Milwaukee shooting: Pregnant woman wounded, man charged

MILWAUKEE - A Milwaukee man is charged in connection to an August shooting that wounded a pregnant woman. Her unborn child died.

Charges filed

In court:

The Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office charged 28-year-old Terrance Houston with first-degree reckless injury and two gun possession felonies. He's being held in the Milwaukee County Jail on $75,000 cash bond.

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Houston had a court appearance Thursday for what was supposed to be a preliminary hearing, but court records show the Wisconsin State Public Defenders Office had not yet appointed him an attorney. He's due back in court next month.

23rd and Michigan

What we know:

Milwaukee police said the shooting happened near 23rd and Michigan just after midnight on Aug. 21.

According to a criminal complaint, officers arrived and found the 19-year-old victim with a gunshot wound. The victim's boyfriend, who was the father of the unborn child, was applying pressure to the victim's gunshot wound.

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While on the way to a hospital, court filings said the victim told an officer she was 7 months pregnant. She said she "heard yelling" and went outside to make sure her boyfriend was OK when someone shot a gun, and she was hit in the abdomen. 

What we don't know:

A final autopsy report on the unborn child's cause of death is pending as of Aug. 31.

Fight before gunfire

What they're saying:

Prosecutors said the victim's boyfriend told police a friend had been "assaulted," so he and others met at the friend's apartment. They went outside and saw the eventual shooter, later identified as Houston, and heard him yell, "I will shoot everyone over there," before gunshots rang out. The boyfriend said everyone ran back toward the apartment, and Houston chased them while continuing to threaten to shoot them. 

The complaint said police also interviewed that friend and his girlfriend, who said they got into an argument with Houston and others prior to the shooting. During that argument, court filings said the friend and Houston got into a fight, and the girlfriend was pepper-sprayed. They both said they saw Houston with a gun, which he fired at the ground before firing more shots and running after them.

In custody

Dig deeper:

Police arrested Houston at an apartment near Sherman and Hampton days later. The complaint said officers found a gun in the apartment, which Houston later admitted was the gun he fired near 23rd and Michigan.

Houston told police there was a fight between groups of people that "was eventually broken up," according to court filings, but the group he was fighting later returned – and one of the people had a "large rifle." Houston said he grabbed his sister's gun and fired at the ground to "scare them away" before he chased them with the gun. He believed a bullet may have "skipped or ricocheted off the ground" and hit the victim.