Kelly O'Keefe Boettcher holds a photo of Brittany Doescher at a vigil near Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac on March 22, 2025 | Photo by Andrew Kennard/Wisconsin Examiner
At a vigil across the road from Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac, Wis., advocates sought to increase attention on the women’s prison.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
“There’s been a lot of publicity with what goes on in the men’s prisons in the last couple of years, but that is something that is not just within those prisons, it is at the women’s prisons too,” Juli Bliefnick, who was once incarcerated at Taycheedah, said at the vigil on Saturday.
The small group of advocates met in a neighborhood near the prison and walked up to the facility, carrying signs bearing photos of two women.
Wisconsin Watch and Wisconsin Public Radio published an article on March 11 that reported the deaths of Shawnee Reed, 36, on Feb. 23, and Brittany Doescher, 33, on March 6, following hospital stays. The women were incarcerated at Taycheedah Correctional.
Bliefnick is the operations coordinator for FREE, a nonprofit addressing the gender-specific issues of women’s incarceration and reentry to society. She spoke about getting “some visibility for these women and honor[ing] their memory” and showing support for women currently incarcerated at the facility.
The official causes of the deaths are still not public, according to the article. Family members said hospital staff linked the deaths to pneumonia. Following discussions with doctors, an unnamed family member of Doescher believes earlier treatment could have prevented her death. Family members said both women started mentioning health issues over the phone around a month before the article’s publication on March 11.
Pneumonia fatality
The obituary for Doescher says that she “suffered and died from complications from pneumonia left untreated.”
In a statement to Wisconsin Watch and WPR, Department of Corrections communications director Beth Hardtke said the agency was taking steps to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses to staff and incarcerated people in a time of reportedly high numbers of respiratory illness cases in Wisconsin, the article said. She detailed actions taken by the department and said people incarcerated at Wisconsin prisons, including Taycheedah, recently received testing and treatment for Influenza A.
Another advocate at the vigil, Melissa Ludin, said she is a member of FREE’s board.
“And I think if anything, I think there’s things that really need to be looked into with that,” she said, referring to Doescher’s family saying the cause of her death was untreated pneumonia. “…Are there other women that are sick?”
Cellmate homicide
In July 2023, Cindy Schulz-Juedes, 68, died at Taycheedah Correctional. Taylor Sanchez, 29 and also incarcerated at Taycheedah, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide of her cellmate. A jury trial is scheduled for July and early August.
In early March, the Examiner sent a records request for any reports produced by the Fond du Lac Police Department’s investigation into Schulz-Juedes’s death. The department denied the request on the grounds that disclosure could interfere with an ongoing prosecution or investigation.
Attorney Steve Hurley with documents of the type Wisconsin prisons are shredding. | Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner
The Office of the Wisconsin State Public Defender and other attorneys are expressing concerns over attorney-client confidentiality and the timely and accurate delivery of legal mail for clients incarcerated in state prisons.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
On Sept. 10, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) adopted a new policy for external paperwork sent to prisons. The protocol calls for incarcerated residents to watch the copying of their legal mail and allows them to review the copies; then the original mail is shredded.
Mail covered under the policy includes letters from an attorney, law office, clerk or judge of any state or federal court, court staff or tribal court. It also covers correspondence with federal and state elected or appointed officials including the governor, Wisconsin legislators, the secretary of the DOC and others.
The process of opening and photocopying the mail, providing the copy to the incarcerated person and shredding the original mail is documented with the facility’s camera system, the DOC policy states.
The policy’s general guidelines allow staff to inspect legal documents “to the extent necessary to determine if the documents contain contraband or if the purpose is misrepresented.” If staff have reason to believe a letter is not a legal document “and the safety and security of the institution is implicated,” the policy allows them to read legal documents.
The DOC’s protocol has garnered criticism from the Wisconsin public defender’s office. Public defenders’ primary concerns are timely delivery of information to clients, the accuracy of the copying and protecting attorney-client confidentiality.
“Unfortunately, with DOC’s new mail policy we have experienced significant delays with mail delivery, compromised confidentiality, and in some cases legal documents have been lost,” said Deputy State Public Defender Katie York. “This has impacted our ability to develop trusting attorney/client relationships and has caused unnecessary delays for our clients and others impacted by the legal system. However, in our continuous efforts to provide the highest quality defense for our clients, we will keep doing everything we can to maintain communication with our clients.”
The Wisconsin American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has also raised concerns about how the DOC’s handling of legal mail is affecting incarcerated people and the legal process.
