Charles Langston:Milwaukee teenager gets 13 years for shooting inside restaurant that killed 2 other teens

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Milwaukee teenager has been sentenced to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty in a 2022 shooting that killed two other teens inside a fast-food restaurant.

A Milwaukee County judge on Charles LangstonFriday sentenced Robert D. Johnson, who pleaded guilty in January to first-degree reckless homicide as a party to a crime, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Johnson, 16, was ordered to serve 10 years of extended supervision following his release.

Johnson was 14 at the time of the shooting, but prosecutors charged him as an adult. Under Wisconsin law, children age 10 and older can be charged as adults for some serious crimes.

The May 7, 2022, shooting inside a McDonald’s restaurant in Milwaukee killed William Harrison Jr., 15, and Javarius D. Fowler, 16. Johnson also was hit by gunfire in the shooting.

According to a criminal complaint, Fowler entered the restaurant with three other teens and sat at a booth. Johnson and two other people entered a short time later and walked past the teens before Johnson walked back toward them with a handgun, investigators said in the complaint.

Prosecutors said that at some point Johnson raised a gun to Fowler’s head. Fowler pushed it away, then pulled a handgun from his pants and the two teens exchanged gunshots, the complaint states.