Former U.S. Rep Sean Duffy is Trump's pick to head the Department of Transportation, an agency whose work has never been an area of interest for him. | Official U.S. House of Representatives photo

When President-elect Donald Trump announced he would nominate Wisconsin’s former U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy as Secretary of Transportation, I had two reactions: Why Duffy? And why transportation?

As a reporter I’ve covered Duffy since he was the Ashland district attorney running as a Tea Party candidate for Congress in 2009 and winning election in 2010. I followed him through subsequent town hall meetings and election interviews until he won his fifth term in 2018, then resigned in 2019 because of concern for his newborn daughter’s heart condition. I’ve been around Duffy, a Republican conservative, enough to know he is an intelligent man who can hold his own in verbal sparring in Congressional debates, process questions from angry citizens at town hall meetings, and go toe-to-toe with high-profile personalities on CNN or Fox News (where he currently hosts a show).

Duffy, a father of nine, is married to Fox & Friends weekend host Rachel Campos-Duffy. He doesn’t have any of the obvious baggage some of Trump’s other nominees are hauling, including Department of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, a Fox News personality who has been accused of a history of drunkenness, disturbing behavior toward women and even sexual assault.

That’s not to say Duffy hasn’t made some outrageous comments. He referred to Madison as a “communist community” in December 2016 when a local recount was conducted after the presidential election that Trump had won, and he responded to criticism by suggesting liberals should obtain the services of a therapy dog to calm their angst – also not well received.

Snarkiness aside, what should be a concern is that Duffy’s resume doesn’t include experience relevant for running an organization as large as the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has with 55,000 employees, or for overseeing the nation’s roads, airfields, rail system and shipping ports.

It is not even trite to say that Duffy has gained just as much or more management experience being a father of nine children than he ever had running a small staff as a district attorney, congressman, K Street lobbyist or as the co-host of his Fox Business show, The Bottom Line with Dagen & Duffy.

There is nothing in Duffy’s background that suggests he would be effective at managing and leading a large organization on the scale of the Department of Transportation. He is not a former high-ranking military officer or chief executive of a large corporation or non-profit who can point to his track record managing thousands of workers.

Of course, one could argue that the current Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, didn’t have enough management experience, either, prior to assuming office. However, as the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a city of over 100,000 with more than 1,000 employees and day-to-day demands that included many transportation-related issues, Buttigieg was placed on a much larger, higher launching pad before taking the helm at D.O.T.  

Duffy has nothing close to Buttigieg’s management experience going into his confirmation hearing for Secretary of Transportation.

When the Senate commences his hearing on Wednesday, there should be many questions about why Duffy believes he can head such a large department without the benefit of management experience.

One of Duffy’s primary qualifications for the nomination appears to be his visibility on Fox News. Trump loves Fox and has picked other agency heads from the Fox lineup, including Hegseth.

The other reason I scratch my head over Trump’s nomination of Duffy for Secretary of Transportation is that while Duffy was in Congress, he very rarely raised any concerns or even showed an interest in transportation infrastructure.

I’ve poured over 90 pages of downloaded news stories, well over a dozen stories I wrote as the local reporter for the Spooner Advocate and the Sawyer County Record while covering Duffy, and I only have one account in all those years when he even mentioned a transportation issue.

In a 2012 interview, while I was a reporter for the Spooner Advocate, Duffy touted working with Minnesota’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar on efforts to ensure the construction of the new St. Croix River bridge between Wisconsin and Minnesota at Stillwater.

That’s it — one mention of a transportation issue.

So, it is surprising that someone who appeared to have little interest in or concern for the nation’s transportation systems would be nominated to head that department.

It would have been less surprising if Trump had nominated Duffy for a secretary or deputy position that addressed health insurance, banking and financial services, immigration and the border or even housing – issues Duffy repeatedly addressed while in Congress.

Even though many constituents told Duffy during  town hall meetings that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) offered them their first chance to get affordable health insurance, Duffy spoke out repeatedly against the ACA. He bragged at one meeting that he had either voted to repeal or amend the ACA 50 times because he found it restricted choice for some consumers and resulted in higher costs for others.

