Former Milwaukee Police Officer Charged in Fatal Shooting of Sylville Smith

— -- The former Milwaukee police officer accused of fatally shooting Sylville Smith, who his family said battled mental health issues, was charged today with first-degree reckless homicide.

Dominique Heaggan-Brown is accused of the shooting death of Smith on Saturday, Aug. 13.

Milwaukee police tussled with protesters throughout the weekend of Smith's death, as the Sherman Park neighborhood of Milwaukee where the shooting occurred became a flashpoint for anger in the city.

Protesters set several businesses and police cars on fire, hurled bricks through police car windows, threw rocks at officers and vandalized bus shelters and streetlights. The Wisconsin National Guard was activated in response to the unrest.

Dozens of people were arrested during the protests, which became known as the Milwaukee Uprising on social media.

At one point, police accused the Revolutionary Communist Party, a left wing group, of inciting the violence. Carl Dix, a media representative for the group, told ABC News at the time that it was being used as a scapegoat and that the people of Milwaukee were "rising up" long before members of the group arrived at the protests.

Police Chief Edward A. Flynn, who spoke to the media this afternoon about the charges against his officer, attempted to reinforce the narrative that outside forces had created the unrest.

Flynn said that Sherman Park did not have a riot, but "had a riot done to them."

Christopher Ahmuty, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, told ABC News in a phone interview at the time that there was a significant history of tensions between police and the community before Smith's death.

"Milwaukee suffers from endemic tension between citizens and police that goes back at least 50 years," he said.

Ahmuty referred to the city's racial dynamic as "segregated," a word that was frequently employed by analysts in the wake of the summer's discord. Milwaukee is the most segregated major city between black and white residents, according to a 2015–16 Milwaukee community health assessment, conducted by the city's health department, based on Census Bureau data.

The ACLU of Wisconsin said today that it welcomed the district attorney's decision to charge Heaggan-Brown.

"It will give the Smith family the support of the state of Wisconsin in their quest for justice, as well as giving the accused, former Officer Heaggan, his day in court," the organization said today in a statement. "The criminal proceedings may also shed some additional light on the degree to which Milwaukee Police Department policies and practices may have contributed to Mr. Smith's death."

His death occurred in the wake of the fatal police shootings in July of Alton Sterling of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile, of Falcon Heights, Minnesota — two high-profile killings that rocked the country and heightened tensions between police and black communities nationwide.

September saw the shooting deaths of Terence Crutcher of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Keith Lamont Scott, of Charlotte, North Carolina, helping make the issues of race and law and order central in the 2016 presidential election.