Milwaukee officer-involved incident on State Highway 175

Back now with more of that breaking news there on Highway 175 there. Again, both lanes closed, northbound, southbound. If you're traveling that way or anybody who is, maybe third shift workers, you want to avoid it. Christina Van Zels has been moved not a far distance from where she's been reporting. Tell us where you are. And you have an umbrella on, so that sort of blocks the scene, but we want you to stay dry. You've now moved to the ramp right at 46 and Lloyd. Do we know why you were moved there? Do we know of any presser that's about to happen? No, and that's actually what I wanted to tell you guys. I'll actually step out of the way so you can see where we're at. So we're on the other side of the scene from where we were originally. So this is on the Lloyd ramp in the northbound lanes. Some of those vehicles that you see, I did ask the officer here what those are. They are investigator vehicles as this scene is still very active, but I did also ask. Have we heard of any press conference potentially happening? That's why we came over here. This is the media staging area and the officer who is over here on the ramp where we are has not heard of any press conference happening. We were hoping and this could still change but hoping to potentially hear from Milwaukee police about what happened and what this incident is. Again, we only know at this point that it's a critical incident. We don't know what led up to this. But at this point, we have not had confirmation about a press conference, and the officer who is here next to us has not either. So that's why we moved over here near 46th and Lloyd for the media staging area, hoping to potentially hear. from someone with Milwaukee Police or the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office, but it does not appear that is happening, at least now. That could, of course, change as they get further into this investigation. Tina, we got a press release from the Milwaukee Police Department saying that that media staging area will be at the southeast corner of 46th and Lloyd. Again, that coming right from MPD. So the indication is with the media staging area that they are going to be providing information sooner rather than later. And that was Senate 958. Here we are, just about 35 minutes and change out of that, and still no word. So that could show the amount of details they have to gather. It could be an indicator of many things, but again, we should be hearing something at some point. Yeah, Mary, you would hope. And as you mentioned, still the information they might need to gather. Typically by now we would have heard at least what type of incident this is and what they're investigating. But we still don't have that. We do know that the Milwaukee County medical examiner responded here for one person. So we know one person has died as a result of this investigation. And the 175, the freeway is still closed both directions right now. But As you mentioned, it could still change. The officer here on the scene said that it could be some time before any of this changes with what you're looking at. The command unit is still here. So if we hear of a press conference, of course, I will let you know. But at this point, it does not seem like that's happening at least anytime soon. Okay, so you are standing right where cars would exit out of the northbound lane, correct? Yes. Okay. So you're facing the wrong way to get onto 175. So we want to show video. That this was taken from the DOT camera here of what was happening shortly after that incident. And you're going to see a squad of police vehicles, a couple already, and you're going to see a lot more. And you're going to see traffic on the right-hand lane there. That's the northbound lane. So right at that off-ramp, that's where Christina is standing now. And you're going to see cars that are not law enforcement realize very quickly that something very wrong. He's up ahead in that white car in particular, slowing to practically a crawl. It's a moot point now because both the north and southbound lanes of Highway 175 are closed right now for this investigation as we wait to hear more about what happened. But, Christina, tell us about the witness who came over to you. And it wasn't an eyewitness, more of an ear witness. For those viewers just joining us, tell us what people nearby heard. Right, so I'm actually with the photojournalist who was talking to those residents who described hearing what they believe were gunshots. So we heard from two separate people who described hearing four to five gunshots earlier this evening, and that's coming from a resident who's close to where we are across 175, and then another person who was over on Vliet Street who was FaceTiming with a friend who lives in this area who also said the same thing. Two people who live near this area describe hearing several gunshots at some point tonight. We're still waiting to have that confirmed, if that's related to what this investigation is. But at this point, we just know from the Milwaukee Police Department that this is an officer-involved critical incident. Christina, we know that the north and southbound lanes have been closed, traffic obviously limited. But again, you said that you had talked to a few people in that area. Are they limiting foot traffic? If anybody's coming out wondering what's going on, what do they tell people who may be tempted to poke their head into this? That hasn't really come up, mainly because where this investigation is taking place, there's not places to safely walk. So when we were over on Vliet Street on that overpass, there wasn't a lot of foot traffic. We saw maybe one or two people that were curious as to what happened, one of them being the one on FaceTime with his friend, and then where we're standing at at 46 and Lloyd. I also think it is raining, so there's not a lot of people outside at this point. So that hasn't been something that's come up in terms of foot traffic and keeping people off from the interstate. Gotcha. Okay. I'm sorry, from the freeway. Of course, right. So we have those eyewitnesses, and