Jerome Dillard, executive director of Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO) (left) holds book discussion with author and activist Bianca Tylek (right). (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

“We’re talking about a major, major industry in our society today,” activist and writer Bianca Tylek told a group of about 20 people who packed a room at Madison’s Lake City Books Monday night. At the Q&A and book signing event, hosted by Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO), Tylek — described as a leading expert in the prison industry — discussed her new book The Prison Industry: How It Works and Who Profits, offering her insights into what she called a $80-90 billion industry in America. 

“This is just a massive industry of folks who are using the correctional system to essentially extract either wealth or resources either from public coffers, or from low-income … communities that are directly impacted by incarceration,” said Tylek, who also founded and leads the non-profit organization Worth Rises, which works to confront and reform the prison industry. Tylek’s book delves into multiple aspects of the prison industry from food distribution to telecommunications and examines privatization, who profits and the lives of the people who are directly affected. 

The discussion was moderated by Jerome Dillard, EXPO’s executive director, who sat beside Tylek asking  questions. Dillard called Tylek “my daughter in the movement,” and spoke of his admiration for her work and her spirit in fighting for change within the prison system. 

Dillard described attending an event in Appleton last week with Tylek where he was invited to receive an award, “not knowing what we were going into,” and realizing it was a Wisconsin Correctional Association conference. 

“I just couldn’t believe all the industries that were there with tables, and tabling the event with new devices and all this,” said Dillard. “I left there really broken and heavy. These conferences opened my eyes to how big this industry is … that individuals are capitalizing on human misery.” Conference tables displayed new kinds of spit masks and shock gloves to prospective correctional customers, some of whom made joking comments about using the devices on the job. “It just blew me away, you know, that she’s bragging about punishing and torturing people in their care,” said Dillard, recalling a woman who made such remarks. 

Tylek said that there are over 1,400 manufacturers of correctional and policing equipment nationwide. “Every single state has a correctional conference,” said Tylek. “Every single state has a sheriff’s association,” as well as conferences and associations dedicated to jails, parole and other aspects of the correctional system. Tylek recalled attending the American Correctional Association conference, one of the largest in the nation, where she saw an exhibit hall “with hundreds of corporations” with their own exhibit tables. 

“And not just tables,” Tylek told the crowd. “Probably the wildest thing I saw was one company drive a full bus into the convention center, where staff from correctional institutions could step onto the bus and play with all the equipment and trinkets that they were selling. And they gave out free raffle tickets and all these things, and probably the grossest thing that I experienced was all the tickets to private events. And I made my way up to a private event for Securus.” Tylek said that the company is one of the nation’s two largest prison telecommunication companies, and was one of the largest sponsors of the conference that year. “And they had a happy hour that involved a full open bar,” said Tylek, “a full swing dance performance, everyone just having the most joyous time of all. All while on the walls there were the kiosks, the tablets, the phone devices that you could go and speak to a Securus representative while you have your cocktail. And all of this built on about 2 million people who are sitting in a cage somewhere who will never see this, who don’t get to enjoy these luxuries in any of this. It’s heartbreaking, and it’s repulsive, I think, more than anything.”

Later, Tylek elaborated more on how companies use things like gifts and luxury vacations to grow their relationships with correctional and law enforcement leaders. “At conferences, you would get these private event tickets,” she said. At one such event, she recalled, attendees were given hand-rolled cigars. “That’s just the legal stuff that looks gross,” said Tylek. There are also “questionably legal” practices, such as offering “training cruises” in the Caribbean for prison and sheriff staff in brochures distributed during contract bidding processes. 

On the dark end of the spectrum is bribery, such as the case of a Mississippi prison commissioner who was involved in a bribery and kickback scheme with private prison companies. Tylek highlighted how in Mississippi, a prison commissioner went on to work for a private prison company as a lobbyist. Similar revolving doors exist between the prison industry, especially private prisons, Homeland Security and immigration agencies, said Tylek.

Tylek described the rise of  the prison industry as a relatively new phenomenon in America. Prior to the abolition of slavery, she said, the prison population was predominantly white, and only shifted to being predominantly Black in the decades after abolition — a move  to “re-confine and re-enslave” Black people. Prison populations continued to grow into the 1970s and 80s, leading into the War on Drugs. “Really around the 1980s is when you start to see industry recognize a potential opportunity,” said Tylek. 

That’s the  era during which most of the private prison companies featured in her book began to emerge. Private prison industry representatives helped craft some of the nation’s most punitive laws such as three-strikes laws, truth in sentencing and mandatory minimums, which helped grow the prison population. “Those three pieces of model legislation were drafted by the prison industry, and specifically by private prison executives,” said Tylek. 

The consequences have been devastating for individuals and families, and also ripple out into society. “The impact of the prison industry bleeds far beyond prison walls,” Tylek said. Among those ripple effects are the cost borne by families that put money on the books for incarcerated loved ones to have food and hygiene supplies or simply to communicate, incarcerated people who work long hours for 14 cents an hour on average, missed child support payments from incarcerated parents and victims who don’t receive restitution. In addition, many small towns which once saw prisons as economic saviors now see them as burdens. 

“In the end, all of us are impacted,” said Tylek. “When we exploit people who are incarcerated, or we have a system that wants to put more people behind bars and for longer because a few stand to benefit, then socially we are all harmed by that.” 

Yet a space ripe with so many problems also invites solutions. In several states, Tylek has been involved in movements to make phone calls to incarcerated people free and in more than one of those places, that effort succeeded. “Something that everyone can understand is what’s the importance of a phone call home,” Tylek told her bookstore audience. Families of incarcerated people often face significant financial challenges, including debt, income loss and unemployment. 

In 2017, Tylek began to focus on the prison telecommunications industry. “We led the first successful campaign to make communication completely free in a jail system,” said Tylek. That was in New York, and affected the infamous Rikers Island jail. From 2019 to 2023, Tylek’s organization Worth Rises pushed for free jail calls in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Massachusetts, free prison calls in Connecticut, California, Colorado, Minnesota. Free prison calls were enshrined in the CARES Act as a result of that work. “We’ve been able to save families $600 million to date,” Tylek said, “and generate over 3 billion additional call minutes between people who are incarcerated and their loved ones.”

