Milwaukee Juneteenth shooting, teen charged as adult with 7 felonies
MILWAUKEE - A teen is now charged as an adult in connection to the shooting that followed Milwaukee's 2023 Juneteenth celebration and wounded six people.
Prosecutors accuse 16-year-old Arnez Lee-King of six counts of first-degree reckless injury and one count of possession of a firearm by an adjudicated delinquent. A judge agreed to waive the case from juvenile to adult court on Tuesday, Feb. 6.
Lee-King made his initial appearance in adult court on Friday, Feb. 9. His cash bond was set at $250,000.
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Case details
The shooting happened near King Drive and Locust Street around 4:20 p.m. The six victims ranged in age from 19 to 14 at the time of the shooting. A criminal complaint states most of the victims' injuries were gunshot wounds to the legs, but a 17-year-old victim was also shot in the neck.
Police recovered four spent bullet casings in the area of the shooting, and prosecutors said a ballistics analysis determined they were all fired from the same gun.
Milwaukee Juneteenth shooting; teen accused has history of weapons charges
Court documents are shedding light on the chaotic shooting following the city's Juneteenth celebrations a week ago.
A witness said he was operating a booth at the Juneteenth festival and saw a group of teen girls fighting, according to the complaint. The witness then saw some teen boys get involved, and one of those boys was punched in the face. The witness said he saw that boy pull out a gun and heard gunshots, but did not actually see the shooting.
The complaint states a second witness told investigators that one of the teen girls started the fight – and a 16-year-old boy started reaching for a gun in his waistband. The witness said she heard gunshots before that 16-year-old actually pulled his gun out. The 16-year-old was ultimately among the six victims of the shooting.
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Police watched different cellphone videos that captured the "general area and time" of the shooting, the complaint states. The videos showed a "group of apparent teenagers fighting," one of whom – later identified as Lee-King – ran off camera during the fight. As one of the witnesses described, video also showed a 16-year-old "reaching for what appears to be a firearm" – but did not appear to get to it before gunshots were heard. Video then showed Lee-King running away holding what appeared to be a gun.
In the hospital, investigators spoke to the 16-year-old victim. The complaint states he said he was trying to break up the fight, which was the second involving that group that afternoon. That's when he said another teen, who he did not know, pulled out a gun and shot him. He said he had never seen the shooter, since identified as Lee-King, until the fights that afternoon.
The day after the shooting, police arrested Lee-King at an apartment on the city's north side. The complaint states a search of that apartment uncovered two gun slides beneath a mattress. At the time of the shooting, he was on GPS monitoring as part of supervision related to a juvenile case.