Two people have been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of a 4-year-old boy on Milwaukee’s northwest side, police said.
Two neighbors who spoke to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said the boy, known as RJ, was a bubbly sweet child and that they had rushed into the boy’s home to try to save him. They said the child had suffered a gunshot wound to the head and that the boy’s parents had been arrested.
A Milwaukee police booking log reviewed by the Journal Sentinel showed a 34-year-old man had been arrested at the scene on tentative charges of first-degree intentional homicide and being a felon in possession of a gun. The man has a prior arrest record that includes domestic violence.
A 33-year-old woman had been booked at the same time on a tentative charge of aiding and abetting a felon.
Neither had been charged as of early July 11 with anything related to the child’s death. The Journal Sentinel typically does not identify people before they are criminally charged.
Jackyha Collins is a mother of four who lives in the same row of four townhouses as the child, in the 9100 block of North 75th Street.
Collins had just put her children to bed and stepped into her sister’s townhouse, two doors down, when her sister’s children came running in. They said they’d heard a single gunshot.
Collins rushed outside to find the boy’s mother outside, too, screaming, “My baby, my baby,” according to Collins and her next door neighbor, Tangella Williams. The women went into the boy’s home to try to help. They said RJ was lying on the second floor. RJ’s father paced back and forth while his mother cried, Williams said.
Collins said she tried to perform CPR on RJ, but he did not survive. The shooting occurred about 9:30 p.m. July 10.
“I cried all night long,” she said. “I cannot wrap my head around the fact that I saw that.”
The couple’s story changed over time, Williams said. Initially, Williams said, the boy’s mother said the gunshot came through a window, but Williams discounted that, since she was still sitting in their shared yard with her children when the gunshot occurred and she did not see anyone fire shots.
RJ’s mother handed Williams a purse and told her to put it inside her own home, Williams said.
Williams, also a mother of four, told the Journal Sentinel she later realized the purse contained a handgun. She alerted police, who photographed it and took it into evidence.
Alderwoman Larresa Taylor, whose district the shooting occurred in, said in a statement that she and others continue to be angry and frustrated by these incidents because they are wholly preventable.
“We must come together so as a city we can rise above, and be better than the gun violence we see far too often,” Taylor said.
Boy’s father was arrested previously in connection to domestic abuse
Both Williams and Collins said they noticed the boy’s father walking up to the house roughly half an hour before the shooting carrying a big bottle of liquor. Williams and Collins believe that domestic violence fueled by alcohol was a regular occurrence in the boy’s home.
“I feel bad for her,” Collins said of the boy’s mother. “That woman is a good woman.”
Hours before the shooting occurred, about 11:30 a.m. July 10, officers were called to the home for a report of “trouble,” according to Milwaukee police call logs. It was not immediately clear what prompted the call, or what happened as a result.
Milwaukee police arrested the man before on allegations of battery and disorderly conduct related to domestic abuse in 2020, 2022 and 2023, according to arrest records maintained by the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
The two earlier arrests did not lead to criminal charges, according to court records. In the 2023 incident, prosecutors charged the man with resisting an officer.
In that case, officers were originally responding to a call from the man’s estranged wife, the 4-year-old’s mother, who said he had threatened to “kick in her door and choke her,” according to a criminal complaint. The caller said she feared for her safety.
When officers arrived, the man walked toward them in what officers described as an aggressive manner. It took six officers to get the man into the squad car as he tried to spit and threatened the officers, the complaint says.
The man pleaded guilty to resisting and was sentenced to nine months of probation. One of his probation requirements was to complete an anger management course, court records show.
4-year-old boy remembered as a sweet child
Williams understood that 4-year-old RJ had disabilities. He didn’t play outside often with the other children in the complex, she said, but when he did, he was a happy child.
“He was the sweetest kid ever,” Williams said.
Another son, around 10 years old, was in the home as well when the shooting occurred, Williams said.
“You could tell that she loved her babies. She was all for her babies,” Williams said of the boy’s mother.
Williams said she finally fell asleep around 7 a.m. the next morning. She had been reminded of other acts of violence, including the homicide of her fiancé last year, and she was overwhelmed by what she saw that night in the townhouse next door.
“All these innocent babies are just dying,” Williams said. “They didn’t even get a chance to live their lives yet.”
Ashley Luthern of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
This story was updated to include new information.
This story was updated to add a video.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Neighbors of 4-year-old boy shot, killed in home recount trying to save him, parents arrested
Reporting by Sophie Carson and Jack Albright, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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