Dillard recalled celebrating some of those victories with Tylek, but the fight continues. “We’re in a dozen more states trying to fight for the exact same legislation to make communication free in our prisons and jails,” said Tylek. “The outcomes that we get are life-changing. In Connecticut we saw phone volume increase by over 120% overnight. In New York just recently, first data’s coming back and we are north of 40% increases in calling.” Some of that difference is also due to inconsistent call rates across different states, with incarcerated people being charged 2.8 cents per minute in New York versus people in Connecticut who were paying 32.5 cents per minute. 

“No matter where it happens, the change is substantial,” said Tylek. “These are real people with real lives. We have talked to families whose autistic child stopped speaking when her father went to prison. And when phone calls became free and he could call home again she started speaking again, her child development changed, she started engaging more in school, and now she’s flourishing, all off a simple phone call.”

Those kinds of victories can be replicated elsewhere. A campaign was launched earlier this year to make jail calls free in Racine County, and La Crosse became the first Wisconsin county to provide free jail calls earlier this year. 

“What I love about the examples in Wisconsin is that we had nothing to do with them,” Tylek said, drawing laughter from the audience in Madison. “My biggest goal has been for this movement to take itself.” 

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

(Photo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Immigrant rights groups sounded the alarm after seven people were arrested by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Madison Thursday morning, in what is being called a targeted action by the federal agency. Voces de la Frontera, a Milwaukee-based immigrant advocacy organization, said that calls flowed into their hotline around 10:30 Thursday morning, Madison365 reported, and that organizers are attempting to determine why the people were detained. Voces is working with Centro Hispano, a Dane County group, to connect with the families of those arrested by ICE.

Neither ICE nor the Dane County Sheriff put out a statement following arrests but the Madison Police Department did eventually confirm the arrests. 

The Madison arrests, along with an ICE raid in Manitowoc that resulted in the detention of 24 dairy workers, mark an escalation in immigration enforcement activity in Wisconsin.

At a Friday press conference, Darryl Morin of Forward Latino called the ICE raids in Madison and Manitowoc “a new sad chapter in immigration enforcement right here in our great state.” 

Centro Hispano of Dane County posted a message on Facebook confirming the seven arrests at a single address in Madison on Oct. 2. 

“This is the only confirmed incident in Madison at this time. No other verified reports of ICE presence elsewhere in the city,” the post stated. “Centro and Voces de la Frontera are gathering verified information and providing support to impacted families.

“We are aware of many rumors about the presence of ICE in Madison, including schools, workplaces, and other spaces. We want to be clear: none of these rumors have been confirmed as actual ICE presence. There has only been one verified presence and arrests by ICE  this morning at a  residential location that ICE specifically targeted.

“We ask our community that if you have firsthand information about ICE activity, please call the Voces de la Frontera Community Defense Hotline at 1-800-427-0213 immediately.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

A Milwaukee PD "critical response vehicle", or surveillance van. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) is pursuing upgrades to technology used to track phones during investigations. Known as cell site simulators, the formerly murky equipment tracks phones by mimicking cell towers. Once connected to a targeted phone, cell site simulators are able to track the signal, allowing police to locate people. According to city purchasing division records, MPD aims to upgrade and acquire new components and extend a contract for the phone tracking gear by three years. 

The city’s contract with Tactical Support Equipment will be extended until 2028 and increase by $165,000 to $1.45 million. “MPD operating funds will be used,” according to records obtained by the Examiner explaining the purpose for amending the contract. The amendments will cover funds and coverage for two cell site simulators purchased in 2022, the records state. 

A separate section of the purchasing division records explains “this equipment is used on a regular basis to locate suspects and in exigent situations such as critical missing incidents.” It also states, “MPD used this equipment to help support other law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin, law enforcement in other states such as Texas, Ohio, and Michigan, and federal agencies such as FBI and DEA. At this time, MPD is seeking to upgrade the existing equipment, add additional equipment, and add warranty, support and maintenance for the new and upgraded equipment beyond what the department currently has in place. Tactical Support Equipment, Inc. is the only vendor that can support the equipment as the equipment and software is proprietary.”

MPD has used cell site simulators since at least 2010, according to logs the department uses to catalog its use of the gear. For years, the technology was used by MPD’s Fusion Center, an intelligence unit originally created for Homeland Security operations. A group of officers known as the Confidential Source Team – or CS Team – operates the cell site simulators. Logs of the technology’s use show that it’s mostly used to investigate crimes including homicides and shootings and for investigations related to overdoses or firearms. The logs also show the technology is used to locate material witnesses, kidnapping victims, but also for vague reasons like “drugs”, “long term”, or are redacted entirely.

By 2022, when Wisconsin Examiner first interviewed a member of the CS Team, both the team and its gear had been moved from the Fusion Center to MPD’s Special Investigations Division (SID), which focuses on fugitives, felonies and violent crimes. The team’s name invokes the technology’s secretive history. 

The Milwaukee department once signed non-disclosure agreements in order to acquire the technology leading to controversies in 2016, when MPD was accused of hiding use of Stingray-type devices from judges during court proceedings. When asked during a trial about how a person was located, officers used “oddly vague language,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin said, even stating that they “obtained information from an unknown source.” Things have changed over time, however. Today, the Milwaukee Police Foundation, which funnels private donations to MPD, publicly lists cell site simulators as among the technologies it helps MPD to purchase.

Like many other law enforcement agencies nationwide, for years MPD utilized phone tracking equipment produced by the Harris Corporation, a multi-billion dollar defense contractor. Harris’ devices were so common that one of its brand names, Stingray, became a common shorthand for all cell site simulators, which are also sometimes called “IMSI catchers.”   

In 2019, MPD purchased a new model from Tactical Support Equipment, a North Carolina-based veteran-owned company which sells everything from K9 camera systems to cables and night-vision cameras. The company does not appear to advertise its cell phone tracking systems on its website. 

Tactical Support Equipment, which did not respond to requests for comment for this story, sold MPD a single cell site simulator in 2019 for $498,900, according to purchasing division records from the time. Later that same year, MPD purchased a C-Hostile Emitter Angle Tracker (C-HEATR), which is a remote handheld mapping device that works together with the cell site simulator. 

Three years later in 2022, MPD upgraded the cell tracking gear by adding a four-channel “5G enabler solution” for $328,700, and a 12-channel portable base station with full 5G coverage (as well as insurance, training, and supporting equipment) for $951,750. 

Responding to questions from Wisconsin Examiner, MPD said that the most recent upgrades will be to “support devices operating in 5G.” The department added that “MPD is the only agency in the area that has a [cell site simulator]. When an agency needs assistance with an investigation and their request falls in line with our operating best practices, we try to provide that agency with assistance.” 

