The father of one of two teenagers shot by a Milwaukee police officer on Interstate 43 last week expressed a complex mixture of emotions about the incident in an interview over the weekend.
Bewilderment as to why an officer shot multiple rounds into an SUV full of teenagers in a busy construction zone. Frustration with statements by Milwaukee’s police chief blaming the teens’ parents. Helplessness over the situation, after struggling to figure out how to help his son, who he says has been involved in stealing cars for a few years.
Calveyon A. Jeans and his girlfriend, Ashley Z. Patterson, were shot and injured last Thursday in a construction lane on I-43, after a police pursuit of the SUV driven by Jeans ended when their path was blocked by a cement truck. Patterson was six months pregnant, Jean’s mother told the Journal Sentinel. The pregnancy ended due to injuries she suffered in the police shooting.
A 25-year-old Milwaukee police officer shot the teens after the SUV backed into a squad car, drove forward and then reversed again, while an officer was behind the vehicle, according to police.
Police say the SUV was used during an attempted carjacking and an armed carjacking of other vehicles earlier that day downtown.
Four of the six teenagers in the SUV, ages 15 to 18, now face criminal charges in Milwaukee County Circuit Court stemming from the carjackings and from the police chase. Jeans, 17, was charged Tuesday with nine felonies, including attempted armed robbery, armed robbery and fleeing an officer while operating a motor vehicle. Jeans was charged as a party to the crime for each of the robbery charges, as he is not accused of directly committing the robberies but aiding in them.
An investigation into the police shooting remains ongoing.
Jeans has been involved with groups that steal cars, has been implicated in other carjackings and has been in and out of children’s court in recent years, his father, Calvin Jeans, told the Journal Sentinel on Saturday. Calvin said he noticed his son starting to get in trouble with law enforcement in 2020, after Calveyon’s stepfather was shot and killed in a homicide.
Calvin has tried to help his son, he said, even resorting to turning him in to the police, but he expressed being at a loss for how to help him change his behavior.
“I have went against the code of the street trying to get my son apprehended and put into safety, just knowing how these situations escalate and they go from one day, they’re putting handcuffs on him, (and) you’re going to get him out of the district. One day, you’re picking him up from the detention center,” Calvin said. “Now it’s like I may even be forced to pick him up from the morgue.”
Though he doesn’t blame the legal system, Calvin said his son often was given a “slap on the wrist” that didn’t help him change his behavior. He disputed the police chief’s words at a press conference last week, calling on parents to keep their children in check.
“We are parents who have called the police, who have turned our child in,” Calvin said. “This is going on over a three-year period and going back and forth with the children’s courts and going back and forth with investigators and y’all telling us that y’all can’t keep him, y’all got to release him after he’s done a carjacking.”
Both Calvin and Calveyon’s mother have been trying to stress to their son that his actions have consequences, they said. But as parents of an older teen, they say they can only do so much.
“It’s kids coming from good homes, and here they’re making bad choices,” mother Nakia Moore said. “Do you think that not every day I’m not telling my son what’s right and what’s wrong? I am, I am. All I can do is pray that he follow what I’m saying. … You can only discipline them to a certain extent.”
Both parents said they felt like their son was starting to understand and take steps in a better direction in recent months. He was looking forward to becoming a father, Calvin said, and wanted to “get his life on track” for when the baby arrived.
That’s all changed now.
Moore said her main concern now is making sure her son gets the proper medical treatment while in jail, awaiting the outcome of his charges. Calveyon was shot in the hand, the wrist and the jaw, his father said.
Calveyon already suffers from some paralysis in one of his legs from a vehicle accident he was involved in two years ago, his father said. He also is dealing with the consequences of what happened, including the loss of his child, his mother said.
“It’s very traumatic,” Moore said. “He’s broken down about it. … He’s very emotional and he’s in severe pain.”
Calveyon’s parents also have questions about what happened leading up to the police chase and the shooting.
Moore wonders whether the officer could have taken steps other than deadly force.
“If it’s justifiable, then tell me how,” she said. “Was that excessiveness really necessary? I just want it to be investigated the right way and for questions to be answered and for it to make sense.”
The Milwaukee Police Department’s use of force policy addresses discharging firearms at moving vehicles. Officers are prohibited from firing at moving vehicles “unless deadly physical force is being used against the police member or another person by means other than a moving vehicle,” and that the “risks are outweighed by the need to use deadly force.”
The questions come as the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression has called on Milwaukee police to release video footage of the shooting and the moments leading up to it.
“Who’s to say whether anyone is ever going to see this footage, whether the families are ever going to get a reliable narrative,” said Aurelia Ceja, co-chair of the group.
The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission approved a new policy in April that would require police to release footage from “critical incidents” within 15 days. However, a Milwaukee County judge temporarily blocked the policy from taking effect. Instead, police operate under a department goal to release the footage within 45 days.
Ceja questioned the decision by the officer to open fire, calling it dangerous.
“What is their justification for pulling a gun in this situation?” she said. “It does not feel like an appropriate response. It does not seem like anyone else in this situation had a firearm drawn at all.”
In the complaint filed against Jeans, police allege he was driving recklessly during the police pursuit, forcing vehicles off the road and almost hitting a pedestrian. The complaint alleges Jeans sideswiped a vehicle on the highway, passed vehicles on the shoulder and reached speeds up to 80 miles per hour before driving into the construction lane, where the chase later ended at the cement truck, with police drawing their firearms and ordering people out of the SUV.
Patterson, the pregnant woman who was shot, was still in the hospital Tuesday, said West Allis Deputy Police Chief Robert Fletcher in an email. He did not give an update on her condition, but she suffered life-threatening injuries as a result of the shooting.
Patterson, who turns 19 on Thursday, also faces two felony charges and a misdemeanor in connection to last Thursday’s carjackings. She is not accused of directly carrying out the crimes but rather of being a party to the crimes.
The officer who fired shots was placed on administrative duty, per department policy. The West Allis Police Department is the lead agency in the investigation. Fletcher said the police department would not release the name of the officer until after the case was completed.
Calvin said he blames his son for the current situation, but he also blames the officer who fired on him and his son’s girlfriend.
“This is a police officer with no regard for human life,” he said, pointing also to the construction workers nearby. “It could have been more deadly than we even got.”
Where to find help
Milwaukee’s Office of Community Wellness and Safety recommends these resources for free support:
414Life outreach and conflict mediation support: 414-439-5525.
Milwaukee County’s 24-Hour Mental Health Crisis Line: 414-257-7222.
Milwaukee’s Child Mobile Crisis and Trauma Response Team: 414-257-7621.
National crisis text line: Text HOPELINE to 741741 to text with a trained crisis counselor.
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-8255.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Parents of Milwaukee teen in I-43 police shooting, chase tried to help
