MILWAUKEE— To ring in the new year, the Deer District set off it’s series of celebratory fireworks, but Milwaukee Police Department reports that there were more than just fireworks being set off on Tuesday night.
Before New Years celebrations, the Milwaukee Police Department sent out a video to warn people not do any celebratory gunshots.
According to MPD, more than 60 celebratory gunshots were reported.
While no injuries were reported to the police, MPD Assistant Chief Nicole Waldner says that celebratory gunshots cause more harm than good in the community.
“While a car did suffer some damage from celebratory shots this year, people do get hurt from these shootings,” said Waldner. “I took the first homicide of 1999 back when I was on patrol. The first homicide of that year was a young girl who was watching her cousins doing celebratory gunshots and she was struck and killed. So it is not something that just happens and there are no victims.”
Waldner says that a majority of the people who are partaking in celebratory gunshots usually have no gun safety training at all.
“We’ve been trying to go after gun ownership and messaging owners that there’s other pieces to being a CPW permit holder or even a gun carrier, that you have a level of responsibility to also protect that gun because sometimes their firearms are getting in the hands of some people who aren’t certified or trained.”
When it comes down to tracking and reporting cases of celebratory gunshots, Waldner says people should not just shrug it off and they instead should contact the police immediately.
“This is not a waste of our time and this is something that Police need to know about,” said Waldner. “We can track those gunshots from phone calls. We can track bullet casings to gun owners and hold them accountable. I’m urging people to call because any little bit of evidence, we can link to some other incident that involves the same gun.”
Waldner says she hopes in the future residents are more forthcoming with information regardless of whether or not people were hurt when celebratory gunshots take place, that way there can be more discussion of funding and adding more Shot Spotters in parts of the city that have not yet been covered.
