Jamar Gordon, a 51-year-old Black/African American man from Milwaukee, was killed in a shooting on the evening of May 31, 2023. Gordon’s obituary confirms that he died that day in Milwaukee, while contemporaneous news reports described the victim as a 51-year-old Milwaukee man. The shooting occurred at approximately 7:15 to 7:17 p.m. near North 46th Street and West Melvina Street, an area also described in initial reporting as near Melvina and Howie.
Milwaukee police were alerted to gunfire through a ShotSpotter activation. Gordon was taken to a hospital with multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead from his injuries.
At first, investigators had no one in custody and publicly described the gunman as an unknown suspect. As detectives reconstructed what happened, they learned that Gordon had been in the neighborhood with another person immediately before the shooting. According to the criminal complaint later summarized by FOX6, the person who brought the victim to St. Joseph’s Hospital told investigators that Gordon had been arguing with someone near 46th and Melvina. The witness recalled Gordon angrily calling for a man named “Stan” to come outside. Gunfire followed shortly afterward, and when the witness realized Gordon had been shot, he drove him directly to the hospital.
The investigation soon focused on Stanley Blalock, then 61. Another witness described the shooter as a bald man wearing pajama pants and later identified Blalock during a live lineup. Detectives recovered four 9mm cartridge casings from an alley in the area of the shooting. Neighbors also told investigators that a van parked nearby belonged to Blalock, who had recently been staying in the neighborhood. Surveillance footage recorded around the time of the gunfire showed a bald man wearing pajama pants moving quickly along Melvina Street before entering a white SUV and driving away. Prosecutors said Blalock’s brother was shown images from that footage and identified the man as Blalock.
When questioned, Blalock acknowledged that he was the man seen in the surveillance footage wearing pajama pants, but he denied shooting anyone. According to the criminal complaint, prosecutors said his account changed several times when he was asked where he had been and what he had been doing around the time Gordon was shot. Authorities also alleged that Blalock was legally prohibited from possessing a firearm because of a prior felony conviction for operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent. Those witness identifications, the surveillance evidence, the recovered shell casings and Blalock’s statements became central pieces of the case against him.
Blalock was taken into custody and formally charged in connection with the killing. Prosecutors charged him with one count of first-degree intentional homicide and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon. He appeared in court on June 7, 2023, and a judge set cash bond at $100,000. The charges represented a significant change from the immediate aftermath of Gordon’s death, when police had reported that no arrests had been made and investigators were still searching for an unidentified suspect.
The available online reporting located for the case establishes Blalock as the charged suspect but does not document a subsequent trial verdict, conviction, acquittal or sentencing outcome. The publicly reported case therefore progressed from an initially unidentified gunman to the arrest and prosecution of Stanley Blalock on intentional-homicide and firearm charges, with the prosecution’s allegations relying heavily on eyewitness identification, surveillance footage and evidence recovered from the shooting scene.
