The Milwaukee Police Department is investigating a “horrific” crime scene where six people were found dead inside a home on Sunday afternoon.
“Citizens of our community had concerns with the occupants that resided there,” Milwaukee Assistant Police Chief Paul Formolo said, according to CBS News, about the welfare check with which they were assisting. “It’s a normal call for us to respond to. We do it all the time.”
Once inside the residence, located near North 21st Street and West Wright Street, police first found four men and one woman, all of them dead. The body of a sixth victim, a male, was found later that day. The identities of the victims have not been released, but three of the victims’ ages are listed as 31, 42 and 43, according to The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
“The murders discovered today on a residential block in the heart of our city are horrific,” Acting Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said in a statement Sunday night. “First, I offer my condolences to the families and friends of the victims. Whatever the circumstances, we must share the grief of those who have lost loved ones.”
“We remain steadfast in our efforts to reduce violence,” Johnson added. “We will achieve that through strengthened and improved law enforcement, through community intervention and through a renewed commitment to prevention. Again, we can never accept murderous violence as routine, and we must together recommit ourselves to our shared responsibility to find solutions and make our city safer.”
“It is important not to feel numbed by the ongoing violence in our community,” his statement continued. “A horrible crime has again occurred, and it is not a movie or a fictional account. These victims died in our city, in one of our neighborhoods.”
According to Wisconsin Right Now, there were already nine homicides recorded in the three weeks of 2022 prior to this incident. That is an increase of 13% from the same time the previous year.
Arnitta Holliman, the director of Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention, spoke vehemently at the press conference about the incident Sunday, according to the Journal-Sentinel. “This is ridiculous. I’m sorry, I don’t know a better word to say,” she said.
“The community is tired. We are tired of seeing people’s lives snuffed out too soon in preventable situations,” Holliman told assembled media. “This is absolutely preventable. Any of the gun violence that we’re seeing is preventable. And we cannot continue this same trajectory that we’ve seen for the last two years. That means each and every one of us has to step up, speak up, stand up, do something to change the course of what’s happening in our community.”
She encouraged people to do what they can to deter gun violence by trying to stop potential offenders or reaching out for help. Persons in Milwaukee or elsewhere who have information about these crimes are urged to call Milwaukee Police at (414) 935-7360. To remain anonymous, please call Crime Stoppers at (414) 224-TIPS.
“We are sick and tired of it,” said Holliman. “And we as a community, that means all of us, have to be sick and tired of it enough that we step up and do something.”
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