Crashes near McGovern Park and Leon's Frozen Custard kill 2 people in Milwaukee

Two people were killed in separate car crashes on Milwaukee’s northwest and south sides Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

The first crash involved a speeding driver running a red light near Leon’s Frozen Custard and crashing into another car, killing a passenger, while the second was a single-vehicle crash near McGovern Park in which a driver left the roadway.

They are the second and third traffic deaths reported in Milwaukee since Friday, when 59-year-old Beatrice Johnson, a grandmother of 13, was struck by a driver as she crossed North Teutonia Avenue.

All told, the crashes likely total 72 fatal crashes in the city in 2023, compared to 75 as of the same date in 2022, according to the latest data from the Milwaukee Police Department.

According to police, at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, a driver sped through a red light at the intersection of South 27th Street and West Oklahoma Avenue and crashed into a second vehicle. The collision sent one vehicle crashing into a parked car and the other into a concrete poll, which fell over and damaged a second parked vehicle.

The speeding vehicle came to a rest near the sign of Leon's Frozen Custard, 3131 S. 27th St.

A passenger in the speeding vehicle was killed. She was identified by the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office as Sierra R. Hill, 22, of Cudahy.

The Journal Sentinel was unable to immediately reach a member of Hill’s family Wednesday.

A 35-year-old who was driving Hill is in critical condition, police said. The driver of the second vehicle was not hurt.

The next crash was reported at 7:10 a.m. Wednesday on the 5500 block of North Sherman Boulevard. Police said a car was located off the road in a wooded area in McGovern Park. A 33-year-old driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police did not detail how the crash may have unfolded.

Friday’s crash was reported at 10:30 p.m. on the 5200 block of North Teutonia Avenue. A GoFundMe page set up by the family to support funeral services had raised $1,600 as of Wednesday afternoon.

The driver involved in the crash, a 54-year-old man, stayed on scene and was arrested, police said.

Over the last decade, reckless driving has emerged as one of Milwaukee’s biggest public safety issues. Milwaukee County set records for traffic deaths in 2020 and 2022.

In recent years, the city has concentrated on redesigning streets to slow traffic, the police department has dedicated a unit to traffic enforcement and city officials and community members have tried increasing education and awareness about safety.

From 2008 to 2012, Milwaukee had an average of 39 traffic deaths a year. That average has since increased 86%, according to an analysis by Robert Schneider, a professor of urban planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The city had about 72 deaths per year from 2018 through 2022, according to the analysis.

Contact Elliot Hughes at elliot.hughes@jrn.com or 414-704-8958. Follow him on Twitter @elliothughes12.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Crashes near Milwaukee's McGovern Park, Leon's Frozen Custard kill 2