Duffy’s criticism of the ACA is that while it put more people on health insurance it didn’t address the rising cost of health care. He advocated for more health care choices and open pricing so consumers could choose the lowest-cost health care available on the open market.

Although he didn’t know the specifics, Duffy said he looked forward to Republican plans to replace ACA, but those plans never materialized after attempts to repeal ACA failed.

As part of the Tea Party wave of candidates who opposed the bailouts of financial institutions that started with President George W. Bush  and continued under President Barack Obama, Duffy was very much against bailing out banks that were “too big to fail.”

“To capitalize banks that made bad decisions just promotes bad behavior,” he said in 2010. “I think we should have stepped in and capitalized banks that behaved well and let those who performed poorly fail. I don’t believe in the philosophy of too big to fail, and that is what Dave Obey (Wisconsin’s former  Democratic 7th District Congressman) bought into. Now I think when banks make bad decisions, they are going to expect the government to step in and bail them out,” he said.

The “free market,” said Duffy, should be the primary agent in the economy, not the government.

“I believe in free markets,” he said. “I believe they work on the way up, so if you take advantage of the upside of these risky investments, you also better take advantage of the downside when you lose your pants. But the government is stepping in, minimizing the downside risk, and encouraging risky behavior.”

Duffy said he supported “smart regulations” on banks but not legislation that shut down all risk-taking. 

Even after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued fines of $180 million against Wells Fargo for allowing employees to open accounts that were never authorized by the clients who owned them, Duffy was critical of the organization because Duffy charged the CFPB had responded with little urgency to whistleblowers and only acted after an investigation by a Los Angeles District Attorney and coverage by the LA Times.

Another predictable appointment for  Duffy would have been as immigration czar. Duffy has advocated for more scrutiny and security at the borders and not allowing undocumented immigrants to receive government aid. But during his tenure in Congress, Duffy didn’t support mass deportations now championed by Trump. Duffy even advocated for a path to citizenship for those who had been in the country for years and wanted more visas for skilled workers trained in the U.S. to help the economy.

One important local issue Duffy took on while serving in Congress was the alleged misuse of an $800,000 federal grant to the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The tribe was part of his district. Duffy called for a forensic audit of how the tribe used a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant to address mold remediation in tribal housing.

Duffy’s attention resulted in a congressional subcommittee hearing he chaired at the reservation in July 2017 to address issues of housing for Native Americans and particularly how those HUD dollars were used.

Duffy’s intervention was controversial with tribal leadership, who characterized it as impinging on tribal sovereignty, but Duffy justified his actions out of concern for tribal members living in unsafe conditions.

It would have made a lot more sense for Trump to nominate Duffy for a number of other high-level posts in his administration other than transportation, including Secretary of HUD.

It will be interesting to hear Duffy explain to the Senate nominating committee why he should be the next Secretary of Transportation without relevant management experience or a record of interest in transportation issues.

If Duffy can’t make a convincing argument that he should be trusted to lead an agency of 55,000 that addresses the most critical infrastructure issues and sometimes responds to large-scale disasters then he shouldn’t be approved, no matter how bright his star shines on Fox.

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A service providing free legal help to students has a goal of “removing barriers preventing people from achieving the academic and career goals that matter most to them.” | Scales of justice photo via Getty Images Creative

Having access to free legal advice might not seem like a high priority for higher education, but for some students pursuing a bachelor’s degree from a four-year university or an associate’s degree at a vocational technical college, legal problems can be a significant obstacle.

Fortunately, students in Wisconsin’s public universities, technical colleges and two tribal colleges, have access to a free legal resource. 

Law for Learners, created in 2019, is a program offered in Wisconsin by the non-profit Ascendium whose focus is “removing barriers preventing people from achieving the academic and career goals that matter most to them.”

It began at Madison College and the Milwaukee Area Technical College and then expanded to all the public technical colleges.

The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater was the first of the UW system schools  to offer Law for Learners for college students, and then in January 2024 Ascendium signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the entire UW system and the service became available statewide in the spring of 2024. 

