Wauwatosa hotel shooting: Milwaukee man faces multiple charges

WAUWATOSA, Wis. - Kenneth Burney of Milwaukee faces multiple criminal counts for allegedly firing upon police officers at a Wauwatosa hotel on Saturday, Nov. 6. 

Burney is charged with the following:

• Attempted first-degree intentional homicide (three counts)
• First-degree reckless injury
• Possession with intent to deliver controlled substance
• Possession of a firearm by a felon (two counts)
• Bail jumping (felony) - two counts)

According to the criminal complaint, Wauwatosa police officers were dispatched to the Radisson Hotel at Mayfair Road and North Avenue early on Saturday, Nov. 6 to investigate an "active shots fired" complaint. Those officers were directed to the second floor of the hotel where they found "numerous firearm casings as well as unspent cartridges on the floor of the hallway." The complaint says officers "observed multiple bullet holes in the walls and ceiling and began a room-to-room search to check for potential injured victims." 

Officers were provided a master key to open rooms. At each room, the complaint says officers "knocked and identified themselves. In each occupied room, the occupants opened the door and allowed the officers to briefly search the room." 

When officers approached one room, they could hear a TV -- but could not get the person inside the room to open the door. After roughly eight minutes of attempting to get in the room, three officers attempted to "breach the door through the use of a ram. After five strikes were delivered, the ram had put a circular-shaped hole in the door. Immediately, as the fifth strike hit the door, multiple gunshots rang out" at the officers.

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Three officers were wounded in the incident and the complaint says "at least two other law enforcement officers were converging on the door at the time of the shooting and were moments from being in the line of fire." 

The complaint says one officer was hit in the back of his hand and his thigh; the second hit in his right thigh and left knee, which will need surgery; the third struck in his left foot. Each earned praise from Wauwatosa Police Chief James MacGillis.

"The officers' training was evident, and their courage under fire was second to none," he said.

The complaint says the officers shot back but didn't hit the suspect.

Shortly thereafter, Kenneth Burney was taken into custody. 

Inside the hotel room, officers recovered two firearms, spent gun casings and 16 pills which tested positive for the presence of MDMA.

Burney made his initial appearance in Milwaukee County court on Thursday, Nov. 11. Cash bond was set at $750,000. Burney is due back in court for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 19.