“Alarmingly, the DOC continues to introduce new restrictions that have made it increasingly difficult for people in DOC custody to receive legal mail and books,” Emma Shakeshaft, senior attorney for the ACLU of Wisconsin said in an October statement, “and we are very concerned about how these policy changes are negatively impacting those in custody. Legal mail is essential to incarcerated individuals’ ability to access the courts and to communicate confidentially with their legal counsel.”
Beth Hardtke, director of communications for the DOC, said the department was not aware of any recent concerns from the Office of the State Public Defender about the DOC’s legal mail policy, and that the DOC would follow up with them to learn more.
Hardtke said the public defenders’ office had input into the development of the policy, and that the policy was revised based on the office’s feedback before it went into effect in September 2024. The DOC is not aware of any significant delays regarding legal mail, she said.
She said the postal service delivers legal mail directly to facilities, “where it is promptly processed in front of the individual to whom the mail is addressed.”
“The policy also details a number of steps that are taken to protect the confidentiality of the process including having the process take place in front of cameras placed so that writing is illegible, special copiers just for this purpose and ensuring that the person in our care is part of the process,” Hardtke said.
Drug concerns
DOC’s goal with the legal mail policy was to prevent intoxicating substances from entering facilities through legal mail, Hardtke said.
In November2021, the DOC announced that it would start partnering with a company to photocopy the personal mail of all incarcerated adults in an attempt to keep drug-laden mail out of prisons. The department began giving residents photocopies of their mail instead of original letters.
In a 2021 press release about the new policy, the DOC said that despite its previous efforts, in September 2021 alone there were 182 drug incidents within Wisconsin prisons, with 16 people needing emergency medical treatment.
The department said it had seen an increase of drug incidents among incarcerated people. This included the use of synthetic cannabinoids, which can cause violent behavior or a need for emergency medical treatment, the department said. The DOC said paper and envelopes could be sprayed with or soaked in the drugs and sent into prisons through the mail.
In August 2022, the agency said it had seen a decrease in the total number of drug incidents at adult facilities between November 2021 and February 2022. The agency attributed the decrease to its new policy of photocopying mail. The DOC also said it saw a decrease in overdoses requiring transport to a medical facility.
After receiving inquiries about the department’s controversial ban on used books, the department sent data to reporters in late September. DOC staff reviewed contraband incident reports that facility staff had flagged as drug-related between 2019 and Sept. 18, 2024.
The department said some drug-related incidents recorded through a medical record or conduct report may not be reflected in their numbers. The DOC also said not all incident reports flagged as drug related turn out to actually be drug-related.
The DOC said legal mail tested positive in five incidents in 2021, and in 2022, there were 10 instances of material “purporting to be legal mail” that tested positive for drugs.
Six incidents in 2023 involved legal mail, the department said. The DOC said legal mail tested positive for drugs in at least seven incidents in 2024, as of Sept. 18.
When it comes to mail or donations that tested positive for drugs, the department said it is “often unable to say” whether they are from a legitimate entity, or from someone impersonating another person or organization.
In an email to the nonprofit Wisconsin Books to Prisoners in August, then-Administrator of the Division of Adult Institutions Sarah Cooper spoke about impersonation. She said “bad actors” impersonated agencies to send drugs into prisons.
“To provide some examples, there have been many instances of drugs coming in via mail (and publications/books) which appear to be sent from the Child Support Agency, the IRS, the State Public Defender’s Office, the Department of Justice and individual attorneys,” Cooper said.
In the August email, Cooper said the DOC had had to “implement a whole new process” for handling mail from the entities she mentioned.
The number of drug incidents involving legal mail has fallen to zero, according to a review of contraband incident reports that facility staff flagged as drug-related, Hardtke said. She said between Sept. 19 and Feb. 28, there were no incidents documented in those reports of legal mail testing positive for intoxicants.
She said these records may not include all incidents, since some incidents may be documented in conduct reports, other types of incident reports or medical records.
“The most important thing to know about the legal mail policy is that it works,” Hardtke said.
But York said she also knows there have been instances of false positive tests.
“I know it has happened because I’ve talked to both staff and private bar attorneys where the institution has sent back materials because they tested positive,” York said. Transcripts that were not drug-laced have been returned after positive tests, she said. She could not provide a number of such incidents and said she also believed some documents that were confiscated after positive tests were not sent back.
Hardtke said the DOC uses the IONSCAN 600 testing technology to test books, packages and other materials coming into DOC facilities. She said the technology was chosen in consultation with the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratories “in part because its results have held up to court scrutiny.”