Originally called Lawyers for Learners, it  has served 3,400 students over the last 5 years 

Most of the issues the group deals with are family related (27%), such as alimony, child custody and placement, child support, divorce and legal separation, guardianship of a minor or paternity.

Housing issues make up about  18% of cases, including evictions, housing rights violations, security deposit returns and unsafe housing concerns.

Criminal matters  (14%of cases) have been the third highest area of concern, addressing background checks, expungement of  convictions and pardons.

Rebecca Rapp, on-staff general counsel for Ascendium Education Group in Madison, said expunging a conviction or obtaining a pardon, especially for felony, could make the difference in whether a college student could even have a future career in a field, such as medicine, where a felony record could mean limited job prospects.

“People get things pardoned or expunged and then it’s off their record,” she said, “but, I think, it’s helpful that they also realize if they can’t get it pardoned or expunged and it’s just going to be there, it’s better to know that before you incur debt and spend time training for a profession that you’re not going to be able to likely practice in, so getting that knowledge, I think, is just as important as the successful outcome of getting something removed.”

Since Law for Learners expanded to the entire UW system, 328 students have been served. 

At the UW-Green Bay, 18 students have received help with issues involving family law, driver’s license recovery, employment, immigration, public benefits, criminal records and housing.

Mark Olkowski, Associate Dean of Students at UW-Green Bay, said most students don’t even consider seeking legal advice because they think it is unaffordable.

Typically, Olkwoski said, students discover Law for Learners when talking to an advisor. He said Law for Learners has trained university employees to listen for concerns/stressors when meeting with students.

“Most students don’t come in and say, ‘I’m having this legal problem,’” he said. “It’s more like they are meeting with an advisor and they’re sharing some stressor, like a custody issue with an ex spouse or they are having issues with their landlord, and the advisor responds, ‘This sounds like you’re dealing with a legal issue. Would you like to talk to somebody that can help you with that?’ 

“Through that conversation, the academic advisor can say, ‘We actually have a service available and here’s the website; here’s how you can submit your request for assistance,’ and then they reach out and set up an appointment with the student,” said Olkowski.

Rapp said 65% of the intakes are from students who were informed by staff members. 

“So we really count on the staff,” she said. “Most people don’t know that …  they have a legal issue. They just know their landlord is being a jerk so they know they are not getting their security deposit back, or they have this criminal record and they can’t get a certain job. If you’re in a divorce, you obviously know it’s a legal matter, but there are a whole range of things people don’t even know it’s a legal issue.”

Most students, Rapp said, will only receive an hour of free service and rarely would Law for Learners represent a client in court.

“The range of services offered depends on the matter,” she said, “so if there is an expungement or a pardon, we may give somebody full-scale representation. If somebody has, like, a divorce or a family law matter, we’ll generally see them for an hour consultation. We can help them fill out forms. They can come back multiple times — sort of a serial, limited scope representation.”

Often Law for Learners is the first step. Lawyers connect clients with other organizations, such as Judicare Legal Aid, which provides  free civil legal services to low income persons living in Northern Wisconsin and to Native Americans statewide.

But even when a student realizes he or she has a legal issue, Rapp said, they may have had a negative experience with the law or don’t even know where to start.

“There’s a lot of rural communities that are considered legal deserts in Wisconsin that don’t even really have any attorneys,” she said, “and then we know our legal aid organizations, even for eligible clients, have a turn-away rate of 50% or more a lot of times, just due to lack of capacity and funding. So all that’s in the mix.”

While private attorneys can charge $300 an hour for their services, Law for Learners services are free.

“Ascendum pretty much has been funding this through grants and other things,” said Rapp.

She noted that the UW system doesn’t contribute toward Law for Learners, but that could change. 

Ascendium is committed to removing barriers to education and employment, Rapp said, to  “help people get their criminal records cleaned up or get pardons or other things that can open up career paths that they wouldn’t otherwise have, and that, frankly, are in demand.”

Testimonies provided by Law for Learners include a UW graduate now a medical student who had a non-criminal ticket dismissed, who said, “Law for learners is such a generous program that really helped me when I thought I had no other actions.”

