MILWAUKEE – FOX6 News has an update on one of the people shot Thursday, June 20 after a police chase on I-43. That chase happened after a carjacking near downtown Milwaukee. 

Family members tell FOX6 News that 18-year-old Ashley Patterson is still alive, but she did lose her baby after being shot.

Police say there were six people, including four teenagers, in a stolen SUV. Officers went after them just before 2:30 p.m. Thursday after a report of a carjacking and an attempted carjacking earlier in the day near downtown Milwaukee. 

The chase came to an end on I-43 after the SUV was blocked by a cement truck in the construction zone. That is when police say the driver of the SUV started backing into one of the squad cars. Police then opened fire – hitting two people in the SUV.

Patterson, who family members tell FOX6 News was six months pregnant, was in the passenger seat of the SUV and one of the two people hit by police gunfire. Those family members did not want to go on camera Friday, but they say Patterson is now on a ventilator. They say she was shot in the esophagus and some fragments hit her face. They also say the stress on Patterson’s body resulted in an emergency C-section – and the death of her unborn daughter. 

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Also in the car was Patterson’s 15-year-old cousin, who is also in custody.

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman sounded off in a news conference Thursday about the responsibility of parents. 

“Parents, what’s going on with your children?” Norman asked. 

Patterson’s family tells FOX6 News they did not agree with blaming parents. They say Patterson was not raised bad, but once she hit a certain age and started hanging out with the wrong people, she made her own decisions. They say they are not condoning her behavior. Right now, they want her to pull through.

FOX6 News did reach out to police for confirmation on some of the information provided by Patterson’s family. We have not heard back.

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The West Allis Police Department is taking over this case because it was a police shooting. That is standard protocol.

Hours after the demonstration areas for next month’s Republican National Convention were unveiled Friday, the most prominent group planning to protest the event slammed the plan and vowed to march its own route.

Omar Flores, co-chair of the Coalition to March on the RNC 2024, rejected the city’s plans for demonstration areas at parks on the north and south ends of a “hard” security zone that will encompass the primary convention sites of Fiserv Forum on the north down to the Baird Center on the south.

“It’s completely insulting for them to offer either of those parks because they’re not within sight and sound of the Fiserv Forum,” Flores said at a press conference outside the federal Courthouse where earlier discussions failed to produce a resolution to the group’s lawsuit against the city over its plans for demonstrations.

On Friday, representatives from the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, city and Milwaukee County announced the location of the demonstration areas and a march route in addition to the boundaries of a hard security zone that credentials will be needed to enter for the July 15-18 event.

Of note was the inclusion of Pere Marquette Park in the hard security zone, a move the Secret Service had previously resisted despite pressure from Republicans to do so. The city had been expected to designate the space just west of the Milwaukee River and two block from Fiserv Forum as a demonstration area, causing consternation for Republicans, the Coalition and nearby businesses for different reasons.

Two demonstration areas will instead be located at Haymarket Square on the north side of the hard zone and at Zeidler Union Square on the south side.

A demonstration march route will be on the south side of the hard zone, beginning and ending at Zeidler Union Square.

“We believe we provided premier access on both the south and the north side,” Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s Chief of Staff Nick DeSiato said.

He pointed to the area where the march route will take demonstrators directly up to the fence outside the Baird Center, where media from around the nation and globe will be working.

On the north side, he said, demonstrators will be close to Fiserv Forum, where primary convention activities will take place. Former President Donald Trump is expected to formally accept the party’s nomination in the arena during the convention, setting up a rematch of the 2020 race for the White House between Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden.

The northern demonstration zone is also by an area where delegates will be entering, DeSiato said.

Citing the group’s lawsuit, he said he could not speak to how the city would respond if anyone chose to march a route different than the one designated by the city.

It’s difficult to gauge how many people will choose to demonstrate at the city’s designated areas because the city does not ask how many people are expected to accompany the applicant, he said. About 100 applications have been filed with the city to demonstrate during the RNC, he said.