Although cell site simulators are less of an enigma than they used to be, many questions still remain. While MPD states that its technology can only track location, cell site simulators as a family of devices are known to be capable of intercepting calls and text messages, and even more exotic abilities like sending fake short messages to a target phone. In Milwaukee, local activists have long reported strange phone malfunctions and service disruptions which they suspect may be caused by law enforcement surveillance. 

MPD has repeatedly denied responsibility for the claims, and has said in the past that the department’s cell site simulators do not cause malfunctions to target phones. When the Wisconsin Examiner reached out for this story, however, MPD said for the first time that “the equipment already will disrupt service to the target phone when the target phone is located. That disruption is limited to the time it takes for the operator to narrow down the location of the device.” 

The department has also repeatedly stated that its cell site simulators cannot intercept calls or text messages. A different technology known as PenLink is used by MPD for Title III investigations, which involve intercepting content of communications. In responses to Wisconsin Examiner, MPD cited Department of Justice policies and U.S. law which state that “cell site simulator technology must be configured as pen registers, and may not be used to collect contents of any communication.” Wisconsin Examiner reached out to the Wisconsin Department of Justice for more information and has not received a response. 

From 2021 to 2023, Republicans introduced bills that would have changed  how pen registers are defined in Wisconsin. Supporters of the bills, which did not pass, said that they would allow law enforcement to pursue pen registers for social media. Telecommunications experts, however, warned that the bills could open a “back door” for police to use cell site simulator devices in ways not well understood by judges or the public. 

There have been more calls for more oversight of police surveillance in Milwaukee recently, with local activists pushing for  Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) ordinances. Over two dozen U.S. cities have already passed such ordinances, which provide more transparency about the purchase and use of surveillance technologies by police departments. MPD stresses that it uses cell site simulators in accordance with DOJ policy “and only after a court order is granted in cases that are not exigent,” the department said in a statement. “There is a process in place in which utilization of the equipment is only done with supervisory approval and oversight.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

The Oconomowoc Police Department (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Earlier this summer, the city of Oconomowoc sought to purchase new protective gear for its police officers by reaching out directly to local residents with a private fundraiser, an approach that has grown in popularity among police departments in recent years.

“Oconomowoc is a great place,” Kevin Ellis, an alderman on the Common Council and a member of the private fundraising committee, told Wisconsin Examiner. “It’s a great city. It’s one that I’m glad that I found 21 years ago.” 

While Oconomowoc — the city’s name is derived from a Potawatomi word meaning “where the waters meet” — isn’t known for gun violence, a member of the city’s fundraising team compared the purchase of the gear to buying insurance. During an incident in July, for example, a Shorewood officer’s ballistic vest reportedly prevented serious injury by gunfire. 

By the end of its fundraiser, Oconomowoc’s police department had far exceeded its $40,000 goal, according to a column in the Oconomowoc Enterprise by council president Matt Rosek.

While the new body armor has the potential to be lifesaving, some remarks about crime and unrest made by supporters of the fundraiser weren’t supported by data, records and past reporting reviewed by the Examiner.

Oconomowoc gun crime claims lack data support

Oconomowoc city officials announced their ambitions to augment protection for officers by fundraising for rifle-rated body armor inserts and pistol-rated ballistic helmets in early June. According to a budget priorities memo in May, Police Chief James Pfister said that with the right equipment, Oconomowoc officers can confidently respond to dangerous situations involving an active assailant. Officers could quickly assist victims, perform life-saving evacuations and effectively manage threats, “ultimately saving lives and reducing risks.”   

As the fundraiser was announced, however, members of the public took to social media to question the department’s efforts on Facebook. 

“I think more people would be happy to donate to the cause if we could have some background information,” one commenter, Morgan Murphy, wrote in a June 5 post. She asked what situations call for the new gear and how frequently those situations arise.

“If it’s a common occurrence shouldn’t there already be some on hand?” Murphy posted, wondering whether concern about such situations is increasing, and if the public should be concerned. 

City officials described the present moment as a “time of continued unrest and potential for escalated violence in our community and those around us” in a letter to potential donors, which the police department provided to the Examiner in June. 

“Over the last five years, communities have seen a variety of incidents of unrest,” said Lou Kowieski, fundraising team member and former council president, when asked about the letter. He said he didn’t know if this would happen again, but that he wants the police department to be prepared. 

In a separate letter posted to Facebook, Police Chief James Pfister said the department had been responding to more gun-related calls over the past three years and that this was “a stark reminder of the growing challenges our officers face in keeping our community safe.”  

Wisconsin Examiner reviewed gun call data from the department’s dispatch center for June 2022 to June 2025, which did not show a definite increase in calls involving a gun. The number of “10-32” calls — police shorthand for gun-related calls — stayed the same from June 2022 to June 2025 at just under 40 calls or less. In order to give a more complete picture, the police department also provided data on all calls in which the word “gun” was mentioned, which rose slightly from 108 calls annually in the 2022-2024 years, to 119 in 2025. It is not known whether a gun was found at the scene in any of these calls. Neither data set includes information on the types of guns referenced in the calls.

Oconomowoc PD Captain Brad Timm said Pfister’s statement referred to the chief’s personal knowledge of “major gun calls specially from Target and Roundy’s,” and Timm said the equipment would be used for those types of calls. 

A shooting at the Roundy’s distribution center in Oconomowoc left the shooter and two co-workers dead in 2021. In a separate incident, a Milwaukee man was charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide earlier this year. The man reportedly pulled a gun out of his pocket and pointed it at a co-worker and a security guard at the Target warehouse in Oconomowoc, later telling police that he pulled the trigger and his gun jammed.

Wisconsin Examiner also requested crime data from the police department for June 2020 to June 2025. As requested, the data appears to break down reported crimes into 13-month periods, from the beginning of June of each year  through June of the following year.

The department reported more aggravated assaults recently, up from two in 2022-2023 to five in 2024-2025. An aggravated assault involves either the offender using a weapon, the offender displaying a weapon in a threatening way or the victim suffering obvious severe or aggravated bodily injury. It was unclear how many of those assaults involved a firearm. The department reported seven aggravated assaults in 2020-2021. 

The most recent data reported fewer weapon law violations than in past years. The weapon law violation definition involves the offender breaking a rule relating to a deadly weapon, such as a rule about the possession, manufacture or use of the weapon. The department’s data reported no murders or non-negligent manslaughters after two incidents that occurred in June 2020-June 2021.

