» Violent holiday weekend:
Officials struggle for solutions as victim numbers climb
Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn briefs reporters after holiday weekend gun violence kills six, including a 14-year-old boy.
An online squabble about a girl ramped up to in-person drama. Someone pulled a 9mm handgun, and a 14-year-old boy who had nothing to do with the original dispute was shot in the head.
It all happened after the boy, Tariq Akbar, and his friends watched the annual July 3 fireworks at the lakefront.
Tariq is now one of 80 homicide victims in the city so far this year, including six who were slain over the holiday weekend. It’s nearly double the number the city had reached by this time last year.
“Too many people want to pretend there are simple answers to complex problems,” Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said Monday of the surge in homicides. “There aren’t.”
The leading factors in the city’s homicides this year have been arguments or fights. The three most common reasons for the arguments or fights: respect, unknown factors and jealously, usually about a girlfriend or boyfriend, according to the city’s Homicide Review Commission.
“The two groups that confronted each other on Friday night, they were groups that were close to each other,” Flynn said. “They weren’t particularly rivals except somebody in one group got in a beef over
Facebook with somebody from the other group about a girl. That’s the precipitating event.”
Tariq happened to be tagging along, the chief said.
A 15-year-old boy was arrested in the killing, and police expect to refer charges to the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office this week.
“When you have a 15-year-old brain in control of a firearm, anything can happen and it’s usually bad,” Flynn said.
The homicide trend is part of a larger year-to-date spike in gun-related offenses — incidents in which a firearm was reported to be used or brandished — which rose 20% to 3,500 incidents. As of Sunday, Milwaukee police had seized 1,209 guns, 83% of which will be used as evidence in court, Flynn said.
“We know we’re responsible for our part of it, but we can’t be responsible for everybody’s part of it,” Flynn said. “We’re doing community organizing, we’re doing home visits, we’re doing mentoring programs, we’re doing neighborhood cleanups, we’re doing everything we can to try to engage neighborhoods with us, but an awful lot of people are invoking their right to remain silent.”
Staffing levels
As he has throughout the spike in violence, Ald. Bob Donovan, a candidate for mayor, responded to the weekend shootings by criticizing Mayor Tom Barrett.
Barrett’s administration, he said, has failed to curb crime and because of a “shortage” of police officers and poor policy decisions, “the bad guys don’t fear the police anymore.”
Donovan reiterated his mantra that more police need to be on the street. He said Milwaukee would need to hire more than 350 officers just to match per capita police staffing of such cities as St. Louis, Atlanta, Cleveland, Memphis, Detroit and New Orleans.
The cost would be huge, he said: “Tens of millions of dollars, without a doubt.”
Barrett’s chief of staff, Patrick Curley, dismissed Donovan, calling him “an alderman who has more of an appetite for press attention than real solutions.”
Curley noted that police staffing in Milwaukee exceeds many cities, including Los Angeles, Nashville, Denver, Charlotte, Indianapolis and Oklahoma City.
On Friday evening, Flynn was with 70 officers near the east side water tower during the department’s annual deployment for the fireworks display.
He heard seven gunshots, and a 14-year-old boy lay wounded about 100 feet away.
“If anything more clearly proves that it’s not about the number of officers on the streets, it’s that,” he said.
The victims
On Monday, the Police Department released the identities of the following weekend homicide victims:
Calvin O. Nutt, 47, was shot and killed in the 2400 block of W. Lisbon Ave. on Thursday night. He and his brother got out of their vehicle and argued with occupants in another vehicle when shots rang out. Nutt’s brother also was wounded in the shooting.
Two suspects with prior arrest histories ranging from theft to drug possession have been arrested.
Marcino Marin, 23, was fatally shot in the 2400 block of S. 5th Place on Thursday night, and a 16-yearold boy was wounded in the same shooting.
Police said the circumstances of the shooting were unclear and did not provide any further information Monday, other than to say detectives continued the search for suspects.
Clayton L. Mosley, 23, was shot and killed Friday evening in the 700 block of S. 22nd St.
Milwaukee police have arrested a 24-year-old man who is a felon in the shooting. Police have not said what circumstances led to the killing.
Mario M. Dancer, 31, was fatally shot Friday outside a house party in the 8100 block of W. Glen Ave.
Police are searching for a known suspect in the killing, a spokesman said Monday.
Authorities have not released the identity of the 27-year-old man who was killed Sunday night in the 4300 block of N. 104th St. Police have said the man was in a parked car with a friend when a group of people approached and opened fire.
Milwaukee police also are searching for suspects in the shooting overnight Sunday of a city firefighter, who suffered a graze wound while tending to a patient with trouble breathing. The firefighter had been treated and released from a hospital by Monday morning.