Steve Hurley, a defense attorney at Hurley Burish, S.C. in Madison, told the Examiner about a case a few years ago in which his firm represented a lawyer who was accused of sending drugs to a client.
He said their investigation used the test used by the DOC and got a false positive, and that the department relied on a presumptive test that was not intended to give a conclusive result.
This test was not the IONSCAN 600. The DOC did not say whether it currently uses other tests as well as the IONSCAN 600.
“They didn’t charge him criminally because I think they knew that they had misused the [drug] test,” Hurley said. “So when I called them on it, eventually, they just dropped the whole thing and reinstated his ability to communicate with his client.”
Attorneys suggest creating a verification method for legal mail
Shakeshaft said attorneys attempting to communicate with their clients are not the source of drugs in prison. She thinks there should be an alternative method of getting legal mail to clients without having all the documents copied and the originals shredded.
“To the extent that third parties are attempting to disguise contraband as legal mail, there’s a lot of less restrictive ways to address that, to ensure that legal mail is coming from licensed attorneys… [Methods that] are not nearly as much of a threat to attorney-client confidential communications,” she said.
York said her office asked about creating a process that would certify the mail was from the assigned attorney and not from an impersonator.
“We asked if there was some sort of system, if it was like, some sort of changing numbering system, or something that we could put on the envelopes that would ensure that they knew that it was coming from our office,” she said.
York said her office also made an offer to reach out to a facility beforehand when they’re sending a client their file. The public defender’s office would let them know how many boxes they would be sending with a client file, so the facility would know in advance that the documents were coming from their office. She said the offer was not accepted.
York said her office used to receive calls seeking to verify that her office had sent mail to a resident. She didn’t think this was consistent across all facilities.
“They would call our office and ask, ‘Did you send mail to this person?’ when they got letters,” said York. “I used to get those calls when I was the appellate division director. So that was another way that they used to try to kind of validate the fact that it came from an attorney.”
Confidentiality concerns
Hurley said that as a defense lawyer, it’s his job to not trust the government when it comes to his clients. He believes his clients should receive their legal mail unopened.
“The minute you open a lawyer’s mail, somebody is going to look at it,” Hurley said. “I don’t care what they say about their policies, somebody’s going to look at it. And you can’t do that.”
If others know what someone is convicted of, it could lead to a more difficult time in prison, Hurley said. He also said information in an incarcerated person’s legal mail isn’t necessarily about their criminal record.
“If you were getting divorced, do you want your neighbor to know what you’re arguing with your spouse over about what the extent of your property is?” Hurley said. “No, and you don’t want a guard to know that either.”
Nicole Masnica, an attorney with Gimbel, Reilly, Guerin & Brown LLP in Milwaukee, said prison staff reviewing privileged communications and legal mail from counsel creates a concern about the safety and security of incarcerated people in the DOC.
Legal correspondence and materials “may very well contain” information detailing a person’s cooperation with authorities against other incarcerated people “and even sometimes staff employed by the Department of Corrections,” she said in a statement emailed to the Examiner.
“I have represented individuals who have expressed concerns about confidential information from legal correspondence getting into the wrong hands at the prisons, and policies like those currently in place with the DOC that permit the reviewing of confidential information by DOC staff only amplifies those risks to individuals assisting law enforcement investigations,” Masnica said.
Shakeshaft said there are opportunities during the copying and shredding of legal mail for someone to view the documents. She also raised the question of how the process would be filmed without the camera viewing information in the legal mail.
“There’s a number of different parts of the policy where confidentiality is threatened overall,” she said.
Attorney Lonnie Story sent the Examiner a conduct report from when an incarcerated man, Justin Welch, was written up by a DOC staff member in February 2024. The report indicates a staff member read a letter from Welch that was “addressed to Story Law Firm Attorney Lonnie Story.”
According to the report, in the letter, Welch referenced a recent assault he was involved in with another person. Welch said that he was going to be placed by this person and “will have no choice but to fight him again. This is what the WCI does this time I will hurt him.” The staff member wrote the conduct report, saying Welch was making direct physical threats to the other person.
Story said he contacted Department of Justice attorneys, who called the warden. Story sent the Examiner a letter from the warden on which Welch was copied, dated March 25, 2024. The letter said the warden had initiated a review of the incident, and the hearing officer’s decision and the punishment of 30 days in restrictive housing were reversed.
