GLENDALE, Wis. - Tiffany Bennett, 35, of Milwaukee is accused of shooting a Glendale Metro Market employee inside the store late on Tuesday, June 20.
Bennett is charged with second-degree recklessly endangering safety and disorderly conduct. Prosecutors say the victim was her boyfriend, and she is a former store employee.
Tiffany Bennett
At a 2019 basketball game held in memory of her brother, Bennett expressed her frustrations about gun violence. Deandre Bennett, 34, was shot and killed in Chicago.
"It can happen to anybody," Bennett told FOX6 in 2019. "It’s happening right in our neighborhoods. They need to put the guns down. Innocent people are dying every day."
Four years later, prosecutors say Bennett didn't take her own advice.
A criminal complaint says at the Metro Market store on June 20, Bennett pulled out a gun from a holster on her right hip and pointed it at her boyfriend. As the man was grabbing for the gun, it went off, hitting him in the leg.
According to the complaint, when police responded to the store near Port Washington and Green Tree that night, they found Bennett applying pressure to the victim's upper left leg with a white cloth.
A Metro Market employee told police that she observed Bennett following the victim throughout the store and heard them arguing. The employee claimed Bennett threw multiple cans of soup at the victim and said, "I'm not playing with you." That's when the employee heard a gunshot.
Glendale Metro Market
After the shooting, Bennett allegedly said, "He tried to grab the gun from me, and he accidentally shot himself," according to the complaint.
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Officers then spoke with the store manager, who stated that after the shooting, he went to the front of the store and saw Bennett, whom he recognized as a former store employee and the victim's girlfriend. The manager claims Bennett tried driving away from the store, and he tried to get her to stay on scene and talk to police. She said, "No. [Expletive] that. I’m leaving," the complaint says. The manager then flagged down officers, and Bennett was taken into custody.
Prosecutors say she admitted to giving the gun and holster to a friend who hid them in a car in the parking lot.
The victim suffered a fractured femur and had to have surgery.
Tory Lowe, who organized that 2019 basketball game, confirmed that the woman who spoke with FOX6 News in 2019 is the same Tiffany Bennett arrested for this shooting.