Another testimony provided is from a Madison College graduate who had worked with the unhoused and those “entangled with the criminal legal system,” who received two pardons with Law for Learners assistance, and said,  “My previous conception of lawyers has been completely flipped. I am so grateful for people like yourself from a personal perspective as well as the hope it provides for our society in the years to come.”

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A new report outlines trends in jail bookings and argues that the data shows that a punitive response to social and economic needs isn't working. | Getty Images

A recently released Prison Policy Initiative report, using data from the Jail Data Initiative, reveals that in 2023 there were 7.6 million admissions to jail, but that 1 in 4 admissions were for people previously booked in the last year, with Indigenous people/Native Americans the most likely to be booked again.

“Based on the Jail Data Initiative data, we estimate that over 5.6 million unique individuals are booked into jail annually and about 1.2 million are jailed multiple times in a given year,” the report found.  “Further analysis reveals patterns of bookings — and repeat bookings in particular — across the country: The jail experience disproportionately impacts Black and Indigenous people, and law enforcement continues to use jailing as a response to poverty and low-level ‘public order’ offenses.”

The report, prepared by Emily Widra and Wendy Sawyer, is titled “Who is jailed, how often and why: Our Jail Data Initiative collaboration offers a fresh look at the misuse of local jails.”

The Jail Data Initiative gathered information from 1,000 jails in the U.S. daily that included online jail rosters. The 1,000 jails represent approximately a third of 2,850 jails in America.

Of the 1,000 jails, 648 offered jail rosters available for a two-year window (July 1, 2021-June 30, 2023) and an additional year (out to June 30, 2024) to document those who had been booked again.

Previously, back in 2019, the Prison Policy Initiative released a report titled “Arrest, Release, Repeat: How police and jails are misused to respond to social problems.” That 2019 report reflects a survey from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health while the 2024 report reflects data collected directly from jails.

The 2024 report notes that more than 1 in 5, or 22%, in the study were booked more than once within 12 months.

Black people, who represent 14% of the population, were booked on unique charges at 32% of the total cases. 

Indigenous people, who represent 1% of the U.S. population, but are 3% of the incarcerated population, were rebooked back in jail within one year at 33%, contrasted with 23% for whites booked a second time within one year, 20% for Blacks, 19% for other people of color, and 18% for Asian American or Pacific Islanders.

The 2024 report notes that while the rates of booking and rebooking for women are similar to men in their demographic there is a growing trend of more women being incarcerated in jail.

“From 2021 to 2022, the number of women in jail increased 9% while the number of men in jail increased only 3%. The jailing of women has a devastating ‘ripple effect’ on families: At least 80% of women booked into jail are mothers, including over 55,000 women who are pregnant when they are admitted. Beyond having to leave their children in someone else’s care, these women are impacted by the brutal side effects of going to jail: aggravation of mental health problems, a greater risk of suicide, and a much higher likelihood of ending up homeless or deprived of essential support and benefits. So while women may account for a relatively small share of people booked into jails, those jail admissions have serious and long lasting consequences for the women, their families, and their communities.”

The report notes that 1 in 10 booked were older adults and roughly 7% of those older adults were rebooked within a year.

The report also notes, from 1999 to 2021, there was a growing trend of those 55 years old and older being arrested.

“Considering most older adults are arrested for low-level, non-violent offenses like trespassing, driving offenses, and disorderly conduct, it is likely that the older adults admitted to jail are in need of other systems of support outside of the criminal legal system, like substance use treatment, accessible medical care, and behavioral health services,” the report states.

In the Jail Data Initiative, there were 140 jails that shared the housing status of inmates, whether residents were homeless/unhoused or not: 4% reported they were unhoused and 42% of those unhoused were booked again within a year compared to 20% of those who had housing.

“This finding adds to the existing evidence of law enforcement’s ineffective but disproportionate and deliberate targeting of people experiencing homelessness,” the report states.

The 2024 report also compared recent charges reflected to  data collected in a 2002 Bureau of Justice Statistics  survey of inmates in local jails, based on self-reporting by inmates, and concluded there had been a noticeable decrease in drug charges since 2002 (from 25% to 14%), a smaller decrease for property charges, very little variation for violent offense charges, but a 6% increase in public order charges, such as disorderly conduct, loitering or public intoxication.