Welch sent the Examiner a complaint he made to the DOC about a prison denying three of his emails, preventing them from reaching the intended recipients. (Electronic correspondence is not treated as legal mail under DOC policy.)
Two emails were intended for a reporter, while the third was sent to Story. According to Welch’s complaint, a staff member told him that emails were not for legal communication and an attorney call should be set up instead. Welch’s complaint was successful, leading to a ruling that his emails should not have been denied.
Devin Skrzypchak, a resident of Oshkosh Correctional Facility, said he has concerns that the prison staff have had access to his legal mail for up to three days while the prison was setting up a time for the copying and shredding when he could be present. He has concerns that his legal mail could have been read during that wait time.
Not all legal mail involves physical documents, according to Masnica. If there are large files, it’s cheaper to send a hard drive or USB. In one case, Masnica said she sent documents related to potential jurors and received an email from the prison.
The person from the prison who contacted Masnica didn’t necessarily think the documents were related to litigation, she said. To her, it was clear that the prison had reviewed the mail in detail.
“They had made remarks that it was not just the jurors in the case, but all jurors potentially that were going to be called that week, or that month,” Masnica said.
Masnica said she complained and was sent a policy. DOC policy says that when a facility receives new digitally formatted legal material, it shall assign staff to review the content with the incarcerated person present to make sure it is “legal in nature.”
The policy states that “if any file is found to contain contraband, the data storage device may be subject to disposal” in accordance with the DOC’s contraband policy after consultation with the Office of Legal Counsel.
Timeliness concerns
“We’ve heard of attorneys having to push back court deadlines and delays because they can’t continue that communication [with clients],” said Shakeshaft. “They can’t get the legal documents to clients in time, or clients aren’t getting the correct legal documents.”
The Examiner asked York about specific situations that make it critical for the incarcerated person to have the legal mail for the case to proceed in court.
“There is not a super clean answer to this, but there are some situations, for example, we need clients to sign documents,” said York. “One example of that is notice of intent to appeal in a termination of parental rights case; we have to have a wet signature from the client on the notice before we file it, and it’s a pretty tight turnaround. It’s 30 days.”
York said there’s also a problem when clients don’t accept their mail due to the policy of copying and shredding. This leaves the attorney with the option of meeting in person to get a signature on a form, which can be time consuming.
Lost in the mail
Masnica recalled her firm having to send mail multiple times because a client didn’t receive it.
“If we’re sending something to a client on the street who is living in their home, we never really have issues,” Masnica said.
Story said he’s had an issue with not receiving mail that a client said they sent to him.
“Most disturbing is when my clients have part of their case record from their legal materials disappear,” Story said. “Their file doesn’t follow them to the next institution, or part of it is mailed to me and not the whole of it.”
Dorin Ferguson, who is incarcerated at the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel, said he has sent mail to Story that didn’t arrive, including mail that was returned to Ferguson.
DOC policy allows the resident to check the copied legal documents and request two rescans. York said sending large files poses a risk of miscopying.
Detective Joseph Mensah (right) testifies before the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety earlier this year. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
The third day of the federal civil trial into the death of 17-year-old Alvin Cole featured testimony from Joseph Mensah, the officer who fatally shot Cole in 2020. Now a detective for the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department, Mensah was an officer in the Wauwatosa Police Department for five years, during which time he killed Cole after a foot pursuit.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation
Mensah testified about the shooting on Feb 2, 2020, at the Mayfair Mall, where he responded to a call about a disturbance involving a gun. Mensah visited the mall twice, leaving the area he was assigned to patrol to investigate the disturbance and then returning a second time when he heard on his radio that there was a foot chase underway. He arrived both times in an unmarked squad car and did not announce his presence on the police radio, something his colleagues described as a best practice but which he testified was unnecessary.
Mensah disagreed with the testimony of Wauwatosa officer David Shamsi, who testified that he was closest to Cole when he was shot, and that Cole was on the ground and had not moved when Mensah fired. Mensah said Shamsi was mistaken. The contradictory statements between Shamsi, Mensah (who claimed Cole turned to aim a gun at Mensah, either over or under his own shoulder) and other officers on scene including Evan Olson (who said Cole pointed the gun in a completely different direction from Mensah) created the issue that opened the door to this week’s jury trial in Milwaukee’s federal courthouse.
