Wisconsin livestock markets, dealers and truckers would see massive fee increases under a rule change proposed by state agriculture regulators.
The post Wisconsin agriculture regulators propose massive fee increases for livestock industry appeared first on WPR.
An open valve led to a recent manure spill in Taylor County that flowed into a nearby waterway, killing fish over a 5-mile stretch of Trappers Creek.
The post Farm failed to report manure spill in Taylor County that killed fish in a nearby creek appeared first on WPR.
New freshman enrollment across the Universities of Wisconsin campuses is up an average of 3 percent this fall, but “significant declines” in international students has kept overall enrollment flat.
The post Loss of international students affects enrollment growth at UW campuses appeared first on WPR.
The process involves using machines to pump miniscule oxygen bubbles into the water, hopefully slowing algae growth, improving water clarity and decreasing the amount of muck on the lake bottom.
The post Wisconsin community experiments with nanobubbles to clean up lakes appeared first on WPR.
Milwaukee civil rights organizers say they are "preparing for the worst" after a decision this week by the U.S. Supreme Court focused on immigration enforcement.
The post Community advocates ‘preparing for the worst’ after Supreme Court ICE decision appeared first on WPR.
After more than a week of being unable to drink public water due to nitrite contamination, the village of Williams Bay is returning to normal. But this case is a bit of an outlier compared to the larger nitrate and nitrite concerns for drinking water around the state.
The post Williams Bay ‘Do Not Drink’ order lifted but nitrite and nitrate concerns remain around Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.
A new collection of essays by lesbian mothers reminds us that the fight for equality is, and has always been, the reluctantly public fight to savor the mundane with your loved ones.
The post Lesbian mothers from Madison share their parenting stories in new essay collection appeared first on WPR.
A western Wisconsin town is among a growing number of local governments that want local regulation of large livestock farms.
The post Western Wisconsin town is latest to propose new rules for large livestock farms appeared first on WPR.
The automobile brings new freedoms as well as perils to Blacks on the road from the 1930s to the late 1960s.
The post Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America appeared first on WPR.
Pork chops with bourbon-cherry sauce and sweet potatoes; South Carolina delicacy; South Carolina barbecue hash.
The post Cook’s Country:Pork Any Way You Like appeared first on WPR.
President Donald Trump holds up a chart while speaking during an event announcing broad global tariffs in the Rose Garden of the White House on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in early November on whether President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs are legal, according to an order the court released Tuesday.
The one-page unsigned order laid out an expedited timeline, which the administration had requested, for the consolidated legal challenges brought by a handful of business owners and a dozen Democratic state attorneys general.
A U.S. appeals court sided with the businesses and state officials late last month. In its 7-4 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling in May finding Trump’s unprecedented use of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act to trigger global tariffs violated the Constitution.
The justices’ acceptance of the case is the latest in a string of legal challenges against the administration that have escalated to the high court since Trump took office in January. Recently the Supreme Court has handed the administration wins on immigration enforcement and withholding foreign aid.
Trump began imposing wide-reaching tariffs in February and significantly broadened them in the following months on goods from around the globe after declaring national emergencies — first over illegal fentanyl smuggling, and then declaring trade deficits an emergency. A trade deficit means the U.S. imports more goods from a country than that nation’s businesses purchase from U.S. suppliers.
As of July, the U.S. had collected roughly $122 billion in tariff revenue, according to a monthly tracker produced by the Peterson Institute on International Economics.
Tariffs are taxes that the U.S. government collects from domestic businesses and purchasers when they import foreign goods.
In the administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court to fast-track the case, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued the government would face “catastrophic” economic fallout if it had to repay businesses for the tariffs already collected, particularly if the court waited until next year to take the case.
Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon were among states that challenged Trump’s emergency tariffs.
The business plaintiffs include V.O.S. Selections, a New York-based company that imports wine and spirits from 16 countries, a Utah-based plastics producer, a Virginia-based children’s electricity learning kit maker, a Pennsylvania-based fishing gear company, and a Vermont-based women’s cycling apparel company.
Minister of Justice and Public Security Héctor Villatoro, right, accompanies Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration paid El Salvador $4.76 million to detain up to 300 immigrant men for up to a year at a notorious mega-prison and barred the funds from being used to help asylum seekers, reproductive care or diversity initiatives, according to a court document filed Tuesday.
It’s the first time the financial agreement has been made public after the White House initially said the deal amounted to $6 million.