now we have some video that was given to us by someone nearby who shot what happened, and we have blurred out because we believe that is where the body of the person who was shot is, how they were shot, and by whom, we don't know. But you're going to see that we've blurred it out a little bit. You can see first responders, they're arriving, presumably to give aid, although we can't see that behind the blur, but you have to think that is exactly what is happening behind that blurred oval there. And again, this is another shot of the incident, and there's a still shot from the overpass given to us by a Fox 6 viewer. And we don't know if that pickup truck that you see there, that seems to be going the wrong way or turned around the wrong way on the overpass, State Highway there, 175, if that was the car the person was in or why it was turned that way. That's what we want to know. So many questions about what led up to shots being fired because witnesses say they have heard four or five shots. And we do know that someone is dead. We bring you back now live to the scene at 175 and Valit. Interesting, Ted, you pointed on that last shot, that other car, you know, facing the wrong way, how that could play a role into this investigation as we learn more when we put the pieces together. Christina, you were going to say something? No. Yeah, I was just going to say we did just see two or three investigators leave the scene. That doesn't necessarily mean this is ending anytime soon, but we did just see three vehicles drive off the interstate. And if you're looking at our shot, there's a group of investigators kind of huddled on the side there. But again, we're pushed back so far so our zoom can only get to that's as close as we can get. But you can see some of the crime scene tape and the cones that they had set up as well. But not a lot of urgency here either. So we're at the media staging again. This is... Oh, Ted. Well, I want to ask you because... Do you see any other agencies represented? And here's why that is important. State law says if it's an officer involved shooting in a fatality, then another agency has to come in as quickly as possible to take over that investigation. But we don't know that that's the case. In fact, we don't believe that's the case. We have not been given that term by any of our sources. The term is officer-involved incident, so we know an officer was on the scene So, I'm asking you again, do you see a third police agency that isn't Milwaukee County Sheriff and isn't City of Milwaukee Police? We do not. But again, the vehicles that you see that have all their lights off and look like they're unmarked, I don't know if those are maybe from another police department. It's hard to tell from here. No, we have not seen that, those cars there. Hard to tell because of the, obviously, the conditions and it's so dark. So, you know, presumably some of those saturation of vehicles do contain other agencies right there. Boy, they're at a complete standstill. And you can just imagine by the look of this, that area, those lanes that are closed right now, northbound and southbound lanes are going to remain closed. for a while there as they go ahead and they try to piece things together. Christina, I find it you and I... Mary, can you hold on one second? I think we might be having to move. Hold on, give me one second. We don't have a time frame yet. For a press conference? Will that be for a press conference? Okay, so you guys will be talking at some point tonight? Okay, thank you so much. I don't know if you guys just heard that. Yeah, we certainly did. Go ahead, tell us what you heard. Okay. We are just hearing from the Milwaukee Police Department that they don't have a timeframe set just yet, but that we will be hearing from somebody. There will be a press conference and we are in that spot. Gotcha. Lots to do here. There will be body camera video because there were officers on the scene and Milwaukee Police are required to have body camera video and body cameras on and have them rolling. I know they'll go into the command center there. They have the ability to look at the, they're going to say, give me yours, give me yours, Put it into the command center where they are, and if it's going to be Chief Norman, he likes to gather his lieutenants together. He likes to get the full story before he comes out to meet the press. That's what I was going to ask you, Christina. Have you seen Chief Norman on the scene so far today, tonight? No, but I was just going to ask this gentleman. Will it be the chief talking? The chief talking. Anyone else that we can expect? Okay, thank you. All right, so there you guys just heard it. It will be the chief talking. He's coming here to do that press conference, but we still don't have an exact time on when that will be. Gotcha. So he is not here yet. Right. I do think it's telling that there's not a known agency, clearly, that is not one of the two involved in this jurisdiction, Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office and Milwaukee Police Department. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I just think that gives us a clue that maybe this involves something that officers never fired their weapons. We'll find out soon enough. So let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, but that might appear to be a clue in that direction. Yeah. Again, there could be so many reasons why, but you guys, we've been involved in a number of these situations. Usually we hear something by now from the media staging because they set this up a while ago. Right. And so you kind of wonder what the delay is, not to speculate or, you know, Cast a negative tone on this, but usually there's something because it's been over an hour since they said, hey, we have a media staging area. Well, Chief Norman likes to get to the press as soon as he can, but he also likes to have information before he can do so. So here's what we'll do. We'll take another break. We're not going anywhere until we get this resolved. We hope you don't go anywhere. You're watching Fox 6 News at 10, coverage of breaking news on this election eve.