While Shamsi holds the rank of major in the U.S. military and is now an FBI agent, Mensah asserted that he was a new officer at the time of the shooting. Mensah said that since he had five years of experience at Wauwatosa and was SWAT trained, he had more extensive and relevant tactical knowledge and experience than Shamsi. In his deposition, referenced on the stand, Mensah said that besides Olson, none of the officers on scene during the Cole shooting — including Shamsi — had the level of training and experience that he had. Shamsi’s military combat experience “doesn’t mean anything,” he testified, “especially in a situation like this.”
On the stand, Mensah described how he arrived at the Mayfair Mall on Feb. 2, 2020, and helped officers and mall security chase the fleeing teenagers. As they ran, a single gunshot went off — later determined to be fired by Cole and resulting in a self-inflicted gunshot wound which broke bones in Cole’s arm. When Mensah heard the shot, he pulled out his own weapon. Mensah said at that point he couldn’t recall how far he was from Cole, despite having replayed the shooting in his head repeatedly and viewed video and other reports from the shooting over the last five years. Mensah said that when the first shot went off, he didn’t see a muzzle or knew who fired. Cole fell to the ground and then 10 seconds later Mensah fired five shots. Later, he said Cole had pointed his gun in Mensah’s direction.
Mensah said that the entire situation was “very fluid” and quick, and repeatedly said “I don’t remember” or “I don’t recall” throughout questioning from the Cole family’s attorneys. Attorney Nate Cade referred to Mensah’s deposition testimony in 2023, in which he said he saw Cole fall to his hands and knees, and then crawl a short distance towards a concrete construction barrier in the Cheesecake Factory restaurant parking lot. Mensah said on the stand that although Cole turned towards him, he didn’t know if would use the term “tucked” to describe his posture, as his colleague officer Olson did in testimony Tuesday. When asked if Cole reached under or over his shoulder, as he had previously testified, on the stand Mensah said, “I don’t recall.”
Mensah testified that he only “vaguely” recalls his interview with detectives who investigated Cole’s shooting as part of the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT). During his deposition, Mensah said that he saw a flash of light as he chased Cole, which he acknowledged could have been flashlights from officers and mall security. During his initial interview with detectives after the shooting in 2020, Mensah said he had not seen any muzzle flash, and on the stand Wednesday he said he couldn’t account for what MAIT detectives did or did not put in their report. Mensah said that once Cole was on the ground, he paused to assess his surroundings before he fired. When he saw a gun in Cole’s hand and felt it was being pointed at him, Mensah said he began to “prepare” his body to be shot, acquired his “target,” which was Cole, and then fired.
While questioning Mensah, Cade noted that several things that Mensah said he yelled to officers such as “the gun is out” — meaning he sees a firearm — are not in the police investigative report, nor does MAIT’s report mention that Mensah yelled “drop the gun” at Cole, as Mensah said he had done. Mensah said that the situation was “incredibly traumatic” to him and that when it comes to what he does and does not remember, “the brain works in mysterious ways.”
Video and audio from Olson’s squad car captured after the shooting, played during the trial, captured someone yelling curse words, and then saying, “I can’t believe I just shot somebody.” Mensah said he could hear the curse words and acknowledged that it was him, but said that he couldn’t understand the words after that. Still, he argued that the recording did not show him saying what attorneys claimed, and that it was “random” radio chatter from other people. Cade argued that if it was Mensah saying those words, that suggests that he did not intend to shoot Cole, which he said showed that it was an instance of excessive use of force. The Cole family’s lawyers also highlighted Mensah’s statement after the shooting that “I was overwhelmed with emotions,” suggesting it showed that he had lost control. Mensah said some of his microphone equipment may have been malfunctioning, distorting the record of what he said at the time, but acknowledged that he was “amped up.”
Cole family attorneys also brought up that Olson and Mensah had not separated themselves that night, which is required by MAIT protocols and is done to avoid contamination of statements. Mensah denied that he and Olson actually discussed anything about the shooting, and both officers said on the stand that they were friends then and remain friends today outside of work. When attorney Jasmyne Baynard, representing Mensah, questioned the officer, he said he grew up in the Wauwatosa area, and that he became an officer after seeing a friend get in trouble, and that he wanted to help people “truly in need.” He graduated from the police academy in 2012, and was hired by Wauwatosa in 2015, though he’d been an unarmed reserve officer since 2009.
Answering questions about his actions on the night of Feb 2, 2020, Mensah said that police officers are not required to stay in their patrol sector, and that he went back to the mall after the foot pursuit was called out, because such pursuits can be unpredictable and dangerous. When he approached Cole on the ground, Mensah said he didn’t know the teen was hurt or that he’d shot himself.