The payments were part of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown and decision to invoke a wartime law to remove Venezuelan nationals.
The four-page agreement between the United States and El Salvador verifies that the funds came out of the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law, which gives financial assistance to security forces and is subject to a human rights law known as the Leahy Law.
That human rights law bars State’s financial support of “units of foreign security forces” — which can include military and law enforcement staff in prisons — facing credible allegations of gross human rights violations.
“The purpose of this grant is to provide funds to be used by the Salvadoran law enforcement and corrections agencies for its law enforcement needs, which includes costs associated with detaining the 238 TdA members recently deported to El Salvador,” according to the agreement.
Those who drafted the law raised concerns that those payments violated human rights laws, as more than 250 Venezuelan men were removed from the U.S. to the brutal prison, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, despite a federal judge’s order barring such action.
Congressional Democrats have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the White House for a copy of the financial agreement for months, over concerns the funds were being used in violation of human rights.
On March 15, the Trump administration sent 238 men to CECOT, after invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to apply to Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the gang Tren de Aragua.
The agreement, dated March 22, noted the men could be detained up to a year.
It also bars any of the $4.76 million to be used to help asylum seekers seek legal counsel for the U.S. asylum process, for access to abortion, funds for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that provides humanitarian assistance to Palestinians or for programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
The men were released back to Venezuela as part of a prison swap in July, but they remained at CECOT for four months. Some of those detained, including Kilmar Abrego Garica, of Maryland, whose mistaken deportation captured national attention, detailed psychological and physical torture.
The document was obtained through a lawsuit by Democracy Forward, which specifically argued the financial agreement between El Salvador and the U.S. “was created without any legal basis.”
“The correspondence between the U.S. State Department and El Salvador confirms what we have long suspected: the Trump-Vance administration did nothing to meaningfully ensure that individuals disappeared from the U.S. to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison were protected from torture, indefinite confinement, or other abuses,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a statement. “The agreement did, however, go to lengths to ensure that the funds the U.S. provided to El Salvador not be used to provide reproductive health care or to assist asylum seekers in accessing resources and counsel.”
That case is being overseen by District of Columbia Judge James Boasberg, who also ordered the Trump administration to turn around planes carrying men removed under the wartime law. Instead, the planes landed in El Salvador.
Secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 24, 2025. (John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration released its strategy to Make America Healthy Again on Tuesday, which officials hope will reduce chronic diseases and align federal policy with their beliefs.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a briefing on the strategy the 128 “recommendations are things that I’ve been dreaming about my whole life.”
Kennedy said he hoped to implement several of the changes before the end of the year, including defining what constitutes an ultra-processed food, updating water quality standards for forever chemicals known as PFAS and changing infant formula standards.
The report also includes potentially controversial elements that address access to vaccines, a topic several Republican senators rebuked Kennedy over during a lengthy hearing last week.
The 20-page strategy follows the MAHA Commission’s release of its first report in May that outlined four areas of concern — nutrition, physical activity, environmental factors and “overmedicalization.”
The proposals in the new report range in scope from issues that have largely been addressed to initiatives that are likely to cause concerns among doctors and reputable medical organizations.
For example, the strategy calls on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to “develop guidance on diagnostics and treatments for food allergies,” even though doctors are already able to diagnose and treat those conditions.
The report also calls on the FDA to “improve regulatory processes for over-the-counter sunscreen, which has fallen behind other countries.”
The White House Domestic Policy Council and HHS intend to draft a separate plan addressing the childhood vaccine schedule, vaccine injuries, vaccine science, “misaligned incentives” and “scientific and medical freedom.”
Kennedy indicated during the briefing that he may seek to overhaul the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, claiming that 99% of vaccine injuries are not reported, in part, because doctors are not compensated for doing so.
“We are recasting the entire program so that vaccine injuries will be reported; they will be studied; that individuals who suffer them will not be denied, or marginalized, or vilified, or gaslighted,” Kennedy said. “They will be welcomed and we will learn everything we can about them.”
The report doesn’t include any plans to reduce pesticide use or to seek solutions to end mass shootings, though Kennedy and others at the event said those are issues the administration will look into.
“The firearms question is a complex question and it’s not an easy question,” Kennedy said. “The violence is what we’re concerned with.”
Kennedy said that guns have been around for a while and that they also exist in other countries that don’t have nearly the number of mass shootings as the United States, before talking about psychiatric drugs, video games and social media.
