Milwaukee police said that on July 13, a 3-year-old girl was fatally shot during a road rage incident.
Two cars nearly collided near 42nd and Concordia in Milwaukee’s north side around 8:35 a.m. The car with the 3-year-old inside drove away from the near-miss, and a person from the suspect’s car started opening fire into the back of the fleeing vehicle. One of the bullets mortally struck the little girl, reported Fox6.
An emotional plea from @MilwaukeePolice after another innocent child is killed after a senseless shooting. A 3-year-old girl was struck during a road rage incident. @CBS58 #Milwaukee #StopTheViolence pic.twitter.com/1Gjix26fDt
— Shirley Descorbeth (@ShirleyReports) July 13, 2019
Soon after the gunfire, the police caught sight of the suspect’s car. They attempted to pursue, but the suspect’s car sped away. The car later crashed and the suspect started fleeing on foot. After a search of the area, the police were able to take the suspect into custody.
Police told Fox6 that the girl’s mother and three other children, a 1-year-old, 2-year-old, and 4-year-old were inside the car at the time of the shooting.
In a news conference later in the day, Milwaukee Inspector Terrence Gordon told the reporters that the investigation was ongoing as they spoke.
Gordon thanked the officers who did a great job in capturing the suspect.
“We’re sick of it. A baby was shot today over absolutely nothing—over stupidity,” said Gordon, according to Fox6.
“What was a bad enough tragedy could have been worse, but thank God it wasn’t,” Inspector Gordon said, reported CBS.
Assistant Chief Ray Banks became emotional during the conference and delivered an important and powerful speech.
“This can’t become the norm. Our city is better than this. We need everybody to understand just how tragic this is. … She’s three years old. How can we allow our community to continue to take these kinds of stories and no one cares? No one can protect our children unless we all, the whole community, does so. Someone takes it upon themselves to shoot at a car full of children, the whole community is losing,” he stated.
#BREAKING Milwaukee police: 3-year-old girl, subject of Amber Alert, has been located https://t.co/n0FwT5vBiM pic.twitter.com/II9oUFwWuT
— FOX6 News (@fox6now) September 3, 2018
“This is not a police thing. This is a thing that involves everybody in the community, and we all should be upset about this. Yeah, we got the guy in custody, but if our community has gotten to the point where we can get angry over a traffic accident that we start shooting at kids in a car, and we have a 3-year-old dead. Every one of you should be as angry and upset about this as I am. She had her whole life in front of her over a traffic incident. That’s what we should be talking about. How do we prevent any other family from having to deal with this type of situation? We’re consistently burying our children. That’s not supposed to happen. A parent is not supposed to bury their children. Our community is better than this. I don’t know the answer. I wish there was a simple answer to this, but I do know this is not going to be just about the police department,” Officer Banks elaborated.
“This is gonna involve all of us. … We cannot allow people to have these guns out there, randomly shoot because the worst thing that can happen when that happens just happened this morning. … I’m sorry for getting emotional about this, but it hurts to see and know that there’s a family having to bury a 3-year-old child again in this city. When is it gonna stop? We are doing our best to try and get in front of this, but this takes more than just us. The community has to reach out and try to help us as well,” Banks concluded.
Milwaukee PD: SUV stolen with 3-year-old girl inside https://t.co/gbFSl2ENqZ pic.twitter.com/mRIvZAS49S
— WISN 12 NEWS (@WISN12News) November 16, 2015