Mensah said that Cole didn’t do a “drastic turn around” to aim his gun, and that the motion he saw was “over the shoulder,” which contradicted his prior testimony. Mensah said that he couldn’t second-guess himself in the heat of the moment. “I don’t get that luxury in the fraction of a fraction of a second,” he said.
“I’m not focusing on the gun anymore,” Mensah said, describing the moment as he prepared to fire. Instead, he said, he was focused on stopping a threat, and that he kept firing his weapon until he felt the threat was stopped. Mensah said he did not see a gun pointed at Olson, which Olson told MAIT in 2020 and testified to during the trial. During questioning, Mensah became emotional, and said, “I didn’t want to do it.”
On the stand, Mensah was asked whether he felt either Shamsi (who didn’t see the gun or Cole move at all and was closest to Cole) or Olson (who was further away and said the gun was pointed at him, which would mean away from Mensah) were liars. Mensah said that he believes Shamsi was “mistaken” and then suggested the same about his friend Olson. Mensah said that he does not believe that he could have been wrong when he killed Cole.
Once Mensah’s testimony concluded, Milwaukee police detective Lori Rom was called to the stand. Rom was one of the MAIT investigators initially assigned to interview officers involved in Cole’s death. Rom said that her department typically does not record officer interviews after shootings, and that had Mensah told them things like calling out that he saw the gun, or if he saw a muzzle flash, that it would have been documented as important information. Attorney Joseph Wirth, representing Mensah, noted that MAIT statements are not court statements made under oath.
Tracy Cole, Alvin’s mother, was expected to testify, but this was not allowed after a chamber conversation between the judge and attorneys. Mensah’s defense attorneys called Sarah Hopkins, a civilian witness to the shooting to the stand next. Hopkins said she was outside the Cheesecake Factory when she saw the chase and shooting. Hopkins said she never saw Cole surrender or throw his hands up, but instead that he stopped running and turned towards officers in a shooter’s stance she recognized from taking concealed carry classes — something none of the other witnesses, including Mensah, said had happened. She’d initially claimed to be about 40 feet from the shooting, but later questioning determined that it had to have been at least 200 feet. Cole family attorney Cade highlighted that “we’re now in day three of trial” without anyone else having claimed to have seen what Hopkins said she saw.
A mall security guard was also called to the stand, who helped chase after Cole and his friends. The guard said he heard a shot, saw a flash of light, and dropped to the ground. Like other witnesses, the guard said that Cole was on his hands and knees at one point, but that when he heard the first shot he got down to the ground for safety. The guard said he never saw Cole point a gun at anyone. Defense attorneys called former Green Bay police officer and Waukesha Area Technical College instructor Mike Knetzger, a certified instructor in defense and arrest tactics. Defense attorneys questioned Knetzger about use of force, noting that officers don’t need to go through each level of force before deadly force, especially if a situation happens quickly. Knetzger said that “special circumstances” such as the suspect’s behavior, could escalate the use of force. He later acknowledged, however, that shooting someone facing away from an officer without a gun pointed in their direction may not be an appropriate use of force. Knetzger said that use of force has to be considered from the perspective of a hypothetical “reasonable officer” and not specifically from the perspective of Mensah, who was the only officer on scene to fire his weapon at Cole.
Closing arguments are expected on Thursday, after which the jury will begin deliberations.
Tracy Cole, the mother of Alvin Cole, surrounded by her family. (Photo by Isiah Holmes)
A federal civil trial into the killing of 17-year-old Alvin Cole by then-Wauwatosa officer Joseph Mensah five years ago began on Monday, bringing Cole’s family, Mensah, a cast of current and former Wauwatosa officers, and other witnesses into the U.S. district court building in Milwaukee. The lawsuit accuses Mensah of using excessive force when he fired five shots at Cole in 2020, killing him after a foot chase in a darkened mall parking lot.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation
During opening statements, attorney Kimberly Motley said police officers receive extensive training in use of force under Wisconsin’s Defense and Arrest Tactics (DAAT) standards. Motley said that when officers fire their weapons they must “articulate each shot” and that Mensah “did not exercise restraint” when he shot Cole. Cole’s case was Mensah’s third shooting over a five year period, although attorneys agreed to not bring up that fact during the trial. “We believe that Joseph Mensah did not have the right to shoot and kill Alvin Cole,” said Motley.
