Milwaukee, Wisconsin is recovering from brutal rioting. The unrest grew out of protests over the death of Sylville K. Smith, who was shot by police when he fled a routine traffic stop and pulled a gun on the arresting officers

Smith boasted a lengthy criminal record, which included a shooting, witness intimidation, and possession of cocaine. Yet the #BlackLivesMatter movement called the shooting an act of racially-motivated police brutality, despite the fact that the officer who shot Smith was – you guessed it – black.

Smith’s father tells a different story, though:

I had to blame myself for a lot of things too because your hero is your dad and I played a very big part in my family’s role model for them. Being on the street, doing things of the street life: Entertaining, drug dealing and pimping and they’re looking at their dad like ‘he’s doing all these things.’ I got out of jail two months ago, but I’ve been going back and forth in jail and they see those things so I’d like to apologize to my kids because this is the role model they look up to.

Bill Leaks couldn’t have said it better himself.

It’s too late for his son, but Patrick deserves credit for accepting his failures as a father. He’s done more for the black community than all the cop-killing, business-burning, self-pitying #BlackLivesMatter terrorists ever have. We can only hope more black fathers will do the same – that they’ll hold themselves accountable for building better lives for their children. And this goes for Australia as much as the United States.