Girl fatally shot in road rage incident
3-year-old riding in car with mother, 3 siblings
A 3-year-old girl who was riding in a vehicle with her mother and three siblings was fatally shot in a road rage incident Saturday on the Milwaukee’s north side, police said. A suspect is in custody.
The shooting occurred after a near collision around 8:30 a.m. near North 42nd Street and West Concordia Avenue.
Speaking at a news conference Saturday morning, Assistant Milwaukee Police Chief Raymond Banks voiced outrage at the child’s death, a tear rolling down his face as he forcefully addressed journalists.
“This cannot become the norm. Our city is better than this. We need everybody to understand just how tragic this is,” Banks said. “She was 3 years old . ... She had her whole life in front of
her . ... A parent is not supposed to bury their children.”
Banks railed against the proliferation of guns in the community and called on the media to spread the message that the senseless killings that are commonplace in the city are not acceptable.
“This cannot be a Page 3 story,” he said. “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.
“This is not a police thing. This involves everybody in the community . ... Yeah, we’ve got the guy in custody. But if our community has gotten to the point where we can get angry over a traffic accident and we start shooting at children in a car — and a 3-year-old is dead — every one of you should be as upset about this as I am.”
Milwaukee Police Inspector Terrence Gordon said girl was riding in the vehicle with her mother and three siblings, ages 1, 2 and 4, when it nearly collided with the other driver. Before he sped away, he said, the suspect fired on the mother’s car.
Asked by a reporter if anyone else in the vehicle was injured, Gordon said he did not believe so. Then Banks stepped to the microphone to take issue with that point.
“Imagine you’re in a car, you’re 1, 2 and 4, and your 3-year-old sister is dead. Yeah, they’re hurt. They’ll never get past that,” he said. “Yeah, there’s some injuries here. The mom who has to bury her 3-year-old child. She’ll never get past that.We all gotta get angry about this kind of stuff.”
Neither the victim nor the suspect was identified.
Police said the suspect, who was driving a black SUV, fled the scene, but was pursued by officers and crashed his car. He ran from the car, but was apprehended. The SUV was seen being towed from the area shortly before the news conference.
One woman who lives near the intersection said she was watering plants in her front yard when she heard what she first thought was a car backfiring. She said she walked up to her porch and looked toward the sound.
“And then I see the guy shooting out of the vehicle,” said Sharon Diggs, who has lived in the neighborhood for decades. “And then I’m like, that’s not backfire, that’s gunfire.”
Diggs said the neighborhood is usually quiet, but they’ve had problems with gun violence recently because of people passing through from other areas of Milwaukee.
“It used to be a very nice place when we got here,” Diggs said. “When you can’t do something as simple as water your plants without getting shot at, that’s a crazy thing.”
Diggs called the fatal shooting of the child “really heartbreaking.We have lots of young grandchildren around that age, so it’s just really sad.”
Several people have been injured in road rage incidents in southeastern Wisconsin in recent years, including a 2-year-old child who was grazed by a bullet on I-43 near Keefe Avenue in 2016.
A 28-year-old woman was shot in May near North 60th and West Burleigh Avenue, and a 45-year-old West Allis man was shot in Germantown last fall.
The fatal shooting is at least the fourth death of a small child in southeastern Wisconsin in recent weeks.
Late last month, Milwaukee police arrested two people following the death of a 5-year-old boy who was found not breathing around 2:30 a.m. in the 2600 block of West Ruby Avenue.
Days earlier, a 5-year-old boy was shot and killed in the 3200 block of North 45th Street. Neighbors told reporters the boy picked up a gun and accidentally shot himself.
And a 5-year-old from Kenosha died from gunshot wounds after he was dropped off at Froedtert South Kenosha Medical Center.