The mostly white jury of seven women and one man listened intently to statements from both Motley and attorney Joseph Wirth who represents Mensah. They recounted the events of Feb. 2 2020, a Super Bowl Sunday, when Cole and a group of his friends got into a verbal altercation with another group of boys at the Mayfair mall. Police were called and the boys fled. Officers later testified that a single gun shot was heard as the police were chasing Cole, though they did not see who fired the gun. While Cole was on his hands and knees, surrounded by officers, Mensah fired five shots, later claiming that Cole pointed a gun at him. Wirth said footchases are dangerous and unpredictable and stressed that the events leading up to the shooting took place over less time than it took the attorney to introduce himself to the jury. He appealed to the jurors saying they could be sympathetic to the Cole family, while also ruling that Mensah’s use of force was reasonable. “Put yourself in the officer’s shoes,” Wirth told the jury.
Motley said that Cole accidentally shot himself in the forearm before he fell, breaking his arm in the process. The broken arm would have made it hard for him to aim his gun at Mensah, as Mensah claimed, Motley said. Also, an officer who was closer to Cole than Mensah said that Cole hadn’t moved at all before Mensah fired.
That officer, David Shamsi, who’s now an FBI agent, was called as a witness on Monday. Another officer, Evan Olson, who said the gun was pointed in a completely different direction than Mensah claims, is also expected to testify later in the week. The contradictory statements from officers Mensah, Olson, and Shamsi persuaded U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman that the lawsuit should go to trial.
On Monday, Alvin’s father, Albert Cole, recalled dropping his son off with his friends the last time he would see him. After Alvin died, Albert became “anti-social,” he testified, Crying on the witness stand, he said Alvin’s death left a hole in his life and that of Tracy Cole, his wife of over 30 years. “That hurt was inside me,” he said.
Shamsi testified that he was “tunnel visioned” on Cole’s gun, which he said remained on the ground and didn’t move after Cole fell to his hands and knees in the dark parking lot. Shamsi hadn’t considered whether Cole was wounded and, in fact, was prepared to fire his own weapon if the boy moved again. “I did not see him point a gun at me,” said Shamsi.
During questioning, attorneys noted that Shamsi changed his story when he was re-interviewed about the shooting months after it occurred. It was during that interview that Shamsi said that he saw Cole’s arm extended towards officers. When he was deposed for the civil lawsuit and then on the stand Monday, Shamsi reverted to his original statements that he did not see Cole move after he was on the ground.
Cole family attorney Nate Cade told Wisconsin Examiner that he suspects Shamsi changed his story after meeting with Mensah’s attorneys, because “no one wants to turn around and say that a fellow officer did something wrong.” He said Shamsi’s testimony that the gun never moved “is the most damning thing.” Cole’s shooting was initially investigated by the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT), before the Milwaukee County district attorney decided Mensah wouldn’t be charged for killing Cole in 2020. A recent investigation by Wisconsin Examiner in partnership with Type Investigations found a pattern of MAIT policies protecting officers and contradictory statements left unchallenged.
Cade said “the district attorney looked the other way” and that there were things that investigators “should have done” but neglected, such as measuring the distance between Cole’s body and bullet casings. “There are no measurements,” said Cade. “None of the officers identified exactly where they were standing.”
Attorneys also called a civilian witness who’d seen Cole’s group running from police and witnessed the shooting. The witness said that he did not see Cole running with anything in his hands, suggesting that he had not turned his body to point a gun at officers as he ran. Wauwatosa officer Dexter Schleis agreed with Cade that deadly force is allowed if an armed person turns towards an officer, he would not answer directly when asked if deadly force is appropriate when an armed person has their back to an officer, is on the ground and isn’t moving. Schleis repeatedly asked for the question to be repeated, that he didn’t understand, or couldn’t say whether the shooting complied with police protocol.
After a homeless woman died in the Eau Claire County Jail more than a year ago, Wisconsin DOJ has yet to release a report | Getty Images
Silver O. Jenkins, 29, a homeless woman, was found unresponsive in the Eau Claire County Jail on March 12, 2023. The investigation of her death was completed in August 2023 but has not been released pending a Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) review.
It is not clear why the DOJ has taken more than a year to review the death investigation and release it to the public.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation
In July 2024, the Wisconsin Examiner made a record request of the death investigation to the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office, the authority charged with conducting the investigation. Sheriff Scott Knudson noted the death investigation had been completed in August 2023 and had been passed on to the Eau Claire Sheriff’s Office, but he was uncertain when the DOJ obtained it.
The completed investigation was not released to the Examiner, because, Knudson said, the DOJ’s review outweighed the public interest in having the investigation released.