The report notes its findings support a widely accepted conclusion: “People who are arrested and booked more than once per year often have other vulnerabilities, including homelessness, in addition to the serious medical and mental health needs …”

This report has been updated to clarify how the jail admission and readmission data was reported and calculated.

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Officer Jarid Rankila tells Erica Peters she is being detained | Screenshot via Superior Police Department body cam footage

Douglas County District Attorney Mark Fruehauf said he had “serious concerns” about the credibility of a Superior, Wisconsin police officer who has served as a witness in criminal cases. The concerns stem from discrepancies between the officer’s  incident report and body camera footage documenting an April 13, 2024 arrest. As a result, the DA  dismissed 40 cases, including 26 involving felony drug charges, where the officer served as a witness.

The concerns were raised after Officer Jarid Rankila, 26, a three-year veteran of the force, reported that a woman he arrested had injured him, kicking the door of a police car so that it closed on his hand. Body camera footage reveals Rankila saying “You almost smashed my hand in the f…ing door.” The  footage also shows him using the hand he said had been “smashed” without any apparent difficulty.

On Aug. 26, Fruehauf wrote Superior Police Chief Paul Winterscheidt about his “concerns that I have regarding the credibility of Officer Jarid Rankila, relative to the above-listed incident and the claim made therein by Officer Rankila about a hand injury he sustained during the incident.”

Chief Winterscheidt told the Examiner that Rankila had resigned from his job and that his last day on the force was Sept. 30.  

Reports

In the incident report Rankila prepared, he noted that he was called at 9:10 p.m., April 13 to the Superior Curling Club, 4700 Tower Avenue, (local media refers to this area as the Superior Fairgrounds) where a woman was “flipping over tables, yelling at people and causing a disturbance.”

The woman, Erica Peters, 40, of Appleton, was there to watch her son compete in  a cage fight.

Rankila recorded that he and two other officers arrived on the scene and that Peters appeared intoxicated and was becoming aggressive with one of the other officers. Rankila  attempted to handcuff Peters but, he reported, she resisted until, with the assistance of the other two officers, he was able to handcuff her and attempt to secure her in squad car 32.

“I walked to squad car 32 to open the rear driver’s side door for Officer’s Olson and Finger. When I did this Erica turned toward the rear driver’s side door of the squad car and kicked it shut. My right hand was in between the door and the b-piller of the squad car at the time Erica kicked it out.

“When Erica kicked the door shut on my right hand, I felt a rush of pain in my right hand…”

In his report, Rankila stated that  he stopped at the Essentia Health Emergency Room in Superior to “speak with a ER doctor about the incident and weather (sic) I should have my had (sic) examined. At that time, which was approximately 30-40 minutes after my hand was slammed in the door, I was no longer feeling pain in my right hand. My hand was tighter than normal and I noticed it was slightly swollen.

“The ER doctor listened to my recollection of the incident. He advised that I be mindful of any pain or range of motion issues with my affected hand in the coming days and weeks. The doctor stated it would not be necessary to check me into the ER for an official check-up as he would end up telling me the exact same thing and then release me.”

Peters was booked on three charges: disorderly conduct, resisting or obstructing an officer and battery to a law enforcement officer. Only the battery charge is a felony. Peters was ultimately charged only for disorderly conduct and resisting or obstructing an officer. She pled no contest to the disorderly conduct charge and the other charge was dismissed.

Fruehauf notes that on April 16 Rankila filed “a supplemental narrative report of the incident” in which Rankila reports: “I would rate my level of pain to be 8/10 (eight out of 10) when the door closed on my hand. I noticed swelling and stiffness in my hand and fingers for approximately 30 minutes following the incident.”

And Fruehauf also notes that on April 18, Rankila completed an “Employee Injury/Illness Report Form” in which he reported that  the injury included “abrasion, bruise and pain,” and stated  “I opened the door to the squad car and she kicked it closed on my hand,” and he described “severe pain in my right hand, swelling and light bruising.”

