Man faces charge in road-rage shooting
Incident wounded a 5-year-old girl
A Milwaukee man was charged Monday in a road-rage shooting that wounded a 5-year-old girl 12 days after a 3-year-old girl was fatally shot in a similar incident.
Anthony F. Jenkins, 36, is charged with two counts of first-degree reckless endangering safety/use of a dangerous weapon and one count of recklessly endangering safety/use of a dangerous weapon/discharge firearm into vehicle, according to the complaint.
He is not charged with causing injuries to the girl, who was shot in the leg shortly before 11 a.m. Thursday in the 3400 block of North 44th Street.
The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to an email inquiry from the Journal Sentinel on Monday afternoon.
According to the complaint:
The girl was in the backseat of her father’s car as the two headed home from a trip to Burger King when the man noticed a green van with gold trim tailgating his vehicle.
When the man pulled over, the van stopped next to his vehicle’s driver’s side door and Jenkins started yelling at the man that he was driving too slow.
Jenkins then exited the van and walked in front of the man’s vehicle when the man noticed a handgun in Jenkins’ waistband.
As the man pulled forward to get away from Jenkins, Jenkins pulled the gun from his waistband and began shooting at the man’s vehicle as it pulled away, striking the girl in the left leg.
Surveillance video captured the van and investigators were able to trace it and its license plate number to a photo on Facebook Market Place.
The plate number led police to a home in the 5100 block of North 39th Street where Jenkins, who had a black FN Five-seven handgun in his front waistband, was arrested.
Jenkins acknowledged to officers that he was driving behind the man’s car and that the man was driving too slow.
He said after the car pulled over he stopped because he heard someone inside the vehicle yelling at him, and claimed the man yelling at him had a small, black semiautomatic pistol but never stuck his hand outside the car.
Jenkins also claimed he didn’t see
the girl inside the car but admitted to firing at the vehicle as the man pulled away, according to the complaint.
The shooting happened just a couple of blocks from the shooting that killed 3-year-old Brooklyn Harris on July 13. That shooting, near North 42nd Street and West Townsend Avenue, also is believed to have stemmed from a roadrage incident.
Jenkins was in the Milwaukee County Jail on Monday with bail set at $25,000, according to jail records.
If convicted of all charges, he could be sentenced to up to 45 years in prison.