A gun war is raging in an American city that locals describe as a ‘Mecca for violence’ due to its daily homicides.
Louis Theroux meets the residents of north Milwaukee, Wisconsin in his new film to shine some light on why it has one of the highest violent crime rates in the US.
Murder in Milwaukee sees the BBC filmmaker meets a murderess turned community activist who sleeps and even bathes with a shotgun.
Shootings take place in the street just metres away from where the crew is filming, including that of a young man called Antonio, who lay dying in the street while his family sobbed, vowing to leave town.
The area has high unemployment, poor schools and a high incarceration rate compared to the rest of the country.
Shawnda Payne, a reformed community activist, sleeps and bathes with a huge shotgun
Antonio was shot and killed in the street and the film shows his devastated family sob on the pavement.
He had served time in prison for dealing cocaine and heroin but had been determined to turn his life around had secured himself a job working with his step father Donald.
Donald said: ‘He never bothered nobody, he never started nothing with nobody. He was hanging out with the wrong crowd. It really hasn’t kicked in yet.’
In an eerily similar crime Sylville Smith, 23, was gunned down in Milwaukee in August 2016 by a police officer.
Louis Theroux’s new documentary Murder in Milwaukee meets residents of the town, which has one of the highest violent crime rates in the US
The police said Sylville refused to drop his gun but the coroner’s report claimed he’d been shot in the armpit with his hands up in surrender.
Sylville’s brother Sedan appears in the film and said he would carry on fighting for justice, despite police arriving at a roadside vigil he was holding.
He said: ‘Being in situations where you hear what the police do to black men in the community and carrying a gun and having one, the way he felt was fear. If I’m fearing something my first thing is to get away from that.
‘Now the police out here as y’all can see they don’t like me. This is how they come when we come. They profile us like that and intimate us. When they see me at out here especially they want me to stop doing this. That’s my brother. I’m never gonna stop.’
Sylville Smith, 23, was shot and killed by the police in Milwaukee in August 2016. The police said he had pulled a gun on them, but the coroner’s report revealed that he’d had his hands in the air in surrender when he was killed
Sylville’s brother Sedan said the police don’t like him fighting for justice about his Sylville’s death
Louis met Shawnda Payne, a local community activist who has reformed her life after being part of a gang as a teenager.
Shawnda had a baby at 13 and murdered someone at 15 but now campaigns to lower the gun crime in the local area, where she has fostered and raised more than 20 children.
She showed Louis around her home and revealed that she keeps a huge 12 gauge Mossberg gun beside her bed, a hand gun in her bra at all times and a huge rifle by the tub while she bathes.
Shawnda said: ‘Because we live where we live I kind of sleep always ready. She’s always right here next to my bed. Shes the one I trust in anything because this is what the police use.’
Shawnda does everything she can to stop her teenage son Kyrie from getting into gun crime, including punishing him with a knife
She keeps her gun by the bath and covered up with a towel so her children don’t see it. Her weapons are always fully loaded because unloaded gun is ‘how you die’
Her guns have safety locks but are always fully loaded so she’s never not ready to defend herself because ‘that’s how you die’.
Shawnda is so worried about her children’s safety that she uses extreme forms of punishment to keep her 16-year-old son Kyrie away from guns by hitting him with knives.
While she was interviewed there was a shooting just metres away from her house and they had to go inside.
‘This zip code is like Mecca for shooting and violence,’ she said.
Murder in Milwaukee airs on Sunday at 9pm on BBC Two.
Antonio (far left) served time in prison for dealing cocaine and heroin but was trying to turn his life around when he was shot and killed in the street
His family sobbed and cried as he lay dying in the street, vowing to get out of Milwaukee