Fruehauf said a review of the reports Rankila filed without reference to any other evidence “would lead a reasonable reader (and did, in fact, lead me personally) to conclude that Officer Rankila had a car door forcibly closed or slammed shut on his hand and he suffered an injury that was evidenced by pain, swelling, bruising, and abrasions (which is what one would expect to see following a person’s hand being slammed in a car door).”

Body camera

“Officer Rankila’s body camera was recording during this incident. It is not consistent with his police reports,” said Fruehauf.

The Douglas County DA described what he saw in the footage of the reported door slamming on Rankila’s hand. “Officer Rankila’s hand is on the side of the open door, with his fingers on the outside, and the base of his palm resting on the inside of the door. He is essentially gripping the door as it is open.

“Peters, without warning aggressively and forcefully kicks the door while Officer Rankila is holding on to it. In a frame-by-frame review of the body camera footage, it appears as though Officer Rankila is able to quickly remove his hand just before the door closes on it. It certainly does not close on his fingers. At worst, if it closed on any part of his, it would have been the base of his palm.”

Close inspection of the body camera footage the Wisconsin Examiner received from the police department does not clearly show Rankila’s hand on the squad door.

 

Rankila (Winterscheidt letter)

 

Fruehauf provided the Examiner with a series of still images taken from the video that, he said, show Rankila’s hand on the door prior, during and after the door is kicked. However, the still images are not very clear.

In the report, Fruehauf noted that Rankila shouts, “Hey! Knock if off. You almost smashed my hand in the f–ing door!”

Fruehauf also pointed to video showing Rankila reenacting his hand being slammed in the door and saying, “I was holding the door open and she kicked it shut so hard that my hand went ‘boom!’”

“At this point, his entire hand is inside the vehicle such that the reenactment depicts the door appearing to close on his wrist,” said Fruehauf, adding, “This is not consistent with the actual incident as depicted on his body camera.”

Fruehauf noted other footage shows Rankila using his right hand without any apparent difficulty and also that there had not been a photo taken of Rankila’s hand to document the injury.

In his incident report, Rankila did not provide the name of the doctor who reportedly looked at his hand, but an Ashland County investigator had spoken with an ER doctor on duty that night, “who said he had a vague recollection of talking with a police officer in person or on the phone.”

GPS data on Rankila’s squad car, Fruehauf said, located it at Essentia Hospital on the night of the incident  for 2 minutes and 21 seconds.

Analysis

“Based on my review of the above information, I do not find credible the report of Officer Rankila wherein he says on April 13, 2024 his hand was slammed or smashed in a car door, resulting in injuries to include bruising, abrasions and swelling,” wrote Fruehauf.

Fruehauf raised concerns about several areas of Rankila’s report including the visit to the hospital where Fruehauf questioned how Rankila would have had enough time in less than 3 minutes to walk into the emergency room and consult a doctor, as well as the fact that he did not get the name of the physician.

“Assuming Officer Rankila did not suffer the hand injury he describes, it is also disconcerting that any falsehood would not be limited to his initial report, but was in fact repeated twice more in the two subsequent reports he wrote days later documenting said injury,” wrote Fruehauf.

Fruehauf said that prior to the reported kick, Peters had not done anything that would warrant a felony charge and that night she would have been allowed to post bail and not spend the night in jail. Because Rankila charged her with a felony, Peters wasn’t allowed to leave pending a hearing before a judge.

“Officer Rankila had every right to be upset,” wrote Fruehauf. “He had every right to bring her to jail and book her on the misdemeanor offenses she had committed. But he did not have the right to include false information in a police report that ultimately supported Peters being booked in on a felony and having to sit in custody longer than she likely would have had she been booked solely for misdemeanor behavior.”

Fruehauf also raised concerns about using Rankila to prosecute other cases.

“I have significant concerns about my office’s ability ever again to use Officer Rankila as a witness. Absent additional information that sheds light or somehow serves to explain that this is some kind of innocent mistake, I cannot in good conscience permit a case to rest on the credibility of an officer with this kind of apparent dishonesty,” he wrote.

Fruehauf said the Superior Police Department has an internal investigation underway and he requested the department provide him any “information that tends to either inculpate, or exonerate, Officer Rankila.”

