A 12-year-old Milwaukee child is accused of shooting and killing a neighbor he played video games with because the man refused to sell the boy a gun. The boy is currently facing a first-degree intentional homicide prosecution as an adult.
On March 18, three days after the shooting on March 15, Brandon Felton, a Milwaukee resident, was discovered in his house with a gunshot wound to the head.
At the crime scene, police discovered a receipt for a Domino’s pizza delivery made using the boy’s cell phone number, and they were able to link the shooting back to him.
The boy denied that he had been in Felton’s house, but he changed his story twice when speaking to the police. He tried to blame the shooting on a friend of Felton he called “Sam.”
According to the federal complaint, the child had been texting with at least one other person for about a week about stealing a shotgun and an AR-15-style rifle that Felton allegedly had in his possession. Because of the boy’s age and the specifics of the case, his identity is being withheld. He had his first court appearance on March 27.
Judge Nidhi Kashyap of Milwaukee County set the boy’s cash bail at $100,000 on Monday. He is most likely being kept at the county’s juvenile detention center and is not in custody at the Milwaukee County Jail.
In Wisconsin, it is unusual but not unheard of for children to face homicide charges. State law says that minors who commit some major offenses must be prosecuted as adults. Charges for several homicide crimes are included.