CALEDONIA - Esmeralda Garcia was driving to work in South Milwaukee as she always does Monday morning on Highway 32.
It was a few minutes before 8 a.m. and she was stopped, along with a line of cars, at a red light at 7 Mile Road. The 28-year-old Racine woman saw a police vehicle on the southwest corner and looked to see what was going on.
Much to her shock, she was one of several eyewitnesses to Oak Creek police shooting Johnny Harris. The 48-year-old Racine man had just led officers on a chase down Highway 32 and then crashed into a vacant commercial building in Caledonia.
"I saw the police with the passenger side door open," Garcia said. "(The officer) was screaming, ‘Get out!'"
At first she thought he was arguing with another police officer. "The guy was in the driver's seat," Garcia said.
People are also reading…
She was so focused on what was unfolding in front of her, that she didn't notice Harris' black Cadillac, crashed inside the building at 5017 7 Mile Road.
Garcia watched the police vehicle move back and forth, striking the lone officer with the open door. "He was trying to leave," she said of Harris.
A second squad pulled up and parked between the police vehicle Harris was in and the street. "The guy was trying to escape," Garcia said. "One of the police was in his way. He was hitting the officer. I was shocked."
She saw the second officer - with his gun drawn - approach the driver's side of the police vehicle Harris was in, and heard him start to yell too. "He was going to run the other officer over," Garcia said.
That's when the police SUV went into the ditch along 7 Mile Road, she said.
Garcia heard two to three shots.
And watched the officers pull Harris from the vehicle and put him on the ground.
The light on 7 Mile Road had long turned green, but the line of waiting cars on Highway 32 stayed put, Garcia said. "I think everybody was shocked," she said. "I've never seen anything like that."
