Suspect in deadly Water Street shooting was on probation in battery case

A teen who recently pleaded guilty to felony battery in another county has been charged in a shooting last weekend in downtown Milwaukee that left one man dead and two others injured.

Deonta Rashad Harmon, 18, of Milwaukee, is expected to appear in court on April 1 for a preliminary hearing, where a court commissioner will decide if enough probable cause exists to bind the case against him over for trial.

Harmon was arrested at his mother's home on March 24 – just two days after the shooting that killed Dylan Jackson, 22. He's charged with first-degree reckless homicide, two counts of first-degree reckless injury and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Online court records show Harmon pleaded guilty in Lincoln County on March 18 for a 2024 felony substantial battery case. He was ordered to serve 24 months on probation.

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The Milwaukee shooting happened March 22 around 1:06 a.m. on the 1200 block of North Water Street, between East Juneau Avenue and East Knapp Street.

According to a criminal complaint, a Milwaukee police officer doing patrol near Water and Knapp heard loud bangs that turned out to be gunshots. The officer and his partner later found a man who had sustained apparent gunshot wounds to his lower abdomen and left elbow.

That person was taken to a hospital.

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Police found another victim at Water and Knapp with a gunshot wound to his left leg. An officer applied a tourniquet and pulled him out of the street. He was taken to the hospital by paramedics, who arrived on scene shortly afterward.

Jackson was discovered lying in the southbound lanes of Water Street, just south of the intersection with Knapp Street. He died at the scene.

Six spent 9mm casings and a broken Cuban link style necklace were found in a grassy median near Water and Knapp.

A pole camera near the intersection captured surveillance footage of the shooting.

According to the complaint, the video shows a group of men on and near the grassy median on Water Street, where the spent shells and necklace were discovered.

The video shows one of the men approach the shooter, and the two appear to engage in a "brief physical shoving match," the complaint says.

The men then separate and begin walking away from one another.

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At one point, as they head in different directions, the shooter then produces a gun and begins firing shots into a crowd of people as they flee, the complaint says.

According to the complaint, detectives interviewed the injured survivors who identified Jackson as the shooter – one picked him from a photo array while the other identified him by name.

Video footage recorded by a local business captured clear images of the shooter.

The images, snapped where the 9mm casings were recovered, depicted the suspect wearing the distinctive Cuban link necklace around his neck. They were shown to Jackson's probation officer, who also identified him, according to the complaint.

Milwaukee has recorded 22 homicides so far in 2026, according to Milwaukee Police Department statistics. The city had 23 at this point last year.

Chris Ramirez covers courts for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at caramirez@usatodayco.com.