“We are looking at that at NIH,” Kennedy said, referring to the National Institutes of Health. “We are doing studies now. We’re initiating studies to look at the correlation and the potential connection between overmedicating our kids and this violence.”
Kennedy deferred a question about pesticides to White House Domestic Policy Council Director Vince Haley, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Haley referenced a section in the newly released report titled “cumulative exposure” that said USDA, EPA and NIH will use new approach methodologies “to improve methods for evaluating human health and environmental risks of chemical contaminants.”
Rollins told reporters that pesticides require study before being approved and that they are needed to ensure a stable food supply.
“Is it a perfect process? Arguably there is no perfect process,” Rollins said. “But it is a strong process that our farmers stand by. And a crop protection tool, such as pesticides, is absolutely essential for America not to compromise our food supply system at this point.”
The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Trump administration can temporarily hold on to $4 billion in foreign aid funding approved by Congress, overturning a lower court’s order and continuing a struggle over who controls the nation’s purse strings.
The one-page ruling from the emergency docket, signed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., came just one day after the administration appealed the lower court’s ruling.
While the original lawsuit over withheld foreign aid began in February and stemmed from an executive order, the Trump administration sent Congress a rescissions request covering some of the spending in late August.
The proposal is part of the formal process laid out in a 1974 law that allows the president to ask lawmakers to cancel previously approved spending.
Congress typically has 45 days to approve, modify, or disagree with a rescissions request. During that time the president can legally freeze the funding and only has to spend it if lawmakers don’t approve the plan.
This particular rescission request, however, was sent to lawmakers within 45 days of the end of the fiscal year, creating a dispute that complicated the nature of the original lawsuit.
That maneuver, sometimes called a pocket rescission, is considered illegal by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office and several members of Congress, though White House budget director Russ Vought believes it’s within the bounds of the law.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the Trump administration’s appeal that the federal district court’s order to spend the funding “requires the Executive Branch to rush to obligate the same $4 billion that the President has just proposed rescinding between now and September 30, and thus puts the Executive Branch at war with itself.”
“Just as the President is pressing for rescission and explaining to Congress that obligating these funds would harm U.S. foreign policy interests, his subordinates are being forced to proceed to identify and even negotiate with potential recipients,” he added.
The Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday doesn’t address whether the justices agree with the administration that it can refuse to spend the billions in foreign aid since it sent the rescissions request close to the end of the fiscal year.
Roberts wrote “that the September 3, 2025 order of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, case Nos. 1:25-cv-400 and 1:25-cv-402, is hereby partially stayed for funds that are subject to the President’s August 28, 2025 recission proposal currently pending before Congress pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court. It is further ordered that a response to the application be filed on or before Friday, September 12th, 2025, by 4 p.m. (EDT).”
A petroleum refinery in Louisiana. Last week, a federal appeals court ruled that Wisconsin doesn't need to comply with stricter air quality rules to decrease smog in three southeastern Wisconsin counties. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
A federal appeals court has ruled that the state of Wisconsin and businesses operating in certain parts of southeastern Wisconsin will not be required to meet more stringent air quality standards for ozone pollution — giving state regulators and industry a reprieve from what they say were “costly and burdensome requirements.”
On Friday, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the state’s request to temporarily postpone a rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. Late last year, the EPA reclassified areas of Milwaukee, Kenosha and Sheboygan counties as being in “serious nonattainment” of the agency’s 2015 ozone standards. In February, the state filed a lawsuit for the review of the EPA finding.
The enforcement of the EPA standard would have forced the state to revise its plan for complying with national air quality standards under the Clean Air Act, and hundreds of businesses would have had to assess if their existing permits need to be renewed or revised. The state complained that these measures would have cost the Department of Natural Resources and the state’s businesses millions of dollars when most of the ozone pollution over the areas is caused elsewhere and settles over southeast Wisconsin after drifting across Lake Michigan.
Environmental groups have said that even if Wisconsin’s industries aren’t creating most of the ozone pollution, the businesses have a duty to work to protect the health and well-being of the state’s residents. In 2018, Clean Wisconsin sued the EPA to force the agency to declare the three southeastern Wisconsin counties aren’t complying with federal air quality rules.
Ozone pollution, also known as smog, occurs most often in the summer when air pollution from vehicle exhaust and industrial processes reacts with sunlight. The pollution can be harmful to people’s respiratory systems.
