Milwaukee Maintenance Man Who Fatally Shot Teens Beating Him With Bat Jailed On Possible Homicide Charges

19 Mar, 2014 by Tiffiny Ruegner

Print this article Font size -16+

Across the media you can find this story about a man who was being held down by some teenagers and beaten with a baseball bat being forced to kill his assailants in self defense. One thing from the story that has been scrubbed is that the teens were black, if they were white and the man being beaten was black this would be the only thing on the news right now. Milwaukee is the center of racial violence but is rarely reported and now this community is clashing over who is responsible for this tragedy.

A maintenance worker spent two nights in jail after he fatally shot two teens involved in brutally beating him with a baseball bat last Wednesday in the stairwell of the apartment building where he works. Some are outraged over the idea of the man facing possible homicide charges for what they believe was a straightforward act of self-defense, while others are upset over the shooting death of the two teens involved.

The afternoon of the incident in question, the 39-year-old maintenance worker, whose name has not been released, was changing the locks on an apartment in which the resident was being evicted when three suspects happened upon him.

“Apparently, these people were mad that a friend of theirs was getting evicted. They thought — apparently — that he was the manager,” Bob Braun, who lives in the apartment building and is a friend of the maintenance worker, told a local Fox affiliate the day after the incident occurred.

Apparently the trio was so outraged that two of them held the man down while the third began beating him with a baseball bat. It was at that point that the man, who has a valid concealed carry permit, pulled out his legally owned handgun and shot two of the three suspects.

A man who was at a nearby furniture store told reporters that he went inside when he heard the commotion, but when he heard screams he ran to the apartment building where he saw two of the suspects, 17-year-old Anmarie Miller and 19-year-old James Bell Jr., lying in the stairwell. The man said the maintenance worker’s face was covered in blood and he looked confused.

Miller and Bell, who were a couple with two small children, were pronounced dead at the scene. The maintenance worker was transported to a local hospital where he received treatment for the injuries he sustained during the attack. But once released from the hospital, the man was taken to the Milwaukee County Jail where he faced two possible counts of first-degree intentional homicide.

Meanwhile, friends and family of the teens held a vigil Thursday evening outside of the apartment building where they were shot and killed. Not all of those acquainted with the teens are sure of the events which transpired leading up to their deaths.

“He wasn’t a bad kid. It’s just — everybody makes bad decisions in their life. Things don’t go as planned. I wish the outcome would’ve been better,” said Devonte Coleman, a friend of Bell.

This story is going to be re-told about the two teens who were ‘not bad’ parents of two babies who are orphans now. Scrubbed from the story is the cruelty with which these “teens” treated this man leaving out the part that if the man had not defended himself, he might be dead now.