Last month, a 17-year-old was arrested for murdering a 12-year-old at a birthday party in Milwaukee.
Police say Lawrence Griffin, 17, tried to take designer glasses from twelve-year-old Ronnell Smith. When Smith ran away, Griffin chased Smith and shot him to death. Another 17-year-old victim was also injured by gunfire. The birthday party was for a 17-year-old girl and was being held in a private room at a Milwaukee bar.
It has now been revealed that the suspect has a massive criminal record despite his young age.
Lawrence Griffin has four adult convictions, including felonies, six adult read-in convictions, and six juvenile adjudications.
In the context of Wisconsin criminal law, a read-in conviction occurs when a defendant accepts a plea agreement and pleads guilty to one offense, but the court considers other related offenses that the defendant is not formally convicted of during sentencing. This means that while the defendant is not technically convicted of the other offenses, the court takes them into account when determining the sentence for the offense the defendant did plead guilty to.
Juvenile adjudications are an alternative to a formal convictions. They can still result in juvenile detention.
Not only does his criminal record show that he was a known monster and a known threat to the community, but it also shows he was being coddled by the system and not held responsible for his crimes. Most charges were essentially dropped through plea bargains or adjudicated because he was a minor.
Despite all this, he was on felony probation instead of being locked up. No matter how much crime he committed, they just released him over and over and over.
With a judicial system like this, it is easy to see why Milwaukee is spinning out of control. The city keeps setting new records for the highest homicide rate in the city’s history.
Milwaukee Homicides:
1991: 165 (623k, 26.5 per 100k) former record for highest homicide rate
2019: 97 (591k, 16.4 per 100k) four year low
2020: 190 (577k, 32.9 per 100k) new record for highest homicide rate
2021: 193 (569k, 33.9 per 100k) new record for highest homicide rate
2022: 214 (569k, 37.6 per 100k) new record for highest homicide rate
Milwaukee’s percentage of state-wide homicides:
2019: 52.4%
2020: 61.7%
2021: 61.3%
Based on data sent to the FBI by the Milwaukee police department:
2021: 92.1% of known suspects were Black
2020: 78.1% of known suspects were Black
2019: 84.3% of known suspects were Black
The Black population of Milwaukee is less than 4% of the total population of the state of Wisconsin, but committed over half of all murders in the state in 2021.
Statewide, 68% of all homicide arrests in Wisconsin were Black in 2021. Statewide, the Blacks make up about 7% of the state.
