A Milwaukee police officer broke down in tears after responding to a home where a 4-year-old girl was fatally shot by her 6-year-old brother, a neighbor who watched the scene unfold said.
Rodney Mckinney, who lives near the North 53rd Street address, told WTMJ that the officer’s visible grief confirmed the horror of what had happened inside. “The one officer came out, and he was crying, and that’s when I knew something was sad,” Mckinney said.
Emergency services had rushed to the 2700 block of North 53rd Street around 9 a.m. Saturday after reports of a shooting. They pronounced Jurnee Scales Walker, 4, dead at the scene, Milwaukee police said.
The weapon belonged to a third sibling, a 16-year-old who was taken into custody following the tragedy and charged with possession of a firearm, according to authorities. The teen was charged in Milwaukee’s juvenile court system on Monday as investigators work to determine how the gun was acquired.
Amya Burton-Lewis, Jurnee’s cousin, told WTMJ that the children had been playing cops and robbers when the 6-year-old somehow got his hands on the firearm. Burton-Lewis said the gun had been securely stored before the shooting and that she did not understand how the child gained access to it.
“I hate that this is how everybody has to know Jurnee,” Burton-Lewis told the station.
She described the 4-year-old as “sweet” and said there was “nobody like” her.
The shooting has prompted Milwaukee police to issue renewed warnings to gun owners about safe storage practices, specifically urging that firearms be kept out of reach of children. Authorities continue to investigate the circumstances that allowed the weapon to end up in the 6-year-old’s hands.
The tragedy marks another instance of a young child gaining access to an improperly secured firearm with fatal consequences, a pattern that has repeatedly drawn attention to storage laws and parental accountability across the country.
Burton-Lewis’s account of the gun being secured conflicts with the outcome, leaving questions about what safeguards were in place and how they failed. Police have not publicly addressed whether charges beyond the teen’s firearm possession are under consideration.
The 16-year-old sibling remains in the juvenile system as the investigation proceeds.