Knudson said there was a “balancing test” of “public interest” versus “integrity of the legal system” to “…allow the Department of Justice ample time to make a determination related to the investigation prior to the records being disclosed to the public.”
He added, “Public policy favors public safety and effective law enforcement, which is supported by the decision to deny your request at this time until the Department of Justice has completed their review of the investigation.”
In August 2024, the Examiner submitted another record request to the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office for two items:
All powerpoint presentations produced by the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office which, during 2023 or 2024, were shared with and/or presented to personnel from any Wisconsin District Attorney’s Office and/or the state Department of Justice (DOJ), and which mention or are related to the March 12th, 2023, in-custody death of Silver O. Jenkins at the Eau Claire County Jail.
Any jail security camera footage relevant to the sheriff’s investigation into Silver’s death.
Like the July 2024 request, Sheriff Knudson denied the August 2024 record request based on the same justification he offered in July 2024.
In January 2025, the Examiner contacted Eau Claire County Medical Examiner Marcie Rosas for a copy of Jenkins’ autopsy report. Rosas responded via phone that the report would not be released pending the ongoing DOJ review.
Based on a July 15, 2024 email exchange between the St. Croix Sheriff’s Office and the DOJ, in July 2024, it appeared then that the DOJ review was coming to a close. The email exchange was between St. Croix County Sheriff Captain Tim Kufus and DOJ Assistant Attorney General James Kraus.
“Requests for reports are continuing to come in, when can we expect a decision from your office? We would like to fulfill the requests,” Kufus wrote about record requests on the Jenkins death investigation to Kraus.
Kraus responded, “Now that we have the policies, I hope to complete my part of the case by the end of this month (July 2024).”
Subsequently, the Examiner has submitted several email requests to the DOJ on the review status, but there has been no reply.
Silver O. Jenkins
On March 14, 2023, the Eau Claire Sheriff’s Office put out a press release about Jenkins’ death and noted that she was “…listed as homeless, was charged on February 10 for disorderly conduct and bail jumping,” and added that she was in jail on $500 cash bond and had made her first appearance in court on Feb.14.
Court records also reveal that Jenkins had also been charged with bail-jumping, a misdemeanor and that Jenkins was supposed to have a competency hearing on March 7, but on March 6, that appears to have been changed to March 16, four days after she died.
Jenkins was also cited for trespassing, disorderly conduct, and bail jumping on Jan. 31, 2023.
From 2019-2023, Silvers had been charged with several violations in Eau Claire County, mostly misdemeanors.
Circuit court records from Eau Claire County show Silver’s address as “homeless,” however earlier court records from Racine and Kenosha counties cite her address as either 618 S. Barstow Street in Eau Claire, the site of The Sojourner House, a Catholic Charities homeless shelter, or 211 Howard Avenue in Racine, an apartment building.
The Examiner has contacted Catholic Charities and other homeless shelters in Eau Claire for anyone who knew Jenkins, but so far, there have been no responses.
A fatal police shooting of an unnamed person in Fond du Lac is under investigation. | Getty Images
During a stop by law enforcement officers Monday night, Feb. 24, in the Town of Fond du Lac, a Fond du Lac County Sheriff deputy shot and killed a person the deputy believed was producing a firearm.
The person’s name has not been released, nor the name of the deputies involved with the stop.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation
According to a press release by the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ), on Monday evening, Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s deputies contacted someone via phone who was known to have a felony warrant.
Law enforcement also received information from a civilian that this same person appeared to have a handgun.
A short while later, deputies located the person in the 6300 block of Cherrywood Drive, near a trailer park.
The person refused to follow repeated commands, and one of the deputies discharged a non-lethal weapon. (The non-lethal weapon was not named in an official statement on the incident.)
The person then produced what deputies believed to be a firearm, and in response, a second deputy discharged a firearm at 6:22 p.m., striking the person.
Emergency medical specialists (EMS) were contacted, and law enforcement and EMS attempted life-saving measures.
The person was transported to a nearby hospital before being pronounced dead.
No members of law enforcement or other members of the public were injured during the incident.
The deputy involved in the shooting is on administrative assignment, per agency policy.
Law enforcement officers involved with the stop were wearing body cameras during the incident.
Additional details are being withheld during the investigation and will be released to the public later.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) is investigating the officer-involved shooting, assisted by Wisconsin State Patrol, the Fond du Lac Police Department, and the Village of North Fond du Lac Police Department.
When the DCI investigation concludes, it will turn over the investigative reports to the Fond du Lac County District Attorney’s office.
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