 

 

According to the Wisconsin Department of Justice, if a murder or assault involved a deadly weapon, it could also be counted as a weapon law violation. However, a murder, for example, would not be also counted as an aggravated assault. 

 

By comparison the police department for Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s most populous city, reported 132 homicide offenses in 2024 and has seen multiple gun-related officer deaths since 2018. The Milwaukee Police Department declined to provide the rating for officers’ standard body armor due to security concerns. 

Ricky Burems, who retired from the Milwaukee Police Department in 2014 with 32 years of experience, told the Examiner over text message that he used a vest that was resistant to AR-15 rounds. 

“A vest doesn’t make you impervious to gunfire,” wrote Burems, who worked as a plain-clothes drug unit officer and as a homicide detective. “It really hurts to get shot even if you’re wearing a vest. I recall a couple of officers who were killed when bullets went between the panels of their vests. But vests definitely help.” 

Oconomowoc’s Capt. Brad Timm said the rifle plate inserts the city was fundraising for are rifle rated, while the ballistic helmets are pistol rated.

In July, Timm said that most officers had a level-two bulletproof vest that protects against pistol-caliber firearms. He said at the time that when officers are hired, they are given a level-two vest, and the cost of more resistant level-three body armor would be the officer’s responsibility. Police departments in Madison and Milwaukee also allow officers to purchase more protective equipment on their own. 

Why did Oconomowoc pursue the gear this summer?

Wisconsin Examiner asked Timm what led to the fundraising push for more protective gear this summer. Timm said that “it was brought up to better equip our officers with higher rated ballistic head protection and vests, essential gear for high-risk situations.” 

In his June 5 column Rosek, the Common Council president who also recently announced he is running for mayor, said the fundraiser’s goal was to protect officers from high-power, large caliber rifles. While Oconomowoc is a safe place to live, there had been “several significant tactical situations over the last several years,” he wrote.

Rosek mentioned a bank robbery, a shooting at a Kroger’s, and a shooting incident on the overpass at Interstate 94 and Highway 67. Since Roundy’s is a subsidiary of Kroger’s, Rosek, who did not respond to the Examiner’s requests for comment, might have been referencing the 2021 shooting at the Roundy’s distribution center. Waukesha County court records show that the bank robbery incident involved suspects with pistols, which the department’s standard body armor should be rated to withstand. 

In the May 6 budget memo, Pfister said that “recent events, like those at the Oconomowoc industrial facilities, sadly underscore the urgent need for advanced gear to keep our officers safe.” 

While the Target distribution center incident took place earlier this year, it appears the bank robbery, overpass shooting and Roundy’s shooting occurred prior to 2022. Lou Kowieski, a fundraising team member and former council president, told the Examiner that he didn’t think there was a correlation between the incidents mentioned by Rosek and the police department’s request for protective equipment. Kowieski said he thinks “those incidents help provide, unfortunately, the real-world scenarios of where those are needed.” 

Kowieski also referenced the July shooting that injured a Shorewood officer, and said that “in general, not just in Oconomowoc but in multiple communities, that threat level of use of firearm power is there.”

“You’re going to get insurance for tornadoes,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that you’re going to have a tornado tomorrow. But if it happens, you need to make sure you’re covered.” 

Timm was unable to give an exact number of the calls or incidents the department had responded to that involved a type of firearm their current gear wasn’t rated for, and for which the new gear would have provided sufficient protection. Asked whether or not he could say this type of situation had occurred at all in the last several years, Timm only replied “Yes.” 

Supporters cite mutual aid, 2020 unrest and protests

Rosek’s column also mentioned the potential for Oconomowoc officers to be deployed outside of Oconomowoc, without mentioning any specific city or situation.

“We also know that our police officers will respond to situations outside of our community if called upon,” Rosek wrote. “Violent situations put our officers at greater risk than we have seen before.”

Asked if Oconomowoc has sent officers to assist other communities in need of additional officers for an incident in the last several years, Timm replied “Yes.” 

Kowieski said that not too long ago, officers from Oconomowoc helped support situations in other communities, such as Wauwatosa, Racine and Kenosha “when the social unrest became a challenge for all police departments.” Kowieski said this connects to the fundraiser because it helps prepare the department to provide mutual aid when requested by other communities in various scenarios, including civil unrest or school shooters. 

Wisconsin Examiner reached out to the Wauwatosa Police Department about whether OPD had assisted them since 2020. A spokesperson said that to the contrary, Wauwatosa officers assisted OPD in 2021 during an incident at Roundy’s, but that there are no records showing Oconomowoc officers assisting during situations in Wauwatosa. 

If concern about protests and unrest are causing the city to procure the equipment, John Norcross, who lives in the nearby village of Lac La Belle, thinks “we ought to have a public conversation about that.”

A community Facebook page, “Oconomowoc Supports Our First Responders,” also suggested the gear would help keep officers safe during protests and unrest, specifically mentioning civil unrest that took place in Kenosha during a summer of nationwide protests over police violence and misconduct. The post mentioned Black Lives Matter protests organized in Oconomowoc’s Fowler Park and stated that “5 years ago this summer the threads of our community fabric were at a breaking point.” 

The Fowler Park protest, however, was peaceful, as were most Black Lives Matter protests across the country, according to a 2020 University of Connecticut study.

Norcross thinks the reference to the Black Lives Matter protest feeds an unfounded fear that any kind of protest has the potential to create social unrest. 

“I was at the BLM protest in Oconomowoc,” Norcross said. “There was absolutely no fear, no fear of any social unrest from that. But I do sense that [there is] rhetoric of using Kenosha for years as a keyword for, ‘Hey, we need to be careful. We need to be armed. It could happen at any moment.’”

Mutual aid documents from the curfews in Kenosha and Wauwatosa do not list the Oconomowoc Police Department. Although records from Wauwatosa documented a single Oconomowoc police captain as being present in or around the command center, it does not appear that the department had an on-the-ground presence during Wauwatosa’s curfew. 

Two people were killed and another severely injured in Kenosha after heavily armed teenager Kyle Rittenhouse fired an AR-15 style rifle at protesters. No gun violence or deaths occurred during the curfews in Wauwatosa or Milwaukee. (Rittenhouse was acquitted of charges related to the shootings in a jury trial.)

Fundraisers ‘freed up’ tax dollars for other needs

In a column on Aug. 28, Rosek wrote that he was asked why the city hadn’t added the purchase of body armor to the 2026 budget. 

Rosek’s June column praised the police department for providing “24/7 patrolling,” a citizen’s academy, and other services. “There is no question we are a safer community because of their commitment to our citizens,” he wrote. “Our police department is completely funded by our property tax dollars and is the largest single spend we have in the annual budget.” 

Rosek wrote about previous fundraising, stating that “most of the funding for the body cameras ($150,000) and for the K-9, Gabo, ($125,000) was privately fundraised.”  

In memos from May 2025, where various parts of the Oconomowoc city government shared budget priorities, the police department included about $37,000 in body armor inserts and ballistic helmets. 

Rosek’s column, published a month later, said that the department is funded by a tax levy which comes with restrictions. Sometimes, this means “certain initiatives need some help to get over the finish line,” he wrote. 

But when Wisconsin Examiner asked Oconomowoc police captain Brad Timm in July if he believed the city would still buy the equipment if it could not fundraise in the community, he said yes. Community fundraising is the quickest way to obtain the equipment, Timm said, and without a fundraiser the equipment would have been requested in the 2026 budget. 

The police department didn’t respond to some of the Examiner’s questions, including whether donors were informed that the city could afford to purchase the body armor inserts and ballistic helmets through the budget, and that private fundraising was chosen because it was quicker. 

Jerry Wille of the Oconomowoc Lions Club, which donated $10,000 to the fundraiser, said that “budgets are very difficult in today’s world. So we don’t really worry about that. We know if there’s a need, as a Lion we’re there to help.”

Timm said he believed the city would have made the body camera purchase without the donations from the community, but was unsure about the K-9. He said that the body camera and K-9 fundraisers freed up taxpayer money for other city budget items.

In his column on Aug. 28, Rosek wrote that the city could have funded the protective gear, the body cameras and the K-9 officer through the budget, but that fundraising for one-off purchases “frees up more tax dollars to commit to other critical needs.” 

Part of a trend

Oconomowoc’s use of donations when purchasing protective gear for law enforcement is not unique. In 2018, the Green Bay Press Gazette reported that 50 law enforcement officers in Oconto County had gear providing protection from long guns, using donations from businesses, organizations and individuals. 

Purchases for protective gear were also made by the Milwaukee Police Department and Dodge County Sheriff deputies. The Milwaukee Police Foundation, which has operated since 2019, has also raised private funds to upgrade surveillance cameras, technology used to track phones and body cameras. 

Large donations were also made by the Green Bay Packers and PESI, Inc. toward body cameras and other equipment for the Green Bay Police Department and for Eau Claire police officers and sheriff’s deputies.

Fundraisers also help build relationships between the community and the police, said Lou Kowieski, the fundraising team member and former council president. “You can’t put a value on what the relationship between a community and a police department is,” Kowieski said. In communities without that strong bond, “You feel less safe living in those communities,” he said. “In Oconomowoc, we’re very fortunate and very blessed to have a strong sense of community that is outwardly and proudly supporting our police department and all of our first responders.”

In a statement to Wisconsin Examiner, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin highlighted issues with police fundraisers for equipment. 

“When police acquire new tools through private funding, it raises serious transparency and oversight concerns,” the ACLU stated. “Equipment purchased with private donations receives less scrutiny and examination into whether that technology is appropriate and necessary in a community. Private donations bypass public discussion and necessary public notification about why law enforcement needs the tools and how they will be used.” 

The ACLU statement added that, “with the rapid rise of new, high-tech police and surveillance technologies, it’s never been more critical for people to know how they’re being policed. However, when private donors pay for that equipment, the public is completely cut out of the process. Police should be beholden to the communities they are sworn to serve and protect, not the interests of private donors who may pledge the money with strings attached.”

With the exception of Kevin Ellis, members of the Oconomowoc Common Council did not comment for this article. 

As of Aug. 28, the fundraiser had raised $53,000, with additional funds still coming in. The team said it plans to use the extra funds to equip community resource officers. 

Rosek said the next fundraising event will be for Western Lakes Fire Department, which he said has critical needs in the next year. In 2022, seven Waukesha County communities considered a referendum that called for nearly doubling the annual budget for the Western Lakes Fire District. The referendum failed, but the city of Oconomowoc was one of the two municipalities where voters supported it.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

State Rep. Ryan Clancy asks questions of a witness testifying at a public hearing on April 10, 2025, about a bill placing to restrictions on the process of qualifying for Medicaid. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) has distributed co-sponsorship memos promoting a package of bills aimed at tamping down police violence and surveillance. Dubbed the “Freedom From Fear” package, the bills focus on facial recognition technology, police training and accountability. 

Residents in local Wisconsin communities have called for oversight of police surveillance, including facial recognition technology, and some have raised concerns about the surge in federal operations and deployment of military forces to cities around the country. Clancy’s  proposals would:

 

• Require the decertification of law enforcement who violate “basic regulations on uses of force, among other standards set by the Law Enforcement Standards Board”.
• Prohibit the use of facial recognition technology, which is known to incorporate artificial intelligence;
• Ban the use of Automatic License Plate Readers, which a press release by Clancy’s office states are  vulnerable to hacking, despite being used to track and monitor thousands of vehicles nationwide,
• Prohibit law enforcement from requesting, obtaining, or receiving access to an individual’s personal data in exchange for payment or a thing of value and without a warrant,
• Set clear policies around releasing body camera footage depicting officer-involved deaths, with a focus on delays which could give police “the motive and opportunity to edit or delete footage,”
• Prohibit police trainings that include content on “excited delirium,” which the press release describes as “a nonscientific, nonmedical term often used to justify police violence and other abuses of authority,” 
• And prohibit “warrior-style training” methods among law enforcement which could lead to “unnecessary injury and death, in favor of aikido training focused on self-defense, de-escalation, and the disarming of threats”.  

In Milwaukee, civil liberties advocates and community activists have drawn more attention to concerns around surveillance by the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD), with a particular focus on license plate readers and facial recognition technology. 

Critics of the two kinds of tech have expressed concerns over the technology’s use without a warrant and their ability to gather information on numerous people who are not the target of any particular investigation. Recently, Wisconsin Examiner also found that several Wisconsin law enforcement agencies utilizing Flock license plate readers entered vague reasons for using the network of cameras. 

Facial recognition technology presents its own unique challenges. Questions have been raised about the technology’s ability to accurately detect and identify faces, particularly people of color. Earlier this summer, MPD announced that it was considering acquiring facial recognition technology from the company Biometrica, in exchange for providing the company with 2.5 million images and records related to people who’d passed through Milwaukee’s criminal justice system, including those who had not been convicted of a crime. In June, as the sheriff’s office began to explore a similar deal, the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors joined calls to regulate facial recognition technology. 

“In this critical moment, as military forces take over cities across the United States one by one, at President Trump’s whim, we cannot continue investing more public resources and power in unaccountable law enforcement,” Clancy said in a statement. “As state legislators, we have the elected duty and authority to check government overreach in Wisconsin — that overreach is at its most dangerous when done in secret, while armed, and in cooperation with an increasingly openly fascist President.”

Clancy blasted MPD and other nearby law enforcement agencies in his statement for “giddily trading the data of hundreds of thousands of people for access to technology that will let them exploit, and inevitably misuse, the same data.” He called the technology “untested and unregulated” and questioned Biometrica’s ability to secure the data which it collects. 

Meanwhile, President Trump has elevated Immigration and Customs Enforcement as the administration’s premiere federal law enforcement agency, with an enhanced budget that surpasses the military spending of most of the nations  in the world. Trump advisor Stephen Miller also recently  threatened to “identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy” left-wing movements and organizations, using language reminiscent of the COINTEL PRO intelligence programs run by the FBI for decades under J. Edgar Hoover. During the George Floyd protests of 2020, there were numerous reports of police surveillance and intelligence gathering operations.

“This bill package will prevent this ongoing abuse of sensitive data, without oversight, that MPD and other law enforcement agencies have simply given themselves permission to collect and misuse,” Clancy said in his statement. “We won’t  heal the damage done, or move forward, without securing the kind of basic protections we’re proposing today. These bills are a start, but an important one.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

The Cole family and their attorney's talk to press outside the federal courthouse. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

For the second time, a federal trial in the 2020 shooting death of Alvin Cole by then-Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah ended in a hung jury on Thursday. Deliberations began shortly after 5 p.m. on Wednesday, going until around 8 p.m. Jurors returned Thursday morning, and deliberated for a total of nearly 10 hours, more than doubling the amount of time deliberations lasted during the first trial, before deciding that they were hopelessly deadlocked. Plaintiff attorneys asked the jury for a total of $9 million ($5 million in compensatory damages, and $4 million in punitive damages), a figure far lower than the $22 million they asked for last time. 

Following the trial, Mensah attorney Joseph Wirth said “it’s still proven a difficult case for the jury to reach a conclusion.” Wirth and his partner, attorney Jasmyne Baynard, declined to talk about settlement discussions with the media, but said they plan to talk to the jurors. “We have felt strongly about the merits of this case,” said Baynard. “I’ve felt strongly about my representation of Joseph Mensah and every other police officer that I represent. Feel strongly about his actions in this situation, and we’re going to go forward under that belief.”

Cole family attorneys Kimberly Motley and Nate Cade said that while they wanted a different outcome, “We are pleased that it was a hung jury.” Motley stressed that “it’s important for the public to be aware that Joseph Mensah killed three people in five years as a Wauwatosa police officer, that’s really important, and that this jury did not believe what he was saying. Now we have a jury that came back — and they were hung — but they deliberated longer, they had more evidence, and the evidence is just not good for him.” Motley said that Mensah’s story “doesn’t make sense.”

During deliberations, jurors asked for transcripts of interviews of officers on the scene of the Cole shooting conducted by the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT), a request initially denied by Judge Adelman, due to questions about whether the interviews had been admitted as evidence. Later, Adelman reversed his decision and allowed the jury to see MAIT interviews of officers David Shamsi and Evan Olson. The two officers gave contradicting statements to MAIT investigators in 2020 about whether Cole moved or pointed his gun shortly before Mensah fired. Jurors also asked for Mensah’s deposition testimony, in which plaintiff attorneys say Mensah implied that when he fired on Cole, he was only concerned about his own safety. On the stand this week, Mensah said that he fired to protect himself and everyone else around Mayfair Mall. 

Throughout the trial, defense attorneys argued that the unrecorded officer interviews by MAIT were little more than hearsay, and attempted to limit the jury’s access to them. Besides arguing that MAIT reports are hearsay in the second trial, defense attorneys noted in the first trial that officers are not under oath when they talk to investigators after a police shooting. The debates in court raised questions about the policies and practices that MAIT relies on when investigating officer-involved deaths, which also inform whether prosecutors will charge officers with crimes after killing civilians. 

Baynard said that “I don’t think that we’re in a position to comment on MAIT’s investigation, and truly that was not really an issue in this case to be decided, so no, I don’t have any issues.” Baynard added that, “I have seen plenty of MAIT investigations, I have seen plenty of investigations done by the [state Division of Criminal Investigation], I think they did a fine investigation here. I think that sometimes people forget that officers in these situations are afforded the exact same rights as anybody else would be afforded, and beyond that I’m not really interested in commenting on MAIT’s protocol.”

Cade stressed that the MAIT statements “are not heresy, ’cause they’re the statements.” Calling the heresy argument “nonsense”, Cade said that the problem with MAIT “is that they allow the officers to make decisions about it being recorded.” While Cade accepts that Mensah himself may have Fifth Amendment rights in such a case he said “the other officers don’t”. By contrast, civilian witnesses are recorded far more often than officers after police shootings. “Why do they bend over backwards for officers who are not even directly involved in terms of shooting,” asked Cade. “That’s a handicap. They said that MAIT was supposed to be designed to give the public confidence. How can you have confidence if you’re not going to tape officer’s conversations, so we know exactly what they said?”

Wirth said that Mensah “is absolutely disappointed that we weren’t able to obtain a verdict today,” adding that Mensah is no longer in law enforcement, “and it weighs heavily on him.” Wirth said “it’s a very important case to the Cole family, it’s a very important case to Joseph Mensah.” 

The last day of testimony

On Wednesday defense attorneys called Joshua Boye, a video editor and graphic designer who reviewed squad car video from the Cole shooting. Boye testified that he had been paid by defense attorneys to edit the video as they directed by modifying audio, adjusting color and contrast, and adding a “spotlight” around Cole as he ran.

During cross examination, plaintiff attorneys drew attention to a timestamp in Boye’s video which does not appear in the raw version, leading plaintiff attorneys to question whether Boye had been given an altered version by defense attorneys. Later on, when this issue was raised again, Judge Adelman said that he hadn’t seen anything to suggest that the video had been tampered with. Boye repeatedly said that any edits he made to the video were done “at the direction of attorneys.”

Wauwatosa officer Evan Olson, who was one of the officers who responded to Mayfair Mall the night that Cole was killed, testified as uniformed Wauwatosa officers flowed into the courtroom to sit around Mensah’s wife, as they had during each day of the trial. A Wauwatosa PD spokesperson said in a statement to Wisconsin Examiner that “some officers chose to attend the trial in uniform to show their support for a former colleague, which is not uncommon in high-profile cases. Their attendance was voluntary and did not impact patrol staffing or the department’s ability to respond to calls of service.” 

Cole’s family, as well as the parents of Jay Anderson Jr., Mensah’s second fatal shooting in 2016, also attended every day of the trial. Motley and Cade took issue with the presence of uniformed Wauwatosa officers. “This isn’t the city of Wauwatosa,” said Motley, “so I was kind of concerned about what was happening in the city of Wauwatosa with all these police officers that came in uniform to sit in court for hours and hours, for a person who no longer works for Wauwatosa as a police officer, and is no longer a Wauwatosa officer period. So I think that the taxpayers should demand why that happened.”

Cade called the uniformed officers’ presence intimidating for the jury. “We aren’t allowed to say anything about the thin blue line and backing the blue, but it was obvious,” he said. During the first trial plaintiff attorneys were told that the Cole family was not allowed to wear any clothing with messages about Alvin. 

Olson testified that he arrived at Mayfair Mall responding to a report about disorderly conduct  involving a gun. After arriving, Olson immediately encountered at least two teens who were part of Cole’s group, and ordered them to the ground. Off in the distance, he could see Cole running from officers and mall security, before hearing a single shot. Olson testified to seeing Cole “in what I would say is a low ready position,” similar to a stance taken in football. He said that Cole pointed a firearm at him, making him move out of the way of what he thought would be more gunfire, and prepare to shoot himself. Olson called Cole a “lethal threat”, and said that after Mensah fired, Cole went from the football-like position to lying prone on the ground. Plaintiff attorneys argued that Olson was seeing Cole in the act of falling. Olson kicked the gun from Cole’s hand and assisted in CPR. 

Olson, Mensah and Shamsi gave contradicting statements, opening  the door for the trial. Both Olson and Mensah said that the gun was pointed in their directions, but they were positioned on opposite sides of the parking lot. Shamsi, who was the closest officer to Cole, testified that Cole and the gun didn’t  move after Cole fell. Olson said he didn’t think other officers who didn’t see the gun move were lying. Every officer testified that foot pursuits are dangerous, unpredictable situations especially when guns are involved. 

When Olson left the stand, he took a seat in the gallery near Mensah’s wife and the other Wauwatosa officers. Olson, like the rest of the officers, was uniformed every day of the trial. On Thursday, when the jury continued deliberations, Olson and a Wauwatosa police sergeant came to court in civilian clothes.

Sarah Hopkins, a civilian witness, claimed to have been outside the Cheesecake Factory restaurant when she saw Cole being chased by mall security. Hopkins said that Cole stopped running at one point, making her think that he was surrendering, but then that he turned and pointed a gun at the officers. Hopkins said that Cole “was like fumbling around” and that “all of a sudden we hear rapid shots.” Plaintiff attorneys questioned the fact that Hopkins described Cole doing a motion which no one else described seeing. Davion Beard, a former Mayfair Mall security guard, initially helped to locate the group of teens, and participated in the foot chase. Beard, who ran track, testified to essentially being the closest person to Cole with just a foot or two separating them. When the first shot was fired, Beard said he dropped to the ground, with Shamsi not far behind him, and that he didn’t see Cole crawl, turn his body, or point a gun. 

Testimony concluded with Mensah’s attorneys calling Michael Knetzger, a certified instructor in Defense and Arrest Tactics (DAAT) and former Green Bay police officer. Knetzger repeatedly implied that the jurors should put themselves in Mensah’s mindset at the moment of the shooting. When cross examined, plaintiff attorneys drew attention to Knetzger’s lack of “real world experience” dealing with shootings and homicides, and that his doctorate and degrees had come from online universities including one that marketed itself as the nation’s “most affordable online Christian University.”

During closing arguments Cade reminded the jury that Cole was a kid who made stupid decisions like many young people, including his own sons who Cade called “knuckleheads.” Cade stressed that “for Joseph Mensah to be right, everybody else has to be wrong,” referring to the testimony from multiple officers, Beard, and other witnesses that Cole had not turned toward Mensah or moved after he fell to the ground. Cade said that Olson testified to support his friend Mensah, and that Mensah himself had  incentive to change his story.

Attorney Baynard, representing the defense, said that Cole made “catastrophically dangerous” decisions which went beyond the sort of mistakes people make when they’re young. Baynard said that “police are not required to gamble with their lives”, and that while Cole’s death was tragic, “we are in court today because of his actions.” Baynard said that “Cole was in control of the situation” and that “he was driving the bus”, saying in her closing argument that “I’m not sure how many more opportunities he should have been given to comply.” Baynard described the turning motion Cole allegedly made as “a quick shift,” and made claims about prior witness testimony which Cade later refuted.

The Cole family said they are undeterred by Thursday’s hung jury. “We’re a strong united family,” said Tracy Cole, Alvin’s mother. Despite the hung jury, Cole said that she is encouraged because “somebody sees that my son was killed for no reason,” and that she believed her son was killed as he attempted to surrender. 

“We are going to fight you Joseph, we ain’t gave up Joseph,” she added. “And my lawyers ain’t gave up.” 

Motley echoed the sentiment. “It’s a good result,” she said of the hung jury, “and we’re going to keep fighting…because this is an important case.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

The federal courthouse in Milwaukee.

A federal civil trial over the killing of 17-year-old Alvin Cole by then-Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah entered its second day Tuesday, with testimony from the medical examiner, police investigators and Mensah himself. Mensah killed Cole on Feb. 2 2020 following a foot pursuit at Mayfair Mall, during which Mensah said Cole pointed a gun at him. 

Dr. Weislaw Tlomak, chief medical examiner in Milwaukee County, performed the autopsy of Cole’s body the morning after he was killed. Using diagrams and a manikin , she described in detail the gunshot wounds Cole sustained after running from police in the Mayfair Mall parking lot. 

One of the most discussed wounds on Cole’s body was a gunshot wound to his forearm. Tlomak explained that it came from a shot at close range. 

Attorneys representing the Cole family argued that Cole shot himself in the arm as he ran, causing him to fall to the ground. Cole’s other wounds were also discussed in detail, with autopsy photos shown to the jury for the first time. When the case first went to trial in March, ending in a hung jury, autopsy photos were not shown. 

As Tlomak testified, U.S. Marshals streamed in and out of the courtroom, their presence more noticeable than on Monday. At one point during testimony, four fully uniformed Wauwatosa officers sat on the far side of the courtroom in full view of the jury. One of them sat next to Mensah’s wife, herself a former Milwaukee police officer. At least one of the officers, Ralph Salyers, had been on the scene of Mensah’s second shooting in 2016 of Jay Anderson Jr., and was offered immunity by special prosecutors in 2021 when that shooting was re-examined under the state’s John Doe laws. The officers sat for hours listening to testimony. Cole was the third person killed by Mensah during his five years at Wauwatosa PD. 

Milwaukee police detective Lori Rom, who served as part of the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team in 2020, testified, “Everybody sees and hears stuff different.” Rom and her partner William Schroeder, with whom she helped investigate the Cole shooting, said they were unable to talk to Mensah or officer Evan Olson, who’d left the scene and had to be interviewed with their lawyers. 

Both detectives testified that officers involved in fatal incidents need to be separated in order to avoid contaminating or influencing statements. Rom and Schroeder testified that officers should know better than to talk to each other. Both detectives admitted that they were surprised to learn from plaintiff attorneys on Tuesday that Mensah and Olson had gone off in a squad car together, and that Olson may have even driven Mensah back to the police department. “I would be surprised,” said Rom. “That’s typically not what you’re supposed to do. They should know not to do that.” No officer or supervisor told the investigators that officers hadn’t been separated, an important detail both Rom and Schroeder said they expected their colleagues to share with them.

Rom and Schroeder both said that no officers reached out to them to say that their reports were inaccurate after reviewing them. Their interviews with officers were not recorded, a common practice of the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team. Schroeder testified that an attorney from the Cermele Law Office, who regularly represented police officers, refused to allow his clients to be recorded.

Attorneys attempted to read other officer interviews from the Cole shooting investigation, but were struck down by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelmen, who agreed with defense attorneys that the reports were hearsay. One of those reports described a Wauwatosa officer, Maria Albiter, who was approached by Olson as she sat with Mensah, and told that he would sit with the officer instead.  

Plaintiff attorneys played sections of squad car video which captured Mensah and Olson going to a squad car together before deactivating the video and both of their lapel microphones. In another clip, Shamsi can be heard talking to Wauwatosa officer Dexter Schleis about the shooting, with plaintiff attorney’s posing that Schleis can be heard promising not to tell anyone that they talked at the end. When Schleis, who is still a Wauwatosa officer, later took the stand and heard the clip, he denied having said that. 

A major issue in the case is the contradicting statements between Shamsi, Olson, and Mensah. Whereas Shamsi was closest to Cole when he was shot and said the teen’s gun hadn’t moved at all, Olson and Mensah said that Cole raised the gun at each of them. Olson and Mensah were on opposite ends of the parking lot. Plaintiff attorneys argue that the gun couldn’t have been pointed at them both, while Mensah’s defense attorneys suggested in opening statements Monday that Cole pointed the gun at both officers. 

Mensah himself took the stand Tuesday afternoon. As in the last trial, he answered many questions asked by plaintiff attorneys with “I don’t remember” or “I don’t recall”. Mensah testified that after hearing the first gunshot as he chased Cole, he pulled out his own weapon. When Mensah saw a gun in Cole’s hand, he tensed his body and prepared to be shot, he said, describing it as a sort of “burning” sensation and fear. 

“It’s dark, it’s a stressful situation,” said Mensah. “Just because I remember one thing doesn’t mean I’ll remember another.” Yet the muzzle of Cole’s gun was something that Mensah testified that he won’t forget. “It’s not just me I’m protecting,” said Mensah. “It’s everyone else there as well.”

Mensah said that he fired until he felt the threat had been stopped, and that after the shooting he was very distraught and crying. Olson came to comfort him, and although Mensah said he couldn’t remember aspects of their time together, he told the jury that the two did not talk about the shooting at all. Mensah also couldn’t recall why his video and audio stopped once the two got into the car together. Mensah said he didn’t understand why Cole didn’t stop and drop the gun. “I didn’t want to get shot,” said Mensah. “I didn’t want to die.”

The day ended with testimony from Ricky Burems, a former Milwaukee police detective with 32 years experience, and Schleis. Burems spoke about his experience with Defense and Arrest Tactics (DAAT), a standardized use of force training police officers in most states including Wisconsin receive. 

DAAT should be interpreted as what a hypothetical reasonable officer with the same training would do, Burems testified, adding  that even when deadly force is used, the purpose is not to kill someone but to stop an imminent threat. Dialogue, not deadly force, is emphasized in DAAT training, Burems testified. If an officer fires, then after each shot is taken an officer needs to re-evaluate whether the threat still exists, he said. When firing, an officer must also consider what is beyond his target, such as civilians or other officers who may be struck. When questioned by defense attorneys, he said that although he’s trained many officers over his career, that he is not a certified DAAT instructor, and that there are circumstances where officers may rely on deadly force immediately. 

The day ended with Schleis, one of the officers who responded to Mayfair Mall in 2020, recounting how he arrived at the mall, responding to a call about a disorderly suspect who may have had a gun. Officers encountered a group of teens outside the mall, one of whom matched the description of the subject they were looking for. The group ran. Schelis was arresting one of the teens when he heard the first shot go off, followed by several more. Schleis, like other officers, testified that foot chases are remarkably unpredictable and dangerous. Asked about talking to other officers on scene, he denied telling Shamsi that he wouldn’t tell anyone that they’d talked, something plaintiff attorneys argued was captured on camera. 

By the end of the day, the four Wauwatosa officers who’d watched portions of the trial left and Wauwatosa PD Captain Luke Vetter arrived to watch testimony from the gallery, wearing a civilian suit with a badge on the breast pocket. Plaintiff attorneys rested their case Tuesday, with more witnesses expected to be called by the defense Wednesday before the case is handed over to the jury.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

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.

SUBSCRIBE