Eriberto Valadez Jr., 14, a Hispanic/Latino male from West Milwaukee, was shot on the afternoon of January 12, 2022, after police were called about several suspicious vehicles in the alley behind 3939 West National Avenue. Officers arrived to find two cars in the alley and the teenager wounded inside one of them; he was pulled from the vehicle and rushed to Froedtert Hospital, where he died.
The shooting occurred around 3:15 p.m., and a perimeter was set up as authorities believed someone had fled the scene.
Details later outlined in charging documents describe a chaotic confrontation connected to a stolen Hyundai Elantra earlier that day. According to those accounts, the car’s movements and a meeting in the alley near 39th and National preceded gunfire that struck Eriberto, ending his life before dusk. While early police statements did not announce arrests, the case continued to develop in the months that followed as investigators pieced together how the stolen vehicle and the encounter in the alley converged with the fatal shot.
By May 2023, prosecutors charged three Milwaukee residents in connection with the killing. Gloria N. Hemphill, 27, was charged with first-degree reckless homicide; a complaint also lists party-to-a-crime and weapon-use enhancers. Two others, Byron Colbert, 32, and Ashatia Choice, were charged with harboring or aiding a felon in related cases; Colbert additionally faced a count of physical abuse of a child. Court records and news reports indicate those charges stem from actions taken after the shooting as the investigation unfolded.
