On Friday, February 3, a 16-year prison sentence was given to a man from Milwaukee who had been found guilty of shooting at kids who were throwing snowballs at his car.
The prosecutors asked for a 25-year jail sentence. In a letter, the victims said that the shooting had hurt them both emotionally and physically and that they had to leave the state because of it.
William Carson was found guilty in November of all seven charges related to the 2020 incident. These included two counts of first-degree reckless injury and five counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety.
Carson got 10 years in prison and more supervision after that. Judge Michael Hanrahan put Carson in jail for the same amount of time as the most serious charges against him. Lawyers had asked for a 25-year prison sentence.
Carson had asked the judge to be lenient by saying, “I am asking for a lighter sentence. I am begging for a lighter sentence “Carson said so. “I really miss my family. I miss having kids.” But the judge jumped on him and said, “There’s this other side of you that’s impulsive, dangerous, violent, and, I guess, self-centered.”
Background of Story
On January 4, 2020, a group of kids playing in the snow near 61st and Birch on Milwaukee’s north side were said to have thrown snowballs at cars going by.
The lawsuit says that the driver of one of the hit cars turned around, got out, and shot at the kids as they tried to run away. The man then got back into his car and drove away quickly. Later, it was found out that driver was Carson.
The complaint says that three of the seven kids involved were shot. One of the kids was shot in the leg, and another was shot in the arm. A bullet barely missed a third child, but it didn’t hurt them.
On Friday, February 3, the court showed footage from a police officer’s body camera of him caring for one of the children. At Carson’s sentence, the mother of one of the children also spoke up.
Monique Wilbourn said, “You really hurt us, and I really want you to pay for what you did to my family.”
The people who were hurt say that they have emotional and physical scars that keep them up at night. Some people even moved out of state because of what happened.
Carson was apprehended by Oak Creek police after fleeing officers and being caught driving under the influence. A gun was found in his car by police, and testing determined that it was “very probable” that it was the same gun used in the Jan. 4 incident.
The US Department of Justice did a firearm trace on the pistol and discovered that Carson bought it 11 days before the shooting. Carson told authorities that he bought the gun for self-defense and that no one else had ever had control of it since he bought it.