‘They didn’t give that baby a chance to live’
3-year-old road rage victim had just celebrated her birthday
She had just turned 3. Brooklyn Harris celebrated her birthday on July 1.
Now, her family is struggling to make sense of her death, a little girl shot and killed in a road rage incident Saturday morning.
She was “sweet and quiet,” her grandmother told supporters who came to celebrate Brooklyn’s life at a vigil Saturday evening.
“Her smile would just light you up,” her grandmother said.
“They didn’t give that baby a chance to live,” she said in a video of the vigil posted on Facebook. “These innocent kids should be able to play out here and live their life . ... I’m praying they put the guns down, or change the law
to say, ‘No more carrying of concealed weapons’ or whatever.’ “
At the vigil, a man stood behind a chain-link fence and wept as he recounted how he had just walked out of a nearby gas station when he heard the screams of Brooklyn’s mother and siblings.
“I watched them pick up that baby and put her in that car,” the man said. “I been sitting right here at this park. This (expletive) ain’t right . ... I’m broke, y’all.”
Brooklyn was riding in a vehicle with her mother and three siblings, ages 1, 2 and 4, when she was fatally shot by another driver after a near-collision near North 42nd Street and West Townsend Avenue.
A suspect, who tried fleeing from police, is in custody. The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office will review the case for charges this week, the Milwaukee Police Department said in a statement.
Harris’ grandmother said she is thankful police “got justice” for Brooklyn. “She can rest in peace tonight.” An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said Sunday he will be pushing for charges “to the fullest extent possible” against the suspect. He said he spoke with Brooklyn’s mother at the vigil.
“I wanted her to know, and I want her family to know, that the entire city is grieving along with them,” Barrett said. “My emotions run from grief and sorrow for the family to anger toward the individual who caused this.”
Honoring a little girl
It is a story that has played out in Milwaukee again and again: A child killed by gunfire, playing in a park or sitting in a home. Like the others, the shooting of Brooklyn elicited an outpouring of anguish and outrage — from family, community members, police and rescue workers alike.
On Saturday morning, Assistant Milwaukee Police Chief Raymond Banks was visibly emotional as he briefed journalists on the child’s death.
“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.”
And that anguish was palpable at the vigil hours later.
“The police can’t do it by themselves,” a frustrated Tracey Dent told the crowd of about 50 who had gathered carrying balloons and candles. “We have to check our own people.”
“We’re repeating the same stuff over and over and over again,” he said. “When are we going to wake up as a community? When is enough enough? Let Brooklyn’s life mean something.”
Camille Mays, founder of Peace Garden Project MKE, said Sunday it was “heart-wrenching” to see the pain in the faces of Brooklyn’s family members who attended the vigil. Barrett said Brooklyn’s mother appeared shocked, as any parent would be.
“What is she going to do when she wakes up?” Mays said of Brooklyn’s mother. “Who is she hugging?”
Brooklyn was shot just steps from Townsend Street School. Across the street Sunday was a small memorial — a stuffed Minnie Mouse tied to a tree, flowers and balloons and a bank of lighted candles.
“You will forever be missed Brook,” one mourner wrote in the lone card there. “I swear this took away a part of me. Keep watching over me baby, Love Quisha.”
Mays plans to offer a peace garden for Harris’ family, which she either plants at a family member’s house or the scene of the shooting. She said the gardens help with the healing process.
It’s a way to avoid dilapidated vigil scenes, which can sometimes be seen around the city with melted candles, dirty stuffed animals and deflated balloons. Mays said it would be “grim” for students to see that when they return to school.
“We won’t let the next murder make this go away,” Mays said. “We have to be more passionate. We have to care when these kids are murdered.”
Offering help after homicide
The pain of a homicide lasts long after death. It’s a fact that Reggie Moore, the director of the city’s Office of Violence Prevention, is all too familiar with.
The trauma can linger with a family for days, weeks and years. The grieving process is often interrupted by the need to take care of practical matters, like a funeral.
Brooklyn’s family started a GoFundMe page for funeral expenses, which often become a burden on families who were not anticipating a loss.
“So many times, we see people in need,” Mays said. “Unfortunately, a lot of people in the community don’t have insurance to cover a lot of the expenses.”
Moore said the city’s violence interrupters attended Saturday night’s vigil. He said the office has offered victim services, including counseling, to the family.
The office’s counseling services are provided through the county’s Children’s Mobile Crisis Team, which has two full-time counselors. The counselors can provide up to six free sessions of support for children impacted by traumatic events.
“Unfortunately, we negate the emotional scars of violence and trauma, and oftentimes pay the most attention to the physical,” Moore said. “But the emotional scars are just as painful.”
First responders endure pain from the scenes they encounter as well, Moore said. Many of the same medical personnel who responded to Saturday morning’s shooting attended the evening’s vigil.
Moore said Saturday’s homicide “struck a chord in a deeper way” for the first responders.
“The level of compassion and the level of concern that they have doesn’t just stop at the incident,” Moore said. “They took it pretty hard. They’ve seen the worst of the worst, and they see it, unfortunately, every day.”
Preventing road rage violence
Guns are showing up more and more in the hands of angry drivers.
The number of firearms used in road rage incidents increased twofold from 2014 to 2016, jumping from 247 incidents with guns to 620, according to the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. Road rage was connected to 467 fatal crashes in 2015, an increase of 500% from the 80 fatal incidents recorded in 2006.
From 2014 through 2016, nonprofit The Trace reported that there were more than 1,300 road rage incidents involving firearms. At least 354 people were wounded and 136 people were killed nationwide in that time.
“Driving, especially in the city, can be stressful — even on the best of days,” Moore said. “It is important to remember that the person behind the wheel often isn’t the only person in the car . ... Being cut off is an inconvenience, but there is no level of rage that should result in the taking of anybody’s life.”
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.
In Brooklyn’s case, Mays said community members are frustrated. She said “there’s no way to make sense out of it.”
“Did he look and see those babies and that mother in the car, or did he just open fire?” Mays wondered. “We have to have a conscience . ... We have to protect each other.”
Barrett said community members should move away from other cars that are driving recklessly.
“That’s just insane. That’s just not society,” Barrett said. “You can’t win against crazy.”
With temperatures rising in the summertime, Moore said he’s reminding community members to keep their anger in check.
“So many lives are impacted by one split-second decision that oftentimes could’ve been resolved by a conversation or by legal means,” Moore said. “People are making tragic decisions for problems that could be resolved without violence.”
Mays said these decisions to shoot often result from other issues, including mental illness, which can arise from a lack of opportunities. She said sustainable job opportunities and investment in neighborhoods could curb the hopelessness that many residents feel.
“If people aren’t valuing their own lives, they don’t value others,” Mays said. “We need to find a way for people to have self-worth to appreciate life.”
Preventing the root causes of shooting violence is up to the community, Mays said. She said all city residents must “get the village back” by caring for one another.
Seventh District Ald. Khalif Rainey, who represents the neighborhood where Saturday’s road rage shooting took place, said he was reaching out to Brooklyn’s family and voiced frustration that these kinds of senseless deaths have become part of the fabric of his community.
“This is just the reality that many good people, hard-working people in the inner city of Milwaukee live with,” he said. “We can’t continue this path as a community, the continuous enduring of trauma.”
Barrett said too many guns are proliferating neighborhoods in the city, prompting people to use guns to solve problems.
“There’s clearly a deeper problem here,” Barrett said.
The fatal shooting of Brooklyn 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.
“I don’t understand how this city can be so numb when these babies die,” Mays said. “Our community is lacking love, and we have to love one another . ... We’re all we have.”