“The fact that southeastern Wisconsin has been reclassified as in serious nonattainment for ozone means that residents of those counties are at higher risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and Wisconsin should be implementing all possible policies and strategies to reduce ozone pollution to protect public health,” Clean Wisconsin attorney Katie Nekola said in a statement to Wisconsin Public Radio.
But business groups and the state have argued the costs are too high for a problem that doesn’t start in Wisconsin. DNR analysis has found that less than 10% of the ozone pollution in the state is caused by Wisconsin industry.
The state Department of Justice said in its lawsuit that the “change triggers costly permit requirements, complex regulations, and stringent emissions offset mandates,” which could create $4 million in added costs for the state and cost an estimated 382 businesses between $1 million and $6.9 million.
Scott Manley, a lobbyist for Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, said the court’s Friday order grants relief from the “crushing and job-killing ozone regulations.”
“Data from both the DNR and EPA indicate that the vast majority of ozone pollution in eastern Wisconsin is caused by emissions originating from outside our state borders,” Manley said in a statement. “It’s unfair to punish Wisconsin businesses for pollution they didn’t create, and [the] order is the first step toward righting this wrong.”
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
Wisconsin already doesn’t allow immigrants without legal authorization to apply to BadgerCare. There are two programs, Medicaid Emergency Services and BadgerCare Plus Prenatal Plan, that will provide coverage for those without legal status. (Photo by Thomas Barwick/Getty Images)
A Republican bill that seeks to stop Wisconsin from using public funds to support health services for immigrants who lack legal authorization to reside in the U.S. is poised to advance on Tuesday.
The bill — AB 308 — would prohibit state, county, village, long-term care district and federal funds from being used to subsidize, reimburse or provide compensation for any health care services for a person not lawfully in the U.S.
It is the latest bill that Republican lawmakers have introduced targeting immigrants. Another bill introduced and passed earlier this year seeks to require local law enforcement officers to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The bill is coauthored by Rep. Alex Dallman (R-Markesan) and Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) and currently has 25 other Republican cosponsors. No Democrats are signed onto the bill.
During the bill hearing last week, Dallman focused mostly on Wisconsin’s Medicaid program, BadgerCare, arguing that he wants to prevent the state from ever taking steps similar to Minnesota and other states that expanded their Medicaid programs to cover immigrants who lack legal status. Wisconsin already doesn’t allow immigrants without legal authorization to apply to BadgerCare.
In 2023, Minnesota expanded its Medicaid program to cover residents without citizenship or legal residency status, but that was repealed after Republicans threatened a government shutdown to force Democrats to eliminate the expansion.
The cost estimate for the program was nearly $200 million, Dallman noted.
“These are enormous price tags for individuals who are not here lawfully. This condition should not be the case here in Wisconsin with a state budget that is currently already very lean,” Dallman said. “We must prioritize our citizens over those who are here unlawfully. While Wisconsin currently does not allow undocumented immigrants to enroll in BadgerCare, this bill preemptively… ensures that Wisconsin does not become like Minnesota or Illinois.”
Dallman noted that the bill includes a carve out to ensure that it won’t lose Wisconsin money or put it out of step with federal law.
According to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau summary, the prohibitions in the bill would not apply to the extent that a payment is required under federal law or the application of the prohibitions would result in the loss of any federal funds.
“This bill is not about immigration,” Dallman said, but it is about “protecting our constituents and their hard-earned tax dollars that they send into our state.”
In written testimony, Wanggaard said the bill would extend the current restrictions to “all other health services paid for by the State of Wisconsin.” Wanggaard, who did not attend the public hearing, wrote that the bill would ensure Wisconsin “is not the next test dummy extending health benefits to illegal aliens.”
Democrats and advocates said they are concerned about the sweeping effects the bill could have on all Wisconsinites.
William Parke-Sutherland, government affairs director at Kids Forward, said the bill would be unworkable as law and would affect every health care provider in the state.
“This bill is entirely short sighted, and nobody has thought about how this would create a state in which we do not want to live,” Parke-Sutherland said. “If a child is at the school and is sick, does the school nurse need to figure out how to verify their status before they provide any degree of care?… I just don’t think that people have thought through the consequences of us in Wisconsin having to live in a situation where we all need to carry our papers.”
