A uncle of an 11 year-old girl who was hit by an SUV at the Wisconsin Christmas parade massacre shares horrific details. He hopes that the career criminal behind the attack is brought to justice.
U.S. Army veteran Ryan Kohnke – whose niece Jessalyn Torres remains on a ventilator a week after the attack – said he wants Darrell Brooks Jr. properly punished for allegedly killing six people and wounding 62 others.
‘I hope he spends the rest of his jail in isolation,’ Kohnke told Fox News’ Justice with Judge Jeanine. ‘I don’t think he’ll ever see general population because they’re afraid of what might happen to him.’
Kohnke claimed that he stood at Waukesha’s November 21 Parade and was watching helplessly as the red SUV plowed through the safety barrier and into the crowd.
Jessalyn, who was participating in the parade with the Waukesha Xtreme Dance group, had just passed through and Kohnke’s thoughts soon turned to his family’s safety as a man in the SUV began mowing down the crowd.
‘After I [saw] that he continued down the parade route, I became very afraid for their lives,’ he said.
Her uncle, US Army veteran Ryan Kohnke said he wants Darrell Brooks Jr. properly punished for the Christmas parade massacre, which killed six people and wounded 62 others
Jessalyn Tores, 11 years old, was among nine injured children in the Nov 21 collision.
His daughters and he raced together to Jessalyn’s aid, who was accompanied at all times by his sisters and her mom.
‘My daughters, what they seen was indescribable,’ Kohnke said. ‘It was what you hear from veterans. There was bodies everywhere, there was clothes everywhere, everybody was screaming ‘oh my God,’ yelling for their children, yelling for their loved ones.’
Brooks, 39 years old, was granted $1,000 bail and released from jail after he allegedly careered in the parade on November 21
Brooks (39) was granted $1,000 bail and initially was charged with five counts in first-degree intentional killing. If convicted, this charge will carry a life sentence.
He’s expected to face more charges after Jackson Sparks, an eight-year-old boy, succumbed to his injuries last week.
Kohnke was present during Brooks’ bail hearing last Tuesday, where bail was set at $5 million despite him already have been free on bail from a previous crime during the time of the parade carnage.
During the hearing, Kohnke said he felt ill while watching Brooks’ reaction to the charges.
‘It made me sick to my stomach,’ he said.
‘To hear him start crying when the judge mentioned these [charges]He was sentenced to life imprisonment. to me it was selfish, that he was worried about himself.’
Brooks, in his red SUV, plows through crowds at Waukesha’s Christmas Parade on November 21
Pictured
Kohnke attended Brooks’ bail hearing last Tuesday at the Waukesha County Court in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and said said he felt ill while watching Brooks’ reaction to the charges
Jessalyn is one of the 9 children injured in November’s crash.
Amber Kohnke Torres’s mom told The New York Post that Torres’s daughter still remains in Children’s Wisconsin Hospital. Amber, Torres’s distraught mother spent the Thanksgiving holiday with Torres in her room at Children’s Wisconsin Hospital.
‘No mother should ever go through this. It is very traumatizing, said Kohnke, mother to four children.
Jessalyn is one of nine injured children in the November 21 car crash. Jessalyn suffered a broken pelvis & femur as well as lacerations and punctures to her lungs. After being struck, she also lost a kidney.
Torres is pictured at the center. She was hurt in the Waukesha christmas parade massacre. Torres remains conscious and breathing almost one week after Brooks drove into a crowd.
“The hardest part of not being there for everyone was Jessalyn’s condition, and she was also unable to be with her families,” she stated.
Jessalyn told heartbreakingly doctors that she would be ‘glued back together’ when being taken to hospital. She is one of four children left in severe condition. The other three are still fair.
Although Jessalyn’s lungs are clearing, an X-ray showed the amount of trauma to the organs remains ‘very visible,’ her mom wrote Saturday on Facebook.
‘My poor child was literally hit by a truck dead on (she has the marks from the vehicles grill across her chest) and was thrown around 20-30 feet or so,’ she said. ‘My baby may be strong but there are times in our lives when we need to just sit back and heal. She needs to be able to relax and heal at this time.
‘Although she is back to being a sleeping body filled with tubes and a machine that is breathing for her, she is comfortable.’