Jordan Henderson was driving to Burger King on Milwaukee's south side a couple of Sundays ago after the Green Bay Packers game when he noticed his little brother's stolen BMX bicycle.
An adult was riding it down Mitchell St. with another man on another bike. Henderson did a U-turn to follow the men, who turned down Muskego Ave. and stopped. But as Henderson pulled up, one of the men starting shooting.
Henderson suffered a fatal shot to the head and crashed. His passengers, an uncle and a cousin, ran from the car. The cousin, 17, had been shot in the shoulder.
According to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday, Miguel Mercado, 18, admitted to stealing the 19-year-old's chrome Dyno bike from the boy on Labor Day weekend. He told detectives Friday that he and Gill Roberto Morales, 21, were riding together Sept. 8 when they saw Henderson drive by and noticed that he had recognized his brother's stolen bike.
Mercado also told detectives he carried a .22-caliber revolver with him that he had found in a trash can a couple of weeks earlier. But he said that on the day of the shooting he had given the gun to Morales to hold.
As Henderson's car pulled up, Mercado said, he feared he and Morales were going to be attacked so he told Morales to "shoot them," and Morales fired the shots at the car.
Both Mercado and Morales are now charged with first-degree reckless homicide and first-degree reckless endangerment, as parties to the crime.