Paul Schumann

According to family and friends, Paul Schumann, pizza delivery man for Zayna's Pizza, was a caring, giving man.

His sister Amy Schinneller says, "He was probably one of the most generous guys you would ever meet. I mean, he hardly had anything to his name, but he gave it all away."

His ex-wife Laura Schumann describes him the same way: "He would give the shirt off his back to someone walking down the street if he thought it would help the person."

His boss Younis Abdel-Hamid agrees: "Very few people didn't like him. He liked to help people and didn't expect anything in return."

What a tragedy that this good man was set-up and murdered! He was ambushed!

Two 17-year-old males are in custody as the main suspects in his shooting death.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Paul Schumann would open his home to the down-and-out, fix someone's car or come to work at a moment's notice. But he didn't like being a victim, those who knew him said Sunday.

It wouldn't surprise his boss if Schumann stood up to his attackers early Saturday before he was killed after making a pizza delivery on Milwaukee's north side. Relatives and friends said it was the third time he had been shot.

"After the first two incidents, I told Paul, 'When somebody gets in your face, you give them all the money you have. Your life is bigger,' " said Zayna's Pizza owner Younis Abdel-Hamid. "But he said, 'I didn't want them to win. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to give it to them.' "

Schumann, 53, delivered pizzas throughout Milwaukee for more than 20 years, said his sister, Amy Schinneller of Brookfield. She described him as "a very big-hearted, generous person who believed in the good of people and always gave people the benefit of a doubt."

"Even though he had nothing, he'd give every penny that he did have to help others," she said.

Two 17-year-old boys, both of Milwaukee, were in custody Sunday as primary suspects in the shooting death, which happened around 3 a.m. in the 1500 block of W. Hopkins St., Milwaukee police Capt. David Zibolski said.

Police said the two teens called for a pizza to be delivered to a residence with the intent of robbing the delivery person.

"It was a set-up," Zibolski said.

Police said the youths, who weren't named Sunday, are being investigated in connection with other recent robberies in the area.

The teens were with nine other people, including eight men and one woman, at the residence prior to the shooting. Some of the others might face criminal charges, such as obstructing an officer, as a result of the ongoing investigation, Zibolski said.

This makes me sick.

These teens are conscienceless thugs.

I'd like to know what their parents think about what their children did. Do they feel guilty? I would. I would be destroyed.


Can the teens be taught to value life and respect others? Can they be rehabilitated?

I don't think they want to be. They've made the decision to live according to a different value system, albeit a completely anti-social, dysfunctional, immoral one.

Do they know the difference between right and wrong?

I think they do.

And they're choosing to do wrong.

Every decent person should be repulsed by these thugs. What they did to Paul Schumann is positively barbaric.

They shouldn't be cut any slack for being mixed-up kids, victims of poverty, victims of poor parenting, and all the other typical excuses.

The emphasis should not be taken off their choices. Mayor Tom Barrett shouldn't deflect from their crimes by talking about inadequate gun laws. Hundreds of thousands of Milwaukeeans live under the same supposedly inadequate laws and they would never, EVER do what these thugs did. Barrett should be outraged at the killers and their accomplices.

They're savages.

These killers have to be taken off the streets and put away for life.

Abdel-Hamid quotes Schumann as saying, "I didn't want them to win."

If the killers don't spend the rest of their lives in prison for the cold-blooded murder of this good man, then they will be the victors.


My heart goes out to the family and friends of Paul Schumann.