He added that he has begun “dismissing cases with prejudice that rely primarily on Officer Rankila’s credibility and would require him to testify at a motion hearing or jury trial under oath.”

Charges against Rankila?

Fruehauf was asked why he hadn’t filed a charge against Rankila for intentionally falsifying a police report.

“A person is presumed innocent unless and until he is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” he said. “Based upon my discussion of the case with Ashland County and my review of the evidence, at this time I do not believe I could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed by Mr. Rankila.  Were charges to proceed against Mr. Rankila, I would be required to prove ‘intentional falsification’ beyond a reasonable doubt at his trial, and I believe a reasonable jury, which would be instructed that it must give Mr. Rankila the benefit of every reasonable doubt, could conclude that this was not a case of intentional falsification, but rather unintentionally very poorly worded reports.”  

“At the same time,” Fruehauf said, “whether poorly written or something worse, this incident caused me serious concerns about my office’s ability to rely on Mr. Rankila’s credibility in future cases where he would be needed as a witness.  As a result, we have made the decision to dismiss pending cases where he would be a necessary witness in the future, which has resulted in dismissal of 40 such cases, primarily involving drug and traffic related offenses.”

“This was a difficult decision that results in several charged defendants who will not have their day in court,” Fruehauf added.  “But the job of the prosecutor is to do justice, and given the credibility concerns I have, I believe dismissal of those cases is necessary and in the interests of justice.”

Dismissed cases

The Wisconsin Examiner requested a list of the dismissed cases, which Fruehauf provided.

Of the 40 cases, 26 involved a felony related to a drug charge, including “methamphetamine with intent to deliver” and “cocaine with intent to deliver.”

Other felony charges dismissed included possession of firearm by a felon, bail jumping and fleeing an officer

Misdemeanors dismissed included financial card fraud and neglect of a child.

There is also one criminal traffic violation for operating while intoxicated (OWI) and three charges for operating without a license.

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The Oshkii Giizhik Singers perform at a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives fundraiser. | Photo by Frank Zufall

Family members of missing and murdered Indigenous people, along with their friends and supporters, gathered at Denfeld High School in Duluth, Minnesota Saturday for a fundraiser titled , “No More MMIW/R Concert and Art Exhibition – Honoring Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives.”

The purpose of the event was to raise money to help families of those who have been murdered or gone missing.

Event organizer Rene Goodrich, Native Lives Matter Coalition leader and a member of both the Minnesota and Wisconsin MMIW/R task forces, said the dollars raised would go to a MMIW/R mutual aid fund called Wiidosendiwag, Ojibwe for “Walking Together.”

Goodrich said the support would help families continue searches for relatives and fund advocacy and awareness in local communities.

Families represented at the event included relatives of Chantel Moose, 27, a Fond du Lac tribal member in Minnesota, who died from a knife wound on April 12 in Duluth (two persons have been taken into custody for the offense). They were joined by relatives of Peter M. Martin, 32, also a Fond du Lac tribal member who has been missing since March 8, 2024, last seen in the Mahnomen neighborhood of the reservation.

Attendees at the event observed an art exhibition of red dresses inspired by the MMIW/R movement.

Groups opposing the Enbridge Line 5 Pipeline near the Bad River Reservation in northern Wisconsin and representatives of agencies helping victims of sexual assault set up tables at the event.

The fundraiser featured a concert by the Oshkii Giizhik Singers, a traditional group of Indigenous women, Native American flute playing by Michael LaughingFox Charette (a Red Cliff tribal member) and two members of the Christian rock band, Remedy Drive, from Nashville, Tennessee, followed by Mitch McVicker, another Christian contemporary singer, with a final performance by Keith Secola, folk and blues rocker, who is a seven-time Native American Music Award winner.

David Zach, lead singer for Remedy Drive, has been involved with a group that has organized to fight sex trafficking in Asia and Central America.

Peter Martin

At one of the tables were family members and a friend of Peter Martin. They are all Fond du Lac tribal members: Martin’s older sister Linda Martin-Proulx, niece Izzy Proulx and friend of the family, Kayla Jackson.

The ongoing search efforts by the Martin family will be helped by funds raised Saturday.

