Here & Now

Milwaukee Gun Violence Takes A Devastating Toll On Families

Frederica Freyberg:

The city of Milwaukee's health department has released a draft of its “Blueprint for Peace.” The newly released program focuses on prevention while looking a root causes of violent crime. Another plan offered by select city council members there focuses on enhanced police enforcement. The “Blueprint” authors say prevention and enforcement are not mutually exclusive. But this discussion around how to combat crime and stop gun violence highlight how the city is grappling with the problem. While well-meaning work goes on, in tonight’s “Closer Look,” we hear from the mother of a recent victim. She reached out to us after we got to know her in the course of our reporting work on gun violence in Milwaukee.

Nora Sheridan:

It's nice. They have a really nice garden over here.

Frederica Freyberg:

We first met Nora Sheridan two summers ago as she and her sister strolled the Milwaukee neighbor where they experienced a very difficult childhood.

Woman:

Just think, how long ago was that, 1968?

Frederica Freyberg:

We interviewed the sisters as part of reporting on escalating gun violence in the city. Their family was featured in a 1968 documentary representing poverty and broken families going back generations in Milwaukee.

Man:

It’s just nerve wracking. You ain't got no peace in the home now.

Frederica Freyberg:

One question was, could the multi-generational conditions be one reason for current day spikes in violence? Nora Sheridan thought the answer was yes.

Nora Sheridan:

The black family is being destroyed. The majority of the black family does not have a father.

Frederica Freyberg:

She was speaking about gun violence as a worry for the larger community. This spring, the devastation ripped her own world apart.

Nora Sheridan:

He said that your son–he said, “Do you have a son Rainier?” And I said, “Yes, I do.”

Frederica Freyberg:

Detectives called Nora Sheridan home from work to break the news that her 36-year-old son Rainier had been shot and killed. They thought it happened outside her house. And that he had stumbled inside to call for help. The noodles he was cooking for lunch, she was told, were still cooking on the stove.

Nora Sheridan:

He said that when he arrived to the hospital, he died at the hospital.

Frederica Freyberg:

Rainier's mother says he lived at home with her and was in a good place. Working a good-paying job at a chemical plant in Milwaukee.

Nora Sheridan:

They were so pleased with his performance that he was employee of the month for consecutively. And at the funeral, they shut down a department just to come to the funeral.

Frederica Freyberg:

What his mother wants to know is who shot her son and why. Milwaukee police can only say they are currently seeking a motive and searching for suspects.

Nora Sheridan:

Because I need to know the truth. I, I want justice and I want justice for him. I want the people or person who did that to him to be held accountable for killing him. That’s what they did. They took him from his children. They took him from his sisters. They took him from his brothers. They took him from me. You know, and right now I'm starting to get angry. I just want justice for him.

Frederica Freyberg:

Sheridan wonders, was it a car theft gone wrong, burglars, what else.

The not knowing, she says, makes his loss even worse. Entire neighborhoods in Milwaukee already keep their draperies closed day and night trying to hide out from violence. Hers included. The extra security of her home surveillance camera captured images only after the fact of responding police.

Nora Sheridan:

We need to stop all this. All these shootings. Every night I hear someone shooting. I don’t know whether I should hit the floor, call 911. Sometimes I'm afraid if I call 911 that they will tell who, or the police will show up at my door and they’ll find out who, who the person who called and they might retaliate against me. I’m not the only one that feels like that. Other people in the neighborhood feels that way too. So, we just–something needs to be done about all these shootings around here, period.

Frederica Freyberg:

Still, Sheridan says she is not afraid to stay in her house, even though someone shot her son there. Their home, she says, makes her feel close to him.

Nora Sheridan:

Every second, every minute, every hour I think about him. Everything that I do in this house I think about him.

Frederica Freyberg:

She says despite this, she’s able to sleep at night because of something an officer told her.

Nora Sheridan:

When I asked him where did they find him, they said he was in my bedroom. And I feel comfort there for some reason. I feel comfort there.

Frederica Freyberg:

The most recent numbers show so far this year 35 people have been murdered in Milwaukee. Most of them shot to death. In 2016, there were 141 homicides. Again, mostly the result of gunfire.