A Milwaukee woman is facing felony charges after police say she shot at several teens breaking into cars, killing one.
That boy has been identified by the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's office as 14-year-old Alijah Golden-Richmond.
Police say Zariah Johnson, 22, fired her mother's gun while driving and looking for the people she believed were smashing car windows.
According to the criminal complaint, Golden-Richmond and a friend wanted to steal a car, and smashed the window of one parked near the 37th Street School. That friend told police he and Golden-Richmond were spotted by a woman in her car, and they tried to hide from her. The friend says she shot into the air and then "in their direction and hit dirt by his feet."
Watch: Milwaukee woman charged, police say she shot and killed teen breaking into cars:
Both boys ran from the gunfire and the friend says he later returned to the area to check on Golden-Richmond, who had been taken to the hospital. He was pronounced dead there. Neither boy was armed.
The driver and shooter was later identified as Johnson, who admitted to police that she wanted to "scare" the teens. At first, she told police a man named "Neff" was the shooter, but after Johnson's own mother named her as the suspect, Johnson changed her story.
Johnson told police she was inside her home when her sister alerted her to the car break ins. Johnson told police she grabbed her mother's gun and began driving around looking for Golden-Richmond and his friend, claiming that there was a group of four boys.
Johnson says she fired the gun four times, until it jammed. She told officers she didn't actually see anyone get hit. Once she got home, Johnson says she saw a Facebook Live stream showing someone in the street nearby that had been "shot in the back and was dead." The criminal complaint says Johnson "then realized that this was the area she had fired shots and that she likely is the person who killed him."
Johnson told officers she threw the gun away into a trash can — MPD was not able to find it. She also tried to hide the car she was driving at her brother's house, who told her "he did not want to be involved in this matter."
Johnson told police "she was only trying to scare the people so they did not come back."
Read the full criminal complaint below.
Criminal Complaint for Zariah Johnson by TMJ4 News on Scribd
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