A multiple-homicide investigation was underway in Milwaukee after police discovered six adults dead inside a home during a welfare check on Sunday afternoon, investigators said.
The apparent murders come on the heels of a record-breaking year for homicides in Milwaukee County, where the medical examiner’s office confirmed in a Dec. 28 tweet that a record 220 killings were investigated in 2021.
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Milwaukee police said officers responded to the home near North 21st Street and West Wright Street around 3:45 p.m., FOX6 Milwaukee reported. Officers entered the home and found five bodies, four male and one female.
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office tweeted early Monday that a sixth body, another adult male, was recovered from the home.
The release of the victims’ identities is pending. Autopsies were scheduled for Monday, the medical examiner said.
No motive or information about any suspects was immediately known, Milwaukee Assistant Police Chief Paul Formolo said during a Sunday evening news conference.
Police Sgt. Efrain Cornejo told Fox News Digital in an email on Monday that the victims' injuries are suspected to have been caused by gunfire and that authorities were continuing to seek "unknown suspects."
Acting Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson released a written statement on Sunday, calling the discovery of multiple murders on a residential block in the heart of the city "horrific."
"It is important not to feel numbed by the ongoing violence in our community," Johnson said. "A horrible crime has again occurred, and it is not a movie or a fictional account. These victims died in our city, in one of our neighborhoods."
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Arnitta Holliman, director of Milwaukee's Office of Violence Prevention, said during the news conference that the community is "tired" of the violence, according to the station.
"We are tired of seeing people's lives snuffed out too soon in preventable situations," Holliman said. "Any of the gun violence we are seeing is preventable, and we cannot continue on the trajectory we have seen the last two years."