1-year-old girl shot and killed in Milwaukee's 10th homicide of minor this year
A 27-year-old man was arrested Sunday in connection to the fatal shooting of a 1-year-old girl one day earlier, the 10th homicide of a minor in Milwaukee this year.
According to police, Zyare Nevels was shot in a vehicle during an argument between adults around 8:11 p.m. on the 1900 block of West Atkinson Avenue, near the Milwaukee Public Library Atkinson Branch, on the city's north side.
The child was transported to Children's Hospital, where she died from her injuries.
More: Teenager shot and killed on Milwaukee's northwest side, police say
Criminal charges are expected to be forwarded to the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office in the coming days, police said Sunday.
The incident was one of three homicides reported over the weekend. Sunday, 36-year-old Anthony D. Goodman was killed in a shooting a half-mile away from Saturday's incident, on the 4100 block of North 14th Street, and 54-year-old Romar Spencer was killed in another shooting on the 1300 block of North 28th Street, on Milwaukee's west side.
Milwaukee has recorded 57 homicides on the year, compared to 84 as of the same date in 2022 and 66 in 2021, according to police data. Nonfatal shootings, however, have continued at about the same pace as the previous two years.
"I've been talking consistently about the need for people to be better with guns, to have better control on guns to put guns down, because nothing good ever happens when you pull the trigger," Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said Sunday.
Johnson said some of the efforts to fight gun violence are working and that Milwaukee is a resource-rich city in which organizations like the Boys and Girls Club, City on a Hill, and Journey House all play a role in combating violence.
"Those are good things so I think those things are working, but it can't just end there," he said. "It cannot just end there and that's why I constantly say I need everybody in the game. It doesn't matter if you are a teacher or preacher, a mentor a friend, especially if you're a parent, I need folks to be involved. I need folks to be engaged in the lives of folks, young people."
More: Here are the ten children who have died in homicides in Milwaukee in 2023
Zyare is the 10th child to die by homicide so far this year and the only victim under the age of 13, according to a Journal Sentinel databse.
It continues a trend of more children being victimized by the city’s gun violence. From 2016 to 2019, no more than 10 children died by homicide in Milwaukee, but 20 or more have been killed in each of the three years since then, according to police and the city's Homicide Review Commission.
Twenty-seven child victims were reported in 2022, according to police.
Nationally, in 2020, firearm-related injuries surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death for young people, defined as persons 1 to 19 years old, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Criminologists and local officials have pointed toward a range of possible causes, including increased gun carrying, easy access to firearms and lingering effects of the pandemic, which may have had a larger impact on children.
Anyone with additional information regarding the shooting is asked to contact Milwaukee Police at 414-935-7360, or to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 414-224-Tips or by using the P3 Tips app.
Elliot Hughes of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 1-year-old girl shot and killed in Milwaukee, police say