Parke-Sutherland noted that there are already strict citizenship requirements people need to meet to enroll in nearly all Medicaid programs.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) outlines the restrictions on its website as well as two programs available to noncitizens. One is Medicaid Emergency Services, which provides short-term medical coverage for people who have a medical emergency and aren’t eligible for BadgerCare Plus or Wisconsin Medicaid, and the other is BadgerCare Plus Prenatal Plan, which provides health care coverage for pregnant mothers who are not eligible for BadgerCare Plus due to immigration status or being in prison or jail.
“This is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, and it’s creating way, way, way more problems,” Parke-Sutherland said. “If you are creating a situation where you’re prohibiting funding for services for people who are unlawfully present, then you are creating a need for people to verify their status in order to receive health care.”
In a fiscal analysis, the Department of Corrections said it is concerned the bill could violate the 8th Amendment. A 1976 Supreme Court decision in Estelle v. Gamble established that the deliberate failure to deal with an inmate’s medical needs constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Wanggaard refuted the analysis in written testimony, saying the bill language means it would only apply to state programs that require enrollment.
“It does not mean that, for example, an illegal immigrant in the state prison system could not receive health care services from DOC,” Wanggaard said.
The language of the bill, however, says that “no funds of this state or of any county, village, town, or long-term care district… and no federal funds passing through the state treasury shall be authorized for or paid to any person to subsidize, reimburse, or otherwise provide compensation for any health care services for an individual who is not lawfully present in the United States.”
Rep. Karen Kirsch (D-Greenfield) said her Republican colleagues are taking a page from President Donald Trump and his administration by downplaying the effect of the bill.
“They’re watching how Trump handles things,” Kirsch said. “They’re pushing the envelope on every interpretation of every word and every piece of legislation to go target people, to go after people… They’re watching how he handles things, and I think that they’re mimicking that at the state. They’re trying to make it sound like, ‘Well, this is all so reasonable. This is not a big deal. Don’t worry about it.’ And then if it passes, then we’re going to see it’s way… way worse.”
Kirsch said she is concerned about the potential “chilling effect” that the bill could have, discouraging individuals and families from seeking care when they need it.
“[Republicans are] trying to raise this to the public consciousness, and then people are going to be confused,” Kirsch said. “‘Is this a way that they’re going to find me, if I’m an undocumented person?… Even if I do qualify for care, maybe something’s going to happen to me?’ It can have this overall chilling effect of confusion of whether or not people feel safe enough to get care.”
Kirsch took issue with the argument that the bill would protect taxpayers’ money.
“When they do have access to health care, that also keeps our health care prices down because they’re not showing up in our emergency rooms, they’re doing preventative care, they’re taking care of their diabetes, and they’re not showing up with some serious diabetes complication in our emergency room,” Kirsch said.
Kirsch also noted that undocumented immigrants pay sales tax and contribute to the state’s economy. She referenced a 2024 report from the University of Wisconsin School for Workers that found that undocumented immigrants specifically contributed $240 million in state and local taxes in 2022.
According to the Wisconsin Lobbying website, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, Inc., Kids Forward, the Wisconsin chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, the Wisconsin Association of School Nurses and the Wisconsin Council of Churches are registered against the bill. The only group registered in favor is FGA Action, a Florida-based nonprofit that advocates for conservative policies in statehouses around the country.
David Gwidt, Deputy Communications Director for the ACLU of Wisconsin, said in a statement to the Examiner that the legislation if enacted “could result in absurd circumstances for medical and mental health providers across the state and exacerbate this fear and uncertainty experienced by our immigrant neighbors.”
The Assembly State Affairs Committee plans to vote on whether to advance the legislation Tuesday, setting it up for a floor vote later this week.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
The federal courthouse in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Another trial in the killing of 17-year-old Alvin Cole by then-Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah began Monday, with attorneys battling over whether Mensah used excessive force when he killed Cole following a foot chase in 2020. U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman is presiding over the case, as he did when the case went to trial earlier this year, ending in a hung jury. Mensah has claimed that Cole pointed a gun in his direction, making him fear for his life and triggering his decision to fire five shots at Cole.
An all-white, eight-member jury was selected out of a pool of 36 potential jurors, with an even split of men and women. None of the jurors are from Milwaukee. Two indicated that they have close relatives who served in law enforcement, though they said this would not sway their decision-making.
