WI Girl Who Wrote Award Winning Essay On Gun Violence Shot Dead In Milwaukee Home

MILWAUKEE, WI. (THECOUNT) — Sandra Parks has been identified as the teenager killed in her home by gunfire that originated from outside her Milwaukee residence Monday.

Parks, 13, had taken third place just two years earlier in a citywide competition with an essay that focused on “senseless gun violence,” reports the Journal Sentinel.

Sandra wrote of seeing “examples of chaos almost every day” and lamented “little children” who were victims of “senseless gun violence,” in her award winning essay commemorating the life of Martin Luther King.

Isaac Barnes, 26, was arrested and accused of firing the fatal shots into Parks’ Milwaukee living room.

Police now say the suspect may have been planning to shoot his ex-girlfriend, according to complaint filed Wednesday.

According to the complaint, Isaac Barnes’ ex-girlfriend said Barnes approached her wearing a black mask and “holding a large AK-47 style firearm.” He told her, “I was going to fan you down,” but didn’t because she had her kids in her parked car. She was visiting her sister at a home Monday night near where Sandra Parks lived. It wasn’t clear from the criminal complaint whether Parks had already been shot by then. source

Barnes faces charges of first-degree reckless homicide, discharging a gun into a building, and possession of a firearm by a felon. The reckless homicide charge is punishable by up to 60 years in prison.

Anyone with possible information on the tragic incident should contact police at 911 immediately.