Milwaukee fatal road rage shooting, woman criminally charged
MILWAUKEE - The woman accused of shooting and killing a Milwaukee mother during a road rage incident Monday is now charged.
Milwaukee County prosecutors charged Mariah Ruiz, 18, with first-degree reckless homicide by use of a dangerous weapon for the shooting death of 44-year-old Minerva Hernandez-Lopez near 10th and Lapham.
Mariah Ruiz
Road rage shooting
What we know:
Shortly after 3 p.m. Monday, court filings said Ruiz cut off Hernandez-Lopez while she and another person in the car were headed to a grocery store.
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Milwaukee road rage shooting, mother dead; 18-year-old in custody
We are learning more about the woman police say was shot and killed during a road rage incident on Monday.
The witness told police Hernandez-Lopez yelled at Ruiz, which Ruiz said happened in Spanish. The witness said Ruiz replied, yelling, "[Expletive]! I'll call immigration on you," while flashing a gun.
A short time later, court filings said the two continued following each other's cars before Hernandez-Lopez "brake-checked" Ruiz's car, causing contact.
When Hernandez-Lopez pulled a U-turn to drive away, on Lapham, police said Ruiz shot at Hernandez-Lopez's car, hitting her in the neck. The witness told police she saw Hernandez-Lopez get hit and assumed she had died.
Police said they recovered a gun from the vehicle that brought Ruiz to Milwaukee Police District 2 when she turned herself in. The ballistics on that gun matched the casings recovered from the scene.
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Additionally, when officers received permission to search Ruiz's car, they said they found four additional shell casings with matching ballistics.
According to court filings, Ruiz wrote an apology letter to Hernandez-Lopez's family, in which she said she'd been having a bad day and had fought with her mother.
Ruiz has not yet made her initial appearance in court.
The Source: Information in this story was gathered from a criminal complaint, prosecutors, a witness, and court filings.