Milwaukee has the second-highest rate of school-adjacent shootings among major U.S. cities, trailing only Baltimore and ranking ahead of Chicago. This is a ranking no community ever wants to hold.
In August, TMJ4, in partnership with The Trace, a non-profit newsroom focused on gun violence. They revealed that more than 4,100 shootings occurred within 500 yards of Milwaukee-area schools between 2017 and 2025. The Trace defines the radius as roughly four city blocks, a distance where gunfire is clearly audible inside classrooms.
The data covers gunfire in neighborhoods where children live, walk, and learn, highlighting how gun violence affects students outside the classroom. This includes public, private, and charter schools.
These incidents are not school shootings. Instead, they are shootings that happen near schools, in the neighborhoods where students live.
Milwaukee College Preparatory School on 36th Street, between Wright Street and Meinecke Avenue, in the Metcalfe Park neighborhood, according to data analyzed by The Trace, experienced more nearby shootings than any other school in Milwaukee.
Kids in Metcalfe Park, Sherman Park, Clarke Square, and beyond are learning the sound of gunshots before they learn multiplication tables. Families describe teaching their children how to duck, run, and hide. A four‑year‑old knowing the difference between fireworks and gunfire is not “resilience.” It’s a trauma.
“Once a bullet is fired, it has a ripple effect throughout the community. Not just on the people that are acutely injured, but even the people who hear it” Reggie Moore said.
Reggie Moore is the Director of Community Safety Policy and Engagement at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He was formerly the Director of Violence Prevention for the city of Milwaukee.”
“Being at the top of that list is not a list we want to be on,” MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius said. ‘We want that number to be zero, so that children feel safe coming to and from school.”
Whether you live, work, or play here, we all have a responsibility in this work, and that it is to our benefit…to make sure that we are really protecting not only our community, but our most precious commodity, our youth,” Police Chief Jeffrey Norman added.
This investigation shows what many Milwaukee families already know. Gun violencedoesn’tt just happen”“somewhere else”” It happens on the walk to school, outside the playground, near the bus stop, in the neighborhoods children call home.
School‑adjacent shootings shape how kids grow up, how they move, how they think, how they feel in their own community.
This issuedidn’tt happen suddenly. It happened because Milwaukee’s neighborhoods have been absorbing violence for years while leadership offered statements instead of solutions, task forces instead of action, and press conferences instead of protection. Mayor Cavalier Johnson and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley have yet to offer remedies to this issue. Their silence on school-adjacent shootings is unacceptable.
When gunfire becomes background noise, childhood becomes collateral damage. Kids walk past crime scenes on their way to school. Teachers try to keep classrooms calm while sirens scream outside. Parents pray their children make it home safely. Neighborhoods lose their sense of safety, block by block.
This is not normal. This is not acceptable. And this is not something Milwaukee can afford to ignore. This ranking should be a turning point. A wake‑up call. A line in the sand.
Milwaukee’s youth are our most precious resource. And they are living in danger every single day. The question is no longer”“How did we get here”” The question is”“What will Milwaukee do now””
Because the people of Milwaukee, especially its children, have every right to demand safety, accountability, and a future where gunfire is not part of growing up.
