'Angry and shaken': Six people dead in shooting in Milwaukee, suspect and motive still unknown
The mass killing of six people shocked neighbors and public officials in Milwaukee, already weary of the relentless and devastating gun violence in the city over the past two years.
The horrific scene was discovered Sunday afternoon when Milwaukee police were asked to do a welfare check about 3:45 p.m. at a duplex in the 2500 block of N. 21st St., within the city's Park West neighborhood.
Inside, police found four men and one woman killed by gunfire. Another victim, a man, was discovered inside the house hours later.
Milwaukee police have not released any possible motive, nor have they said if the suspected shooter was among those found dead.
Police said all six deaths are being investigated as a homicide, and late Sunday, police officials stressed there was "no information to suggest that there is a threat to the community," indicating authorities believe these were targeted shootings.
The shooting has left many "saddened, angry and shaken," said Ald. Russell Stamper II, who represents the area.
"There are no words to accurately describe the feelings of the community at the continuing violence, but one thing remains perfectly clear," he said in a news release Monday. "We must do better."
Late Monday, the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office identified the victims as Charles L. Hardy, 42; Caleb A. Jordan, 23; Javoni Liddell, 31; Donta H. Williams, 44; Michelle D. Williams, 49; and Donald Smith, 43.
Donta and Michelle Williams, as well as Donald Smith, had lived at the house where they were discovered, according to the medical examiner's records.
Tributes spread rapidly across social media earlier Monday. Katy Mae Starks-Acosta, Michelle Williams’ friend since childhood, remembered her as kind and funny, and someone who did not get in trouble.
“My heart hurt so bad,” Starks-Acosta wrote in a Facebook message to the Journal Sentinel. “It’s still unbelievable.”
Williams and Starks-Acosta attended 27th Street School and North Division High School together before Williams transferred to Pulaski High School. They grew up two blocks apart from each other in Milwaukee’s Midtown neighborhood and remained close over the last 42 years.
“We want justice,” Starks-Acosta said.
Neighbor: Gunfire common in the area
The block was quiet Monday morning, with a squad car sitting idle outside the home and neighbors shoveling sidewalks after an overnight snowfall.
Alice Cartwright, who lives next door to the home where the bodies were found, said Monday she wasn’t sure who lived next to her but never had any issues with the tenants.
She last saw people leaving and returning to home Saturday, she said, but there was no specific disturbance that led her to believe something bad had happened.
Another neighbor, who asked not to be named, said he often saw three middle-aged men spending time outside the home, sometimes smoking, but not causing any problems. They were friendly, the neighbor said, and one of them would offer to do basic yardwork for cash.
Much of the violence on the block has been driven by two or three groups of people feuding with one another, the neighbor said, adding he had no way of knowing if that feud had anything to do with the discovery of the bodies Sunday.
A co-owner of the duplex, who is based in Georgia, told the Journal Sentinel she and the owners had received one call from investigators about the shooting and she did not have anything else to share. The landlord said one person was the listed tenant but declined to name the individual.
Milwaukee police have been called to the duplex before in recent months. In September, police received a complaint of drug dealing, according to dispatch records. A month later, a 24-year-old man was killed and another man wounded in a shooting at the corner of North 21st and West Wright streets, according to police and medical examiner records.
Cartwright and other neighbors said the area is plagued by gun violence. Even if she had heard gunshots in the area recently she said she wouldn’t think much of it, especially if there was no accompanying police response.
“It really happens so often, so I really didn’t pay that much attention,” she said.
The duplex is within the Park West neighborhood, bordered by North Avenue, North 20th Street and Burleigh Street with Fond du Lac Avenue running through the western portion of the area.
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It has been hit especially hard by gun violence since the pandemic, which experts and local officials have tied to a skyrocketing homicide rate locally and nationally.
In 2019, 13 people were shot, one fatally, in the neighborhood, down from an average of about three homicides and 22 nonfatal shootings in the three years prior, according to the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission.
But in 2020, when gun violence exploded across Milwaukee and in other cities across the country, 65 people were shot in Park West — nine of them dying from their wounds, the commission's data showed
In 2021, the violence continued with 45 shooting victims, including eight homicides. Prior to the mass killing, there had been one other shooting related to a robbery in the neighborhood this year, according to the commission.
Several residents emphasized in interviews that they try to keep to themselves and stay out of the conflicts in the street.
"It’s terrible, it’s scary,” said Robert Hacket, who lives several blocks from the home.
Resources
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call Milwaukee police at (414) 935-7360 or Crime Stoppers at (414) 224-TIPS or use P3 Tips App to remain anonymous.
The city’s Mobile Trauma Response Team is available at (414) 257-7621 and county's 24-hour Mental Health Crisis Line at (414) 257-7222.
Journal Sentinel reporters Bruce Vielmetti, Alison Dirr and Erin Caughey contributed to this report.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 6 dead in shooting in Milwaukee, suspect and motive still unknown
