Fallen officer’s partner takes the stand in ambush attack trial
By Hannah Hilyard
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MILWAUKEE (WISN) — A fallen officer’s partner takes the stand in the trial of Tremaine Jones, not as an investigator, but as a witness and victim himself.
Jones is the man accused of ambushing and shooting two Milwaukee police officers in June 2025 near North 24th Street and Garfield Avenue. The shooting killed Officer Kendall Corder and injured his partner, Officer Christopher McCray.
McCray testified for the state on Wednesday in front of a packed courtroom full of the officer’s supporters. Even with the large crowd, you could have heard a pin drop.
McCray explained that they were responding to a shots-fired call and searching for a subject with a gun when the shooter ambushed them minutes after their arrival. McCray said he ran for cover as the gunfire erupted. The jury watched McCray’s raw body camera footage of the incident in its entirety.
“2121 Shots fired! Shots fired! My partner’s hit. My partner’s hit. Corder! Shots fired! Shots fired! My partner’s down,” McCray is heard saying.
The footage showed McCray, who was shot in his foot and leg and had a graze wound to his back, tending to Corder and pleading for him to respond while protecting him from the shooter still at large.
“Corder, Corder, Corder, Corder, Corder, Corder! No, no, no, no, no, no! No, Corder! Stay away!” McCray said in the body camera footage.
Other officers arrived and pulled McCray off his partner. The moment was overwhelming for McCray, with tears streaming down his face, but he remained steadfast in describing the chain of events that night.
“Did you ever see who shot you and Officer Corder?” McCray was asked. “No,” he replied.
The jury also watched Officer Corder’s body camera footage, which was similar to McCray’s. The court took a break after viewing the footage.
Earlier in the day, eyewitnesses identified Tremaine Jones as the person with a gun walking around the neighborhood that night, but none of them saw who shot the officers. Jones has pleaded not guilty to all the charges he faces.
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