25-year-old sentenced to life in prison for killing Milwaukee barber in 2021

A 25-year-old Milwaukee man will spend the rest of his life in prison for shooting and killing barber Dominic Carter in 2021.

Joel Blake was sentenced Monday by Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Ellen Brostrom, according to online court records, after being found guilty by a jury in March with first-degree intentional homicide, possession of a firearm by a felon and felony bail jumping.

Carter, 35, was shot and killed in September 2021 at Domino's Pizza, just down the block from the second barbershop he owned, HairTrappers Suite, at 5416 N. Lovers Lane Road.

According to prosecutors, Blake had been lying in wait outside the shop, circling the parking lot in a vehicle. After Carter was seen walking from his barbershop into the Domino's, the suspect was seen walking into the restaurant and firing at Carter five times.

Carter's mother, Cecelia Jordan, told the Journal Sentinel in 2021 that Carter was a father to eight children, and had been mentoring Black boys on the city's northside, encouraging them to start a business and go into cosmetology.

“Not everybody is meant to go to college, so he wanted to give kids another alternative,” Jordan said. “You can be a barber, you can open your own business and stuff like that.”

“Cosmetology, barbering, being in the shop saved me from the streets,” Carter said in the commercial for the shop prior to his death. He described ideal mentor subjects as “people who look at the salon as a rescue place.”

“He was a good person, he didn’t bother nobody,” his mother said. “He just lived life, just trying to be a positive force in life.”

Jordan couldn't be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Prosecutors said Blake was a known associate of the Wild 100s street gang and the group had been on the federal authorities' radar. A confidential informant told a federal agent they spoke to two people who said Blake was the shooter.

Eleven days after the shooting, Blake posted to Facebook a video in which he discussed being shot at, possibly in retaliation for Carter's death, according to prosecutors. “Yeah, I did it to him,” Blake said in the video.

Blake was jailed in an unrelated case prior to the shooting and was out on bail. After two felony charges of armed robbery were dropped — leaving behind one count each of fleeing police, driving a vehicle without consent and possession of a firearm by a felon — a judge lowered his bail from $25,000 to $5,000. He posted bail about a month later.

Elliot Hughes of the Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Man sentenced to life in prison for killing Milwaukee barber in 2021