Home at centre of missing girls sex-trafficking investigation set ablaze by mob—now police say they were never there

The Journal Sentinel reports that police had initially conducted a missing persons investigation into the disappearance of two Milwaukee girls on Tuesday that led them to a house. The girls, ages 13 and 15, had been reported missing on Sunday, and residents feared that they had been abducted as part of a sex trafficking ring in the area. Both girls were located on Wednesday morning, and police are now investigating whether they were victims of sex trafficking.

While police were conducting their investigation at the 2100 block of North 40th Street, both nearby residents and Black Lives Matter activists gathered around the building, some of whom chanted anti-police slogans and expressed their frustration with the cops. Others, the Journal Sentinel reports, wanted to take matters into their own hands.

Some members of the growing crowd threw bricks at the police officers, prompting the police to bolster their presence at the scene to quell the violence and subdue the crowd, which had by then swelled into a mob of hundreds of people. Police formed a cordon around the building to allow investigators to complete their work.

By late afternoon, the police had completed their investigation and left the building, but the crowd continued to grow. Some members of the crowd surged into the house to look for evidence that supported the rumours of sex trafficking.

They broke into the house, smashing windows, and set fire to a vehicle parked nearby.

As the crowd swelled into a mob, two individuals—a teenage boy and girl, both 14, were shot near the scene at 5:45pm in the evening. Another person, a 24-year-old man, was hit by gunfire at 7:30pm after someone fired shots at his vehicle. While none of their injuries were life threatening, police nonetheless dispatched paramedics and firefighters to the scene.

A local protest organizer attempted to defuse the situation, reports the Journal Sentinel, to no avail. Police in riot gear arrived to form lines outside the house and nearby streets.

Despite their presence, the mob managed to set fire to the house, footage of which was caught on film via a local news helicopter from WISN.

Twitter personality Tariq Nasheed falsely claimed that “police refused to do anything about [finding the missing girls]” and that “the Black community in Milwaukee got together, found the girls and rescued them.”

According to the Journal Sentinel, fire crews that tried to put out the blaze were besieged by the mob with bricks and other projectiles, prompting police to use tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets at some members of the mob, injuring some. The two 14-year-olds were shot by members of the mob, as was the 24-year-old driver.

Speaking to the press, Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales defended the use of force, stating that police had to clear the scene to make it safe for fire crews to put out the blaze and to provide medical aid for those injured by mob gunfire.

"This whole chain of events could have been avoided," Morales said. "And my heart goes out for the people that live in this community."

"We investigate the information that is given to us. We can't allow an unruly crowd to determine what that investigation is. We have to be allowed to conduct our investigation and not chase a crowd and take that information from that crowd to be factual," Morales said.

Milwaukee police say that the two missing girls were not at the house that the mob burned down.