MILWAUKEE (AP) - Mourners have held a vigil to remember a 3-year-old girl who was shot and killed in an apparent road rage attack in Milwaukee.
The grandmother of Brooklyn Harris told supporters at Saturday night’s vigil that the girl was sweet and quiet and that, “They didn’t give that baby a chance to live.”
Police said Brooklyn was riding in a vehicle with her mother and three siblings when she was fatally shot by another driver Saturday morning after a near collision on Milwaukee’s north side.
They said the suspect fled the scene, was pursued by officers and crashed his car. They said he ran away but was arrested and remains in custody. His name hasn’t been released.
The Milwaukee County district attorney’s office will review the case this week, police said. An autopsy is scheduled Monday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Assistant Milwaukee Police Chief Raymond Banks told reporters Saturday morning that the shooting “cannot become the norm.”
“Our city is better than this. We need everybody to understand just how tragic this is,” Banks said. “She was 3 years old. … She had her whole life in front of her.”
Mayor Tom Barrett told WITI-TV on Saturday afternoon he was pleased that police caught a suspect but that he is “angry at this behavior.”
“This could have been any child in this community,” Barrett said, “and on a Saturday morning, to have a young child lose their life because some jerk decides he’s going to use a gun because he’s mad at someone on the streets, it’s just insanity.”
Tracey Dent told the crowd of about 50 who had gathered carrying balloons and candles at the vigil that police “can’t do it by themselves.”
“We have to check our own people,” Dent said. “We’re repeating the same stuff over and over and over again. When are we going to wake up as a community? When is enough enough? Let Brooklyn’s life mean something.”
Brooklyn’s death is the most recent of a young child in southeastern Wisconsin in recent weeks.
On June 22, a 5-year-old boy in Milwaukee died after prosecutors say his father punched him because he ate some of the cheesecake the man had gotten for Father’s Day. The father is charged with reckless homicide.
Another 5-year-old boy died in Milwaukee after authorities say he found a gun inside a home and killed himself. A 25-year-old man is charged with neglecting a child resulting in the June 18 death.
Authorities say a boy also 5 fatally shot himself on June 17 with a gun he found at a home in Kenosha, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) south of Milwaukee. He died at a hospital after being left there. Two men, both 24, have been charged - one of them with homicide by negligent handling of a dangerous weapon.
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