Investigating the International Trail of the Gun That Killed Sandra Parks

– Long-tailed: Milwaukee sister city gun that killed Sandra Parks
– Similar: Gun used in Sandra Parks’ death from Milwaukee sister city.

Accident – death – Obituary News : When I first learned about the fatal shooting of 13-year-old Sandra Parks in 2018, one of the most urgent questions I had was about the origin of the AK-47 style weapon that ended the Milwaukee eighth-grader’s life. More specifically, I wanted to know how the weapon got into the hands of a convicted felon who used it in a vendetta to recklessly fire six shots into Sandra’s home on N. 13th St., where one of the bullets shattered her bedroom window and struck her in the upper body.

Those questions were all the more pressing given the fact that Sandra’s killing had made headlines around the world. This was due to the fact that two years prior to being fatally shot, Sandra had written an award-winning essay in which she decried the very gun violence that ultimately claimed her life. “In the city in which I live, I hear and see examples of chaos almost every day,” Sandra stated in her essay, which won third place in Milwaukee’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. writing contest. “Little children are victims of senseless gun violence.”

After months of haggling, Milwaukee police finally released records showing that the gun used to kill Sandra Parks was made nearly 5,000 miles away by a military weapons manufacturer in Kragujevac, Serbia. Just as Sandra’s story had global appeal, my investigation found that the story of the gun that was used in her slaying was international as well. I was reminded of this fact recently when I read that Milwaukee leaders are set to formalize a “sister city” relationship with Kragujavec, Serbia.

The ceremony is scheduled to take place at 11:30 a.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, Jan. 26 in the Common Council Chambers at Milwaukee’s City Hall. As an investigative reporter with a keen interest in gun trace data and an abiding affinity for my native Milwaukee, the city’s pending sister city relationship with Kragujavec struck me as a prime opportunity to revisit what I found out about the origin of the gun used in Sandra’s tragic death. Somehow I thought Milwaukee’s elected officials – who profess to want to make the city “safer and safer” – would be interested in discussing potential policies and strategies to prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future. I was sadly mistaken.

Mayor Cavalier Johnson – through a spokesman – cast aspersions on my inquiry into whether his administration would use its new sister city relationship with Kragujavec to explore ways to stem the flow of assault-style weapons from Serbia onto the streets of Milwaukee, even though federal data show Serbia exported nearly 47,000 guns to the U.S. in 2020 alone. “It is invidious disparagement to link the Milwaukee and Kragujevac sister city relationship with the criminal abuse of automatic weapons from a Serbian military arms manufacturer,” a spokesman for the mayor told me in a statement. “Weapons like those manufactured by Zastava Arms have been used to commit horrific crimes in this country including the death of Sandra Parks here in Milwaukee more than five years ago,” the spokesman said. “Would Milwaukee be safer if criminals did not possess automatic weapons? Of course. Would chastising the leaders of a sister city make us safer? No.”

To be clear, I never suggested that anyone from Milwaukee “chastise” anyone from Kragujavec. I simply asked the mayor: “Since fighting gun violence is one of Milwaukee’s top priorities, what, if any, role do you envision or would you welcome for Kragujevac’s municipal government and Zastava’s corporate leadership in aiding Milwaukee as their ‘sister city’ in this cause?” I also asked Mayor Johnson if he was going to ask Zastava and Kragujevac city leaders for information on how many of Zastava’s weapons have contributed to the carnage we see in Milwaukee. “Are you interested in knowing and do you care?” I asked. After all, if Milwaukee and Kragujavec are gonna be “sisters,” they ought to be able to have those kinds of difficult “family” discussions.

Mayor Johnson isn’t the only one who expressed zero interest in talking to Kragujavec officials about ways to stop Serbian weapons from being used to wreak havoc in U.S. cities. Alderpersons Russell Stamper, Jr. and Marina Dimitrijevic – co-chairs of Milwaukee’s sister cities committee – both ignored my repeated requests for comment, which I made via email, phone calls and text messages. Kragujevac Mayor Nikola Daŝić from Kragujevac also did not respond to an email request for comment. Ald. Stamper’s silence is particularly disquieting given the fact that the home where Sandra was killed is located within his aldermanic district, which he represented at the time of her death. What’s more, Ald. Stamper’s biography states that he “mentors many youth in the city of Milwaukee” and is “committed to cultivating opportunities that will improve the quality of life for young people.” Stamper also seeks to distinguish himself from his Common Council colleagues by styling himself as a politician who represents those who’ve been shut out of equal opportunity. You’d expect a little more than silence.

How the gun that was used to kill Sandra Parks ended up in the hands of her killer is anyone’s guess. When I first filed an open records request for the trace report on the gun, the Milwaukee Police Department denied it, saying the report had been provided “confidentially” by the ATF. Any “unauthorized redisclosure” of the trace report, the police department told me, would impair the department’s “future ability to obtain firearms trace information from ATF.” They also told me it would “significantly impair other cooperative law enforcement efforts between MPD and ATF.” I didn’t accept that explanation. So I decided to seek help from a Wisconsin law firm that regularly helps journalists obtain public records. Fortunately, the firm took my case for free.

In the course of working on my case, I discovered that while the Milwaukee Police Department was denying me gun trace information for the gun in Sandra’s case, somehow several Milwaukee police officers who had been shot in the line of duty were able to get enough information to file several negligence lawsuits against the gun shops that sold the guns that were used to shoot the officers. In fact, in 2015, two Milwaukee police officers — Bryan Norberg and Graham Kunisch — won a landmark case in which a jury ordered a gun shop to pay the injured officers nearly $6 million after finding the store liable for negligence. The officers later settled for $1 million to avoid lengthy appeals. At least the officers got their day in court. The rest of America is being denied information that could help them take action and seek justice against negligent gun dealers.

That’s because Congress –—at the behest of the gun lobby — has been engaged in an ongoing coverup of data that could show links between the gun industry and the illicit gun market, which is helping to fuel the American carnage that city leaders say they are trying to end. The federal cover up began around 2004 as cities like Chicago had been preparing to pursue public nuisance lawsuits against firearms manufacturers, distributors, dealers and importers. A Republican congressman from Kansas, former Rep. Todd Tiahrt, came up with a solution to stop the cities from taking the gun industry to court. It was done by placing a “gun rider” on an appropriations bill. The rider — now known as the “Tiahrt Amendment” — restricts gun trace data from being released to the public or being used in lawsuits.

Those provisions are just what was wanted by America’s powerful gun lobby, which has spent millions of dollars bending the ears of mostly Republican Congressmen, and $1.8 million in 2023 alone. Congress left little doubt about the intent behind the Tiahrt Amendment, which states that ATF trace data “shall be inadmissible in evidence, and shall not be used, relied on, or disclosed in any manner, nor shall testimony or other evidence be permitted based on the data, in a civil action in any State (including the District of Columbia) or Federal court.” Metaphorically, if America’s gun industry was a single gun, the Tiahrt Amendment would be its silencer.

The police records that I obtained only indicate that the gun was made by Zastava in Serbia and imported into the U.S. by Century Arms International, a military surplus weapons outlet located….

– Milwaukee’s sister city gun that killed Sandra Parks
– Long-tailed keyword Milwaukee’s sister city gun killed Sandra Parks.