“He has been missing since March 8, and we did a search on the Fond du Lac reservation,” said Jackson. “We’ve searched over 1,000 acres on the reservation.”

“He lived on Rustic Lane. It’s not like him to just leave without telling anybody,” said Izzy Proulx. “He’s really a homebody, so we think it’s really out of his character to just go off and not tell anybody. There’s been no activity on any of his social media or his bank accounts, like nothing.”

Initially there were intense searches for Martin, coordinated with law enforcement and tribal organizations, but then a heavy snow fell and hampered the effort.

“There were a lot of people coming out to help us before the snow,” said Izzy. “It (searches after the snow) got harder and harder but we still kept searching.”
Local law enforcement has been working with the family, collecting evidence and tips.
Izzy said tribal people often don’t trust law enforcement, but are more willing to give tips to the family.

The three women believe that there is foul play involved in Martin’s disappearance.
“As you see on the flier, he’s 32 and he’s a father,” said Izzy. “His daughter is maybe one or two years old when he went missing, so he’s a first-time father and he wouldn’t just leave his daughter behind and he is from a big family.”

The searches have uncovered articles of clothing believed to be Martin’s. The family is conducting ongoing searches in areas that haven’t been looked at. They are using technology from law enforcement to organize efforts so the searchers in the forest can systematically comb for evidence.

“We’ve had some dogs brought in from South Dakota to work with us, too,” said Izzy.
There was also a contribution of remote communication radios in the field, and the Fond du Lac Police Department has been working with the family to ensure the searches are safe.

“They gave us life jackets to wear as we were searching over bogs,” she said.
However, as time drags on, the search effort is more and more just family members holding out hope they find Martin or evidence to explain what happened to him.

Grassroots effort

Before the concert, Goodrich thanked those who came out to support the fundraiser, and she talked about its importance.

“There’s a larger work that’s happening with Indigenous advocates, grassroots boots on the ground with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives crisis,” she said. “Yes, we do have a crisis. The numbers are astounding.”

She added, “This is not a new crisis. This is not a new epidemic. This is very historical to Turtle Island (Earth) to Indigenous peoples and has been happening since the very onset of colonization onto Turtle Island.”

She noted that in Minnesota there are 13 MMIW/R open cases, representing at least 13 families who have been affected and their larger communities.

According to a 2017 U.S. Department of Justice report, she said, Native American women face murder rates in some U.S. counties and reservations that are 10 times the national average, and homicide is the third leading cause of death for Native American girls between the ages of 10-24 and the fifth leading cause of death for those ages 25-34. More than 84% of Native American women had faced violence in their lifetimes with over 56% experiencing sexual assault.

“Over 40% of our women that have identified as victims of sex trafficking have identified as American Indian, Alaskan Native and also our First Nations (Canadian Indigenous) people,” she said. “So our women are greatly disproportionately targeted by violence.”

Goodrich also cited a 2016 National Institute of Justice study which showed 1.4 million American Indian and Alaska Native men have also experienced violence in their lifetimes.

The MMIW/R movement, Goodrich said, began 40 years ago in Canada and in 2012-13 spread to North Dakota and Minnesota.

In the Twin Ports area of Duluth, Minnesota and neighboring Superior, Wisconsin, non-violence groups, legislators and nonprofit community partners and police departments, especially the Duluth Police, created a local reward fund, called Gaagig-Mikwendaagoziwag, Ojibwe for “They will be remembered forever.” The reward fund has been accepted as a statewide program in Minnesota, offering up to $10,000 for tips on MMIW/R cases.

Goodrich called the effort in Minnesota “historic,”and said the same grassroots effort would be instrumental in creating the fund for families.

“How do we best meet that need?” she asked. “We do that on a grassroots level by meeting just like we’re meeting tonight, by creating innovative and different pathways to meet these needs, and we don’t ask for permission. We push forward and wait for the state to pick it up.”

Future fundraising

A second fundraiser is set for the Twin Ports Trafficking and MMIW Awareness Month on Jan. 11, 2025 in Superior.
More information will be available at https://www.facebook.com/share/19QyCYKLov/

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