“We also suspect that just like any national convention, there’ll be some ad hoc demonstrating,” he said. “And if you’re lawfully demonstrating on a sidewalk, you can lawfully demonstrate on a sidewalk. If you’re lawfully demonstrating on public property, you can lawfully demonstrate on public property.”

Flores vowed to march a route the group expects to release soon, saying it will be a “family-friendly protest.” And while he said the group does not plan to try to march into the hard zone, the group won’t be limited to the sidewalk, either.

Flores said he expected thousands of people to be part of the group’s march, making it unsafe to try to squeeze onto the sidewalk.

As for the group’s plans to march its own route, he said, “If MPD is serious about what they’re saying, then we shouldn’t be worried about any type of arrest and honestly, I’d encourage them to not even show up.”

At an earlier press conference, Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said police would seek to be patient and communicative, though he said there would be limits.

Friday’s back and forth was the latest in a monthslong debate over the city’s plans for demonstrations during the convention.

Representatives of the Coalition to March on the RNC met with officials on June 17 in an ultimately failed effort to resolve the federal lawsuit the group brought earlier this month over the city’s demonstration plans.

The group is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, which on Friday also criticized the demonstration plans and the size of the downtown hard zone.

“The large size of this zone makes it more critical than ever that the City take steps to allow for effective opportunities for expression and assembly by those with differing viewpoints,” Tim Muth, staff attorney for the ACLU of Wisconsin, said in a statement.

He also said the inclusion of Pere Marquette Park in the hard zone “cannot be justified” and “represents an impermissible concession to the Republican National Committee, which did not want to see or hear demonstrators near its convention.”

Republicans previously argued that locating a demonstration zone at Pere Marquette Park would force convention attendees to walk right by protestors, creating a “mandated confrontational area.”

Secret Service RNC Coordinator Audrey Gibson-Cicchino cited the RNC’s rental of the Milwaukee County Historical Society building on the park’s southwest corner as the reason it was included in the perimeter.

Alison Dirr can be reached at adirr@jrn.com. Tristan Hernandez can be reached at thernandez@gannett.com.

Milwaukee’s weekend revelers should plan to pack an umbrella, that’s because the latest forecast from the National Weather Service shows a potential for severe weather and heavy rains on Friday and Saturday.

The latest projections from the NWS show scattered thunderstorms are expected to occur as a warm front from the south travels north through the state on Friday. Friday’s potential for severe weather, while low, could bring damaging wind, small hail and heavy rains.

“For downtown Milwaukee, we are looking at the potential for isolated thunderstorms and showers through the afternoon hours.,” said Michaela Heeren, a meteorologist at the local NWS office in Sullivan. “Going into the evening, that’s going to bring the potential for the (severe weather.)”

The peak of the storms are expected to occur in the late afternoon to early evening, between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. and the storms are forecast to end by 9 p.m., according to the NWS.

Heeren said that Milwaukee is forecast for up to an inch of rain on Friday, with rates potentially reaching one inch per hour if conditions are met.

The NWS rates Milwaukee and other parts of southeastern and eastern Milwaukee as rated at a one-out-of-five chance for severe weather. To the west, in central and western Wisconsin, the NWS forecasts a two-out-of-five chance.

There is uncertainty with how powerful the storms will develop, because of the lack of instability in the environment, Heeren said.

“Our environment is a little bit weaker than what we prefer for a typical severe set up, we don’t have a lot of ingredients to keep storms alive long enough to produce significant severe weather,” she said.

On Saturday, the NWS forecasts another round of potential severe weather that will bring even more rain.

That system is forming behind a cold weather front traveling southeast across the state and brings a one out of five risk for severe weather to Milwaukee.

However, the rest of the state will be in a two out of five rating, with Heeren describing it was “more traditional” severe weather conditions. Saturday’s conditions will bring a chance of damaging wind, large hail, heavy rain and a small chance of tornadoes.

Through Saturday, the NWS forecasts up to 1.5 inches of rain for Milwaukee.