Man Killed in Tavern Shooting

Two Milwaukee men had just been kicked out of a local tavern when a stranger approached their Honda Civic in a parking lot and started shooting while shouting at them to back up, according to accounts in a criminal complaint.

However, the shooter says they threatened him first.

Whichever was true, the melee left one man dead and another seriously injured after the car was riddled with bullets.

Police officers responded to a parking lot behind Mamie’s Tavern on 33^rd and National Avenue shortly before 12:30 a.m. on May 9, 2010. Neighbors reported hearing as many as six gunshots and seeing a car drive away afterwards.

One officer found Jered J. Corn on the ground with a gunshot wound to the neck. Another officer found the second victim, 30-year-old Danny J. John, lying on the sidewalk with four gunshot wounds, according to court records.

John was transported to Froedtert Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Corn was also sent to Froedtert for emergency surgery, now paralyzed from the chest down. Corn identified John as his uncle and told investigators the two had been drinking at different bars. According to the criminal complaint, Corn and John were leaving Mamie’s Tavern to go to a friend’s house when Jesus C. Gonzales pointed a gun at him in the back parking lot.

Corn was following the gunman’s instructions to “back up” when he was shot in the neck and saw John drive away at a high rate of speed. Corn told detectives he had no altercations in the bar, nor did he threaten Gonzalez prior to the shooting. Corn identified Gonzalez as the shooter based on photos shown to him by police.

Immediately after the shooting, Gonzalez called the police himself from a home near the bar. He told dispatch that two men had assaulted him while he was trying to move his car, and that he shot at the other vehicle and was not sure if he had hit anyone.

Detectives found John’s Honda Civic riddles with bullets and shattered glass. There was blood in the seats and a trail of blood outside the car that lead to John’s clothes.

Gonzalez did not say how the two men had assaulted him. A patron in the bar told authorities that John and Corn were kicked out of the tavern about 10 minutes before the shooting. John’s cousin Brenda Mauel, told detectives she spoke to John on the phone around the time of the altercation, according to the records.

She said everything sounded normal until she heard John say “What did you do that for?” followed by “Get off my windows.” She wasn’t sure who John was speaking to and when she asked, she did not get an answer. She then heard muffled voiced and rumbling, then the line went dead.