Milwaukee store worker killed over pizza order
"He's like my son
By Madison Moore
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MILWAUKEE (WISN) — A Milwaukee man is behind bars, charged with first-degree reckless homicide for shooting and killing a store worker over a pizza order.
The shooting happened just before noon on Saturday, Oct. 19, inside Action Food & Liquor on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Keefe Avenue in Milwaukee.
According to the criminal complaint, 38-year-old Charles Leggett ordered a pizza from the store and told investigators during an interview the man making his pizza wasn’t wearing gloves.
The complaint says surveillance video from inside the store shows Leggett go back to the cashier where he originally ordered the pizza and begin to argue with the man, identified as 26-year-old Jamil Owais. After a brief argument, Leggett admitted to investigators that he reached over the counter and shot Owais once in the chest before running out of the store.
Owais would die at the scene, behind the counter of his family’s corner store.
“He’s like my son,” Owais’ older brother Mohammad Owais told WISN 12 News Thursday. “Like me, he came when he was a little boy, and he grew up by me.”
Mohammad says Owais immigrated to the United States in 2013 from their homeland in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank. He was at the store Saturday to cover for Mohammad, who owns the business, while he ran errands.
“When I came to the store, they told me, ‘Sorry for your loss,’ you know, and we lost him. You know, it’s a big loss. He’s a good guy, he never hurt nobody. He’s friendly with all the neighborhood,” Mohammad said.
WISN 12 News spoke to the employee making Leggett’s pizza that day. He was afraid to be identified, but when asked if he was wearing gloves while preparing the food, he said, “I was wearing gloves, I’m pretty sure.”
Mohammad says his little brother leaves behind a wife and six-month-old daughter. He comes from a family of 12.
Action Food & Liquor customers were devastated to hear the news, describing Owais as a kind, funny, and giving person.
Leggett is a convicted felon who should not have had a gun. A court commissioner set his cash bond at $200,000 Thursday. If convicted, he can face up to 75 years in prison.
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