Two Milwaukee Children Shot After Throwing Snowballs at Cars, Police Say
Washington,
January 7, 2020
NY Times, Derrick Bryson Taylor At about 7:50 p.m. on Saturday, the Milwaukee Police Department responded to a shooting on West Birch Street, the department said in a statement. Officers found a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy suffering from gunshot wounds that were not life-threatening, the statement said. The children were taken to a hospital and were recovering from their injuries on Tuesday, said Sgt. Sheronda Grant, a public information officer for the department. She declined to answer questions about the extent of their injuries. The victims were among a group of young people who were throwing snowballs at passing cars, the police said. One of the snowballs struck a white Toyota, and the driver of that car then fired shots into the group, striking the two children, they said. The investigation is active, Sergeant Grant said, adding that the department is still “seeking an unknown suspect.” She did not respond to further questions. Representative Gwen Moore, a Democrat who represents Wisconsin’s Fourth District, said in a statement she was “deeply troubled by the blatant disregard shown for these children’s lives.” “This illustrates why we need stricter gun laws,” she said. Cavalier Johnson, an alderman for the district where the shooting took place, said Tuesday that gun violence was “pretty tame” in the area. “I just couldn’t fathom the idea of shooting at kids because they threw a snowball at you,” he said. “To apply deadly force to that action is totally and just completely senseless and uncalled for.” The driver, he said, had other options, including addressing the children or driving a short distance to a police station.According to the Justice Department’s Project Safe Neighborhoods program, Milwaukee has experienced higher rates of homicides and nonfatal shootings since 2014. Crime statistics from the Milwaukee Police Department showed that homicides across the city had remained steady over the last two years at 99 each year, and aggravated assaults had dropped only slightly from 2018 to 2019. It’s not unheard-of for snowball episodes to end in violence. In 2008, a Philadelphia teenager was fatally shot after he threw a snowball that hit an adult in the face, and in February, a Seattle woman was arrested after she tried to run over a group of people after someone hit her Jeep with a snowball. About 180 miles northwest of Milwaukee, there is a different conversation occurring around snowballs. For the past 57 years, the city of Wausau has banned throwing snowballs, an ordinance that drew national attention last month. Elected officials will vote at their next City Council meeting on whether to rescind the ban. |
