Six people, including five men, were found dead inside a Milwaukee home in what is believed to be a homicide, authorities said.
The bodies of four men and a woman were found Sunday afternoon by cops during a welfare check at a home near North 21st and West Wright streets, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“Citizens of our community had concerns with the occupants that resided there,” Milwaukee Assistant Police Chief Paul Formolo told reporters at a press conference late Sunday. “It’s a normal call for us to respond to. We do it all the time.”
The five victims were discovered lifeless inside the home. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office said early Monday that a sixth victim, another man, was also recovered at the residence.
“The victims had injuries that are suspected to have been caused by gunfire,” police said.
Autopsies on the victims were expected to be conducted Monday. No arrests had been made as of midday and cops were seeking “unknown suspects” in the deaths, a police spokesperson told The Post.
None of the victims have been formally identified, but three of the men found dead were ages 43, 42 and 31, the Journal Sentinel reported, citing data from the medical examiner’s office.
A motive in the slayings was not immediately clear.
“There is no information to suggest that there is a threat to the community,” Formolo said.
Acting Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who said he lived on the block for a time as a child, described the killings as “horrific” while offering condolences to the victims’ relatives.
“It is important not to feel numbed by the ongoing violence in our community,” Johnson said in a statement. “A horrible crime has once again occurred, and it is not a movie or a fictional account. These victims died in our city, in one of our neighborhoods.”
Residents from nearby homes stood outside the crime scene in shock late Sunday as a team from Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention tried to its their support, WTMJ reported.
“This is ridiculous, and I’m sorry I don’t know what better word to say,” director Arnitta Holliman told the station. “The community is tired; we are tired of seeing people’s lives snuffed out too soon.”
Eight homicides were tallied in Milwaukee County over the weekend, according to the medical examiner’s office. That brings this year’s total to 21 — compared to nine during the same span last year, WTMJ reported.
Milwaukee saw a record 197 homicides in 2021, eclipsing the previous mark of 190 set a year before, police data cited by the Journal Sentinel shows.
“Violence, especially deadly violence — it harms not just the person they’re aiming that violence towards,” Johnson reportedly said at an annual vigil in late December. “It has a ripple effect to their family … it’s irreparable harm to our community.”
The city, meanwhile, remains “steadfast” in its efforts to reduce violence in all forms, Johnson said.
“We will achieve that through strengthened and improved law enforcement, through community intervention, and through a renewed commitment to prevention,” Milwaukee’s acting mayor said. “Again, we can never accept murderous violence as routine, and we must together recommit ourselves to our shared responsibility to find solutions and make our city safer.”
