MILWAUKEE — The latest high-profile prosecution of a police officer for a fatal shooting ended in an acquittal on Wednesday, as jurors cleared a Milwaukee officer of wrongdoing in the death of a 23-year-old man, Sylville K. Smith.

The shooting in August touched off two days of protests and violence on this city’s north side.

The verdict — the second acquittal in a week of a police officer facing criminal charges for a fatal shooting — was announced in a tense, emotional courtroom after less than 10 hours of deliberations. Upon hearing the jury’s decision, Mr. Smith’s family gasped and burst into tears.

The defendant, Dominique Heaggan-Brown, a Milwaukee officer for three years until he was fired last fall, had been charged in December with first-degree reckless homicide, a crime that could have meant as many as 60 years in prison.

After the verdict, Mr. Smith’s family stood outside the courthouse, visibly stunned. “I feel like no matter what it is, these police officers all over the world, they can just literally murder you,” said a stepsister, Shannon Daniels. “I feel he blatantly shot Sylville. I feel it was intentional.”