tent party.”
“When you see African Americans, Latinos, and I think we’re going to see some other demographic groups that are going to be represented — I think America is going to see very clearly that the big tent party is here,” Bryant said. “We’re united, and honestly, someone like Corey Brooks speaking on the stage tonight should send a message that we are united in that message, and we’re united going forward.”
Brooks got the “rooftop pastor” nickname for two extended stays atop buildings in his church’s Woodlawn neighborhood, as a way to protest violence in the community and also raise money to do something about it.
Have gun, should vote, says Miller
Heavily Democratic Illinois could become a Republican bastion — if only everyone with a would gun cast a vote, according to Illinois’ most fervent Donald Trump supporter in Congress.
U.S. Rep. Mary Miller made that assessment after addressing the Illinois delegation to the Republican National Convention Tuesday at its hotel outside Milwaukee.
Asked what the state GOP needs to do to round up support for the former president and Republican presidential nominee, Miller said, “We need to get people out to vote.”
“If just gun owners would come out and vote in Illinois, we could flip the state red,” Miller told reporters. “Get people out to vote. Everybody has a realm of influence. Get busy, people!”
Miller said the party would have better luck reaching voters in the middle “if the media would accurately report who President Trump is, what he’s done for the American people.”
“I can say one thing to the people, the parents that are in Chicago and their children are being forced into failed schools,” Miller said. “There are three things that give a child privilege: parents that are married and stayed together, faith … and an excellent education, and you’re damaging a child for life to give them a terrible education.”
Earlier, she told delegates that Democratic supermajorities in the state capitol had turned it into “a bad idea factory.”
“We cannot surrender the whole state of our great President Abraham Lincoln to [Gov. J.B.] Pritzker and the radical left,” she told Illinois delegates. “We’re in a race to the bottom with California and New York.”
Also mingling with delegates at the hotel breakfast Tuesday was lllinois Republican Party chairwoman-elect Kathy Salvi, making her first appearance since being elected last week as the next face of the party.
As delegates gathered for their group breakfast at their hotel in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Salvi chatted with current chairman Don Tracy, who announced his resignation last month, complaining of incessant intraparty fighting.
Salvi, who officially takes over as party chair Friday when the RNC concludes, is expected to address delegates Wednesday.
She ran unsuccessfully against U.S Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., in 2022.
Virtual nomination still on, Democrats say
President Joe Biden’s campaign on Tuesday defended its decision to hold a now-unnecessary virtual roll call weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, saying Biden has “earned that right.”
Democrats had briefly paused their countermessaging at the RNC in Milwaukee, including billboards and news conferences with key Biden surrogates after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump Saturday at a Pennsylvania rally.
By Tuesday, billboards were back up, with at least one digital billboard circling downtown Milwaukee with an image of Trump and the message, “Dictator on Day One.”
Biden will be nominated in a virtual roll call ahead of the DNC in Chicago, a plan announced before the president’s damaging debate performance on June 27. The early nomination was decided in response to an Ohio law that would have kept Biden’s name off ballots if he wasn’t nominated by Aug. 7. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, however, has since signed a bill extending the ballot deadline to Aug. 31.
An earlier nomination will effectively squash rampant chatter and calls for Biden to be replaced as the nominee. But the Biden campaign on Tuesday defended that decision, saying it refuses to “play games about who is on this ballot.”
“We’re not going to leave it up to Ohio Republicans to have President Biden not be on the ballot in every single state,” Biden deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said at a morning news conference.
“He is deserved that right. He’s earned that right. And so we’re going to continue with that path and not play games about who is on this ballot, to make sure there’s an election where candidates from both major parties are on the ballot, as well as any third-party candidates who have qualified and met the signature requirements to be on the ballot.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Biden surrogate, was initially scheduled to appear at a Monday morning news conference in Milwaukee. But Democrats opted for a brief pause in messaging after Trump’s shooting. It’s unclear if Pritzker will attend any other Milwaukee events this week.
Who’s who of who’s not here
For all Illinois Republicans’ talk of mending intraparty fences during the RNC in Milwaukee, some of the state GOP’s biggest names in recent years are largely absent from the state delegation.
That includes moderate former Gov. Jim Edgar, former Illinois House Minority Leader Jim Durkin and former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a vehement critic of Trump.
“All Republicans in Illinois were given an opportunity to join the Illinois delegation to the Republican National Convention,” Aaron Del Mar, Palatine Township committeeman and delegate, told reporters.
“If they chose to take that opportunity or not was a decision that each and every one of them made on an individual basis, on their own thoughts, beliefs and ideals on what’s the best vision for Illinois and the United States moving forward. So if Jim Durkin doesn’t want to come to the RNC convention, be a part of moving the process forward and he’d rather sit at home, that’s a decision Jim Durkin made.”
And members say there’s plenty of room for people who don’t like Trump, who remained unpopular among suburban Chicago voters in the 2020 election.
“There’s a lot of Republicans that are here in the United States, and especially in Illinois, that are maybe not the biggest Trump fans, but want to make sure that America is a safe place,” Del Mar said.
State Rep. Charlie Meier, R-Okawville, said members “understand that a Republican running up in the collar counties will stand on a little bit different platform than a Republican in southern Illinois.”
“I talk to a lot of people saying, ‘I don’t like the man [Trump], but I love his policies, and I’m going to vote for him.’ We need those people to vote for this platform and help bring other Republicans in with it. We need to grow,” Meier said.
Contributing: Associated Press
