A 7-year-old was rushed to the hospital with gunshot injuries early Saturday after a shooting near North 41st Street and West Garfield Avenue in Milwaukee, and a 16-year-old is now in custody in connection with the incident. The shooting happened around 1:15 a.m., according to police.
Milwaukee police confirmed the child was taken to the hospital for gunshot injuries, as first reported by TMJ4 News. Police said the 16-year-old taken into custody is connected to the incident, and that an investigation remains underway. Officials said criminal charges will be referred to the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office, though it has not been established whether any charges have been filed or what the teen's court status is.
In the aftermath, police repeated a now-familiar message to Milwaukee families: keep firearms out of the hands of children and make sure guns are properly secured. The reminder echoes recent weeks in the city, which has seen a string of shootings involving young children.
A String of Child-Involved Shootings in Milwaukee
Saturday's shooting is at least the third incident involving a child shooter or child victim that Milwaukee has dealt with in a short span. On Oct. 24, a 4-year-old was killed in a shooting on the city's northwest side after police said a 6-year-old obtained and discharged a gun, striking the younger child at about 8:55 a.m. on the 2700 block of North 53rd Street, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In that case too, a 16-year-old boy was arrested for possessing a firearm, and police said charges would be referred to the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office.
Another case detailed by FOX6 News described a 4-year-old boy shooting an 8-year-old girl on the city's far north side. Investigators said they found no gun lock or safe anywhere in the apartment where that shooting happened, and two women, Piggee and Westmoreland, were each charged with three felony counts of child neglect and one misdemeanor count in connection with the case.
What the Numbers Show About Milwaukee Gun Violence
The pattern of shootings involving children comes against a backdrop of persistent gun violence citywide. The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform recorded 174 fatal shootings and 836 nonfatal shootings in Milwaukee in 2023, the most recent year for which data was available, per the organization's Milwaukee Gun Violence Assessment. That same report found the city's nonfatal shooting rate actually declined, from 156 per 100,000 residents in 2022 to 148 per 100,000 in 2023.
Most shootings in 2023 occurred at night, between 6 p.m. and midnight, and the violence tended to spike in the summer months, with July and June accounting for 14 percent and 11 percent of shootings, respectively, the assessment found. The majority of both victims and suspects were between the ages of 18 and 34. Zip code 53206 recorded the highest concentration of gun violence that year, accounting for 12 percent of fatal shootings and 15 percent of nonfatal shootings citywide.
Those citywide figures reflect historical trends from 2023 and do not indicate how this year's totals compare. What remains clear is that Milwaukee police are once again investigating a shooting that left a young child injured, and once again urging parents and guardians to lock up their firearms.
