Third Ward shooting: Milwaukee man pleads guilty, avoids trial
MILWAUKEE - A Milwaukee man accused of shooting an off-duty police detective in city's Historic Third Ward pleaded guilty Wednesday, April 26 to attempted first-degree intentional homicide and two other felonies – avoiding trial.
Keasean Ellis-Brown reached a plea deal with prosecutors, and three other charges were dismissed. The 20-year-old initially pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Ellis-Brown's sentencing is scheduled for June.
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The shooting happened at the Shake Shack near Water and Buffalo on Jan. 13, 2022. Ellis-Brown was taken into custody that March after weeks on the run. Ellis-Brown is one of three men charged in connection to the incident; Dionta'e Hayes and Timonte Karroll-Robinson are the other two.
Hayes, charged with five felonies and a misdemeanor, reached a plea deal in August 2022 but later failed to appear for court; he is due back in June. Karroll-Robinson was sentenced to five years behind bars in August 2022 after reaching a plea deal that June.
The shooting
According to a criminal complaint, a DoorDash driver had a food order to pick up at the Shake Shack. She parked her car outside the restaurant and had her three children with her. Once inside, "the staff told her that someone was taking something out of her car."
The complaint states the DoorDash driver saw a suspect running from her car and "getting into a silver car stopped at the intersection." When she went back out to her car, she found an iPhone, and her daughter "told her that the suspect got into the front driver's seat, looked back and said, 'Oh (expletive)' when he noticed the children."
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The DoorDash driver went back into the restaurant with the iPhone and noticed the suspect walk up. The suspect demanded his phone and reached into the DoorDash driver's pocket to get it before he "tried lifting her up to slam her to the ground," per the complaint.
A man in the Shake Shack then identified himself as police, grabbed the suspect off the DoorDash driver and wrestled the suspect to the ground, the complaint states. The DoorDash driver said "she saw the suspect reaching for his waistband and that the store employees were yelling for her to get behind the counter. The DoorDash driver then "started running and heard two gunshots and then a brief pause, then three additional shots."
Detective Andrew Wilkiewicz
The detective, Andrew Wilkiewicz, suffered four gunshot wounds. He was released from the hospital five days after the shooting.
A police chase ensued shortly after the shooting, and authorities arrested Hayes and Karroll-Robinson.
Officers spotted the suspects' vehicle and tried to stop it near 27th and State. The chase stretched just over two miles until, near 29th and Burleigh, the suspects fled on foot in an alley after their vehicle crashed.
FOX6 News confirmed that the suspects' vehicle had been stolen from Menomonee Falls.