A 16-year-old boy showed up at a Madison hospital with a gunshot wound Thursday evening, and what police learned afterward points to a troubling backstory: the teen had reportedly been living alone for the past month after his mother moved out of state. Madison police are calling it an apparent accidental shooting that happened in the 5900 block of Milwaukee Street on Madison’s East Side.
According to official Madison Police Department incident records reported by the City of Madison, officers responded to the hospital at 5:25 p.m. on October 1 under case number 2026-450643 for a weapons violation. An 18-year-old woman who was with the teen reportedly indicated the shooting was accidental, according to Channel 3000. Police classified the hospital response as an active weapons violation investigation, and that investigation remains ongoing.
Per the station’s reporting, the teen had been left alone for the past month after his mother left to live out of state, and nobody was checking on his condition during that time. Child Protective Services was alerted about the situation, and the teen was placed in the care of family members, the outlet reported.
A Block With a Painful History
The 5900 block of Milwaukee Street carries weight for longtime East Side residents. The Wisconsin State Journal reported that the same stretch was the site of a fatal shooting in October 2023 outside the Harmony Apartments, where 15-year-old Kyesha Miller was killed and three other teenagers were wounded. Court testimony in that case revealed dozens of shots were fired during the drive-by incident, the paper noted…