Gun Homicide Tally For Year Reaches 87

Two fatal shootings in Milwaukee during the past week have pushed this year’s gun homicide total in Wisconsin to 87.

One of the two people shot to death was Amina Muhammad, a 26-year-old black woman who was killed last Saturday night as she was coming out of her house. Muhammad was the mother of two boys.

Muhammed’s aunt Maletha Jones said her niece liked to joke with and help others.

“She liked to rib,” said Jones. “The majority of her time, she liked to spend time with kids.”

The second person fatally shot was O.Z. Johnson Jr., a 48-year-old black man who died on Monday. The Milwaukee Police Department says both shootings are under investigation.

The shootings come as the anti-gun group Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort plans to finish a statewide tour on Saturday at Alice’s Garden in Milwaukee, a two-acre community garden not far from the city’s most violent-prone neighborhoods. WAVE will display hundreds of pairs of empty shoes representing gun homicide and suicide victims in a labyrinth.

“The shoes will not go around the entire labyrinth because those lives were cut short,” said the Garden’s executive director, Venice Williams. “So the shoes will only go in the beginning of the labyrinth and the beginning of the path.”

Clayton Malliett, a technical college student and an intern coordinator at Alice’s Garden, said that the garden also been a refuge for him “from the things I might get into—the party life.”

Mailliet said he’s heard gunfire in the neighborhood closest to Alice’s Garden, and some people who grow plants there come in with stories of blood being shed by relatives or friends.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a Wisconsin Public Radio year-long series tracking all gun-related homicides in Wisconsin.