Wisconsin man accused of killing son over cleaning his room

MILWAUKEE, Wisc. (WITI/CNN) – A father is accused of killing his own son, stemming from an argument about cleaning his room.

The shooting sent shockwaves through a neighborhood when it happened Saturday.

Thursday, the dad appeared in court. 47-year-old Randell Wright came to court as a father dealing with the death of his son—because he shot him.

As he told officers Saturday, “I lost my son on some bull (expletive) that shouldn’t have even went down.”

But it did go down. At the apartment he shared with his son, Jakari Wright, at 37th and Oklahoma.

Wright told officers the two got into an argument after he told his son to “clean up his room, keep things together.” Later, stating that he brought the gun into his son’s room because “he thought the gun would help Jakari back down”.’

Defense attorney Christian Thomas said, “We’re dealing with a man who himself is dealing with the tragic loss of his son which by all accounts was accidental. A son who he was trying to get control of, trying to keep from running around on the streets and trying to get to behave.”

Wright told officers in the scuffle, Jakari “grabbed him by his shirt and then by his hair”. To avoid Jakari grabbing the firearm, Wright said he pushed Jakari while stepping back onto something, and losing his balance. This caused the “gun to accidentally go off”.

The judge said during Wright’s hearing, “But there was a decision of volition to introduce a weapon to try to get a young person’s attention.”

Prosecutors say there are conflicts with Wright’s account of what happened based on the fact that the victim was shot in the back of the head.

Those findings, it says, are “more consistent with wright shooting the Jakari ‘after the victim has turned his body on the defendant.’”

Cash bond for wright was set at $50,000. Wright faces a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison if convicted. He’s due back in court a week from Thursday.

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