Attorney Kimberley Motley, representing Cole and his family, used a projection screen to display a photo of Cole when he was younger. She told jurors that sometimes kids do stupid things, which in this case was running from the police, but also that running alone does not give grounds for officers to use deadly force. “Some kids ran faster, some kids ran slower, and Alvin was one of the slower kids,” Motley said.
Motley noted that Mensah was not the first officer on the scene. Yet he was the only officer to fire. She stressed to the jury that Mensah, not Cole, “is the only one on trial,” and that jurors can acknowledge that police have a hard job while also finding that Mensah used excessive force.
Cole was Mensah’s third shooting over a five-year period at Wauwatosa PD, a fact not shared with jurors. In his opening statement, attorney Joseph Wirth told jurors that foot chases are incredibly dangerous and unpredictable and that Cole made “catastrophically bad” decisions and “the escalation of danger” was “enormous”. After firing a gun he was carrying, Wirth said Cole went into a crouch-like position, fired at Olson, and then turned towards Mensah before he was killed. One of the key issues in the case has been conflicting statements from police officers on the scene, with Mensah saying the gun was only pointed at him, Officer David Shamsi (who was closest to Cole), saying the gun hadn’t moved at all, and Officer Even Olson saying that the gun was pointed towards him and away from Mensah.
“Sympathy for loss of life can exist at the same time as your duty as a juror to uphold the law,” Wirth told the jurors. He asked them to “clear your minds of sympathy” and reiterated that “Alvin Cole made catastrophically bad decisions.”
Both civilian and law enforcement witnesses were called to the stand Monday, beginning with UW-Milwaukee film and documentary teacher Sean Kafer, who’d reviewed squad and deposition videos for the trial. Kafer testified that he added a red circle to a version of the squad video depicting the shooting, and removed background noise. The video was played multiple times for jurors. Wirth also played versions of the squad video. The low quality of the video was one of the issues noted by the jurors who failed to reach a unanimous decision in the last trial.
Shamsi, now an FBI agent and a major in the U.S. Army Reserve with combat experience, was working overtime the night of the shooting. He was among the officers who “floated” to the area in case they were needed.
After the first shot went off, Shamsi testified that Cole ended up on his hands and knees, with the firearm still in his right hand. Mensah came from behind Shamsi, who said that he did not see Cole turn or take a shooter’s stance as Wirth said in opening statements.
Video from Shamsi’s squad car was also played capturing him talking to other officers, including investigators from the Milwaukee Police Department who’d come to take his statement. In those videos, Shamsi can be heard saying “he was crawling” and that Shamsi was right next to “dude” when the shooting happened. When asked about Cole aiming the gun, Shamsi said, “I did not see it move.” Shamsi cautioned, though, that the situation was chaotic and rapid, and that he may not have noticed everything. He added that it was a deadly situation, and that he was prepared to fire if needed.
Shenora Statten-Jordan, a principal at Messmer High School testified that she was leaving a Mayfair-area restaurant when the shooting happened. Driving her white SUV beside her husband and two children in the back, Statten-Jordan testified to seeing lights and commotion near the Cheesecake Factory parking lot. As her vehicle approached she could see other officers responding, hear the shots, and see a boy fall to the ground onto his stomach with his legs still kicking “as if he was still running.”
Wirth attempted to establish, as he’d done in the last trial, that Statten-Jordan was not in a position to actually see the shooting. Video from Shamsi’s dash camera and a passing Milwaukee County bus, however, showed that Statten-Jordan was where she’d testified she was. After witnessing the shooting, she was interviewed by the Greenfield Police Department as part of the shooting investigation. Statten-Jordan said she’d offered to go back to the scene with officers, but that they didn’t take her up on the offer.
The last witness of the day was Wauwatosa officer Jeffrey Johnson, who left his own patrol sector to respond to the mall that day. Johnson recalled meeting Shamsi, chasing the teens and hearing the shots that ended Cole’s life. Johnson testified that Cole had fallen to his hands and knees, and that from his position 20-25 yards away that he, like Shamsi, did not see Cole move. Nor did Johnson fire his weapon, although he drew it after the first shot was fired. Johnson said that although he didn’t see Cole move while on the ground, a lot was going on. Johnson said that officer training does not require a gun to be pointed at you to justify firing.
The trial is expected to last until late Wednesday or early Thursday, when the case will be turned over for deliberations. Dr. Weislaw Tlomak, Chief Medical Officer of the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office, is expected to begin testimony Tuesday.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
Login