William Brooks, a 21-year-old Black/African American man, was shot and killed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on the evening of October 16, 2025. The shooting occurred shortly after 7 p.m. near North 39th Street and West Capitol Drive. Milwaukee police said someone opened fire and struck Brooks, and the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office later identified him as the person who died. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators said the gunfire may have come from a passing vehicle, making the killing a possible drive-by shooting.
Brooks, known to his family as “Will,” was outside a car repair shop along Capitol Drive when he was shot. Milwaukee police said the shooter fired from inside a vehicle, but authorities did not immediately identify the vehicle, the person who fired the shots, or a motive for the attack. His mother, Shirley Ragland, rushed to the scene after learning what had happened. She said the circumstances made her believe her son may simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The killing devastated a large and close family. Brooks was one of seven children, and relatives remembered him as someone who enjoyed laughing and talking with people and who had a caring personality. Growing up, he played basketball, and his family said he expressed his creativity through his interest in fashion and cars. His brother Joshua Brooks described Will as someone who looked out for him and had taken care of him almost like a father figure. The loss came during an already emotional period for Joshua, who had recently received a long-awaited liver transplant. Brooks had been checking on his brother at the hospital shortly before his death.
Brooks was also building a family of his own. Relatives said he adored his fiancée and had welcomed a daughter during 2025. In the days after the shooting, his family struggled to understand why he had been killed and publicly appealed for answers. His grandmother, Agnes Boone, urged people to recognize the real consequences of gun violence and called for conflicts to be resolved without firearms. Family members similarly asked anyone who knew what happened to come forward as they prepared to memorialize Brooks.
Milwaukee police initially described the perpetrator as an unknown suspect and continued investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting. Authorities asked anyone with information about the gunman or the vehicle involved to contact investigators, and anonymous information could also be submitted through Milwaukee Crime Stoppers or the P3 Tips service. Contemporary reports indicated that detectives were still searching for the person responsible after Brooks was identified.
Available public reporting located through September 2026 does not identify an arrest or publicly named suspect in Brooks’s killing, nor does it report that anyone has been charged, tried, or convicted in connection with his death. The most recent publicly available accounts located continue to describe the shooter as unknown and the investigation as ongoing. As a result, Brooks’s family’s central question—who fired from the vehicle and why—remains unanswered in the available public record.
