MILWAUKEE — Jonael Zambrano, a 9-year-old boy, was shot and killed early Thursday in Milwaukee, police said, becoming the fourth young gunshot victim in the city in four weeks.
The child died at a hospital following the shooting.
The shooting happened just after midnight at the Woodlands Apartment complex near Swan and Brown Deer Roads on the city's far northside.
Police are searching for “unknown suspects,” Capt. Warren Allen Jr. said in an email.
Police said, as of 4:50 p.m., no one was in custody related to the shooting.
"It's terrible. These are things that should not happen," Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said.
Johnson said his heart broke when he was briefed on the shooting at 2:30 a.m. Thursday.
“There’s no way, no how, I don’t know where the kid went to school, but on the night of a last day of school, before summer break that a kid should have lost his life because somebody decided to shoot a gun," he said.
Anneliese Dickman is the Midwest senior manager for Brady United Against Gun Violence, a nonpartisan partisan gun violence prevention organization based in Washington D.C. Dickman said when she got word of the tragedy, she was deeply disturbed, but sadly, not surprised.
“It is heart breaking because when I first started working on this issue 10 years ago, there was a year where Wisconsin had less than 12 children die from gun injuries and unfortunately the trajectory has changed and we have seen more and more children die from gun injuries,” said Dickman.
A 10-year-old girl was killed May 31 in Milwaukee while sleeping in her bed. On May 17, two 15-year-olds were fatally shot by another teen.
Dickman said gun violence escalates in the hot summer months and reminded gun owners to always keep guns locked up and unloaded in their homes. She said it’s also very important to do the same in the car.
“We have a lot of car thefts in Milwaukee and that is another way people are accessing guns. So you are preventing tragedy in your own home; you are preventing tragedy from someone getting their hands on your gun who wants to use it for no good,” said Dickman
Johnson said these needless tragedies weigh on him.
“These kids are not just Milwaukee kids, they are Wisconsin kids that are losing their lives,” said Johnson.