Joseph Salinas sentenced, 3 years probation in shooting of 5-year-old son
Joseph Salinas
MILWAUKEE - A Milwaukee County judge sentenced Joseph Salinas of Milwaukee on Friday, April 15 to three years of probation in connection with the shooting of his 5-year-old son in August 2018.
Salinas pleaded guilty in March 2022 to charges of felony neglect of a child and carrying a concealed weapon. A charge of obstructing an officer was dismissed and read into the court record for the purposes of sentencing.
At sentencing on Friday, the court sentenced Salinas to a year in prison and another year of extended supervision for the neglect charge – and then stayed that sentence – instead going with 18 months probation. The concealed weapon sentence was originally six months in the House of Correction. It too, was stayed for probation. The two sentences were to be served consecutively – meaning a total of three years.
Case details
According to the criminal complaint, officers were called to a home near 61st and Villard on Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, for a shooting investigation. When officers arrived on the scene, the child said "I got my Daddy's gun and shot myself."
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When questioned at the hospital, Salinas told police he and his son "were at their house and laid down to take a nap." Salinas owns a .357 Magnum revolver and said during the nap "he put the gun up on the top shelf of a six-foot tall cabinet with glass shelving." Salinas said "his son must have climbed up the glass shelving and retrieved the gun." Salinas woke from the nap "because he thought he heard a gunshot." When he saw his son sitting on the stairs and crying, Salinas took the boy to the hospital.
At the hospital, Salinas told investigators the gun was back on top of the glass cabinet at the house. But when they followed him back to the house, they stopped him before he went inside. Investigators found "the gun was actually in the defendant's right pants pocket." Salinas does not have a concealed carry permit, according to the complaint.
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