Earl C. Hubanks Jr., a 34-year-old Black man, was killed during a burst of violence in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the early morning hours of August 13, 2016. Hubanks was outside All Stars Sports Bar and Grill at 4001 W. Fond du Lac Avenue when an altercation associated with the tavern spilled into the parking lot. Milwaukee police were called to the area at approximately 2:30 to 3:00 a.m., where what had begun as a fight had escalated into gunfire.
Hubanks was not the only person
struck. Shomaray D. Jackson was also fatally shot, while a woman and another man were wounded. Police said the surviving victims were hospitalized in stable condition. The incident therefore left four people shot in a single confrontation, two of them dead, making it one of the most serious episodes during an exceptionally violent weekend in Milwaukee in which several unrelated homicides occurred across the city.
In the days after the killing, Hubanks's sister, Ebony, provided a different perspective on how her brother became caught in the violence. She believed Hubanks was not actually involved in the argument that led to the shooting and had instead been caught in circumstances surrounding a dispute involving other people. Her account portrayed him as someone who became an unintended victim of a confrontation that rapidly turned deadly outside the bar.
The aftermath placed an additional burden on Hubanks's family. News coverage approximately ten days after his death reported that his relatives were struggling to raise enough money for his funeral because he did not have life insurance. His sister spoke publicly about the possibility that the funeral could be delayed if the family could not obtain the remaining money needed for the services, adding another layer of hardship to the sudden loss caused by the shooting.
Milwaukee police initially reported that no suspects were in custody in connection with the shooting. Contemporary reports did not identify a suspected gunman or publicly name anyone believed responsible for firing the shots that killed Hubanks and Jackson. Although investigators treated the deaths as homicides and examined the circumstances surrounding the parking-lot altercation, the publicly available reporting located on the case does not document an arrest, criminal charge, trial, or conviction for Hubanks's killing.
Hubanks's death ultimately remained tied to an unresolved confrontation outside All Stars Sports Bar: a fight that erupted into gunfire, two people killed, two others wounded, and no publicly identified offender brought before a court in the available reports. His family's account that he was merely caught up in an argument that was not his own makes the circumstances particularly tragic, leaving the central question of who fired the fatal shots—and who was legally responsible for his death—without a publicly reported resolution.
