Neighbors react to shooting that injured two children

Police are still investigating a shooting that sent two children to the hospital in Milwaukee north side on July 23rd.


A 10 year-old boy and 11 year-old girl were shot. The boy who was wounded is out of the hospital. The girl who was struck, however, is still being treated.


The driver of the van is 30-year-old Lashawn James. He's not 39 years old, like police originally reported. He was the father of two of the children in the van. The mother of the children is 25-year-old Octavia Burton. Both were taken into custody yesterday, not directly in this case, but for violation of probation.


Their home on the 2700 block of N. 34th Street was boarded up and condemned Wednesday afternoon.


Neighbors gave CBS 58 conflicting stories about how the children were treated.


“I called them the Brady Bunch because I had never seen kids, it's like 7 of them, walking in a straight line. It was so beautiful and I'm thinking it's a daycare or something because the mom was in the front, the dad was in the back,\" said Kiana Jackson who lives right across the street from Burton.


She had nothing but praise for the parents.


\"I think they were great parents, as far as everything I see. I think they were great parents,\" said Jackson.


According to other neighbors, that’s far from the truth. One of them told us, the mother constantly cussed at the children and the home was covered in feces.


Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn spoke about the mother’s home Wednesday afternoon during a press conference.


“The mother had just gotten custody of these children after having lost custody for child abuse. The neighborhood services went to the house to check on condition and condemned the house, because of feces, cockroaches and bed bugs,\" said Flynn.


\"There were too many dogs up in there and there was feces from the dog, but the dogs didn't stay in the house, they stayed up in the attic,\" said Jackson.


Jackson said 6 dogs lived in the home, but says the children were safe.


\"Social services came at that house every week. It was two ladies that we see come to that house every week. If something was at that house, why didn't social services take them kids out of there,” said Jackson.


We reached out the Department of Children and Families. We were told they could not release any information regarding this case due to state and federal confidentiality laws.

Share this article: