![]() ![]() Kragujevac Mayor Nikola Daŝić from Kragujevac also did not respond to an email request for comment.Īld. and Marina Dimitrijevic – co-chairs of Milwaukee’s sister cities committee – both ignored my repeated requests for comment, which I made via email, phone calls and text messages. Mayor Johnson isn’t the only one who expressed zero interest in talking to Kragujevac officials about ways to stop Serbian weapons from being used to wreak havoc in U.S. After all, if Milwaukee and Kragujevac are gonna be “sisters,” they ought to be able to have those kinds of difficult “family” discussions. “Are you interested in knowing and do you care?” I asked. I also asked Mayor Johnson if he was going to ask Zastava and Kragujevac city leaders for information on how many of Zastava’s weapons have contributed to the carnage we see in Milwaukee. ![]() ![]() I simply asked the mayor: “ Since fighting gun violence is one of Milwaukee’s top priorities, what, if any, role do you envision or would you welcome for Kragujevac’s municipal government and Zastava’s corporate leadership in aiding Milwaukee as their ‘sister city’ in this cause?” To be clear, I never suggested that anyone from Milwaukee “chastise” anyone from Kragujevac. Would chastising the leaders of a sister city make us safer? No.” “Would Milwaukee be safer if criminals did not possess automatic weapons? Of course. “Weapons like those manufactured by Zastava Arms have been used to commit horrific crimes in this country including the death of Sandra Parks here in Milwaukee more than five years ago,” the spokesman said. “It is invidious disparagement to link the Milwaukee and Kragujevac sister city relationship with the criminal abuse of automatic weapons from a Serbian military arms manufacturer,” a spokesman for the mayor told me in a statement. Mayor Cavalier Johnson – through a spokesman – cast aspersions on my inquiry into whether his administration would use its new sister city relationship with Kragujevac to explore ways to stem the flow of assault-style weapons from Serbia onto the streets of Milwaukee, even though federal data show Serbia exported nearly 47,000 guns to the U.S. Somehow I thought Milwaukee’s elected officials – who profess to want to make the city “ safer and safer ” – would be interested in discussing potential policies and strategies to prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future. 26 in the Common Council Chambers at Milwaukee’s City Hall.Īs an investigative reporter with a keen interest in gun trace data and an abiding affinity for my native Milwaukee, the city’s pending sister city relationship with Kragujevac struck me as a prime opportunity to revisit what I found out about the origin of the gun used in Sandra’s tragic death. The ceremony is scheduled to take place at 11:30 a.m. I was reminded of this fact recently when I read that Milwaukee leaders are set to formalize a “sister city” relationship with Kragujevac, Serbia. Just as Sandra’s story had global appeal, my investigation found that the story of the gun that was used in her slaying was international as well. “Little children are victims of senseless gun violence.”After months of haggling, Milwaukee police finally released records showing that the gun used to kill Sandra Parks was made nearly 5,000 miles away by Zastava Arms, a military weapons manufacturer in Kragujevac, Serbia. “In the city in which I live, I hear and see examples of chaos almost every day,” Sandra stated in her essay, which won third place in Milwaukee’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. This was due to the fact that two years prior to being fatally shot, Sandra had written an award-winning essay in which she decried the very gun violence that ultimately claimed her life. Those questions were all the more pressing given the fact that Sandra’s killing had made headlines around the world. 13th St., where one of the bullets shattered her bedroom window and struck her in the upper body. More specifically, I wanted to know how the weapon got into the hands of a convicted felon who used it in a vendetta to recklessly fire six shots into Sandra’s home on N. When I first learned about the fatal shooting of 13-year-old Sandra Parks in 2018, one of the most urgent questions I had was about the origin of the AK-47 style weapon that ended the Milwaukee eighth-grader’s life. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |