Protesters march in Milwaukee calling for more community control of the police. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

What has become of the city of Milwaukee’s Fire and Police Commission (FPC) since the passage of Act 12, which traded its policy-making powers over the police department for a fiscal deal with the state? That’s the question the Milwaukee Turners’ – described as Milwaukee’s oldest civic group – sought to answer with hard data. 

From June to December 2024, the Turners’ “Confronting Mass Incarceration team” monitored the FPC – itself one of the nation’s oldest civilian-led oversight bodies for police and fire departments. The team monitored the FPC’s meetings, who attended, what attendees did, and how commissioners engaged in the meetings. A white paper published earlier this month, detailing the team’s findings, noted among other things that:

 

• The FPC spent 81% of its time discussing personnel matters, and often discussed these during closed sessions which the public cannot view. The Turners noted 359 minutes were spent discussing personnel matters, whereas just 49 minutes were spent on public comment. 
• The Turners noticed what they described in the white paper as “an overall lack of active engagement and participation from commissioners.”
• Law enforcement personnel attended FPC meetings more frequently than members of the general public. During the monitoring period, 30 police personnel attended meetings whereas 20 members of the public attended. Of those members of the public who attended the meetings, half engaged in public comment and of those, only three received a direct response from commissioners. 

The report states the FPC “appears to serve as a rubber stamp” and that the commission “has failed to secure public trust.” Dr. Emily Sterk, a research and advocacy associate with Milwaukee Turners who worked on the project, explained why the numbers looked the way they do. While citizens can discuss whatever they want during public comment, commissioners can’t discuss anything that isn’t on the agenda due to open meetings laws. “So therefore they just have this practice to, you know, have public comment but then not even address the public that is there,” Sterk told Wisconsin Examiner. 

While she understands the legal reason for this practice, Sterk said, “that is, for us, subjectively very troubling when a member of the public makes the time and effort to get themselves down there, go to this meeting which – as we alluded to in the white paper – the regular sessions are very frequently heavily delayed because of the closed sessions that are taking place.” As a result, the commission ends up engaging in back-and-forth discussions with city officials and law enforcement more frequently than the public, whose comments may be left unheard. 

Leon Todd, executive director of the FPC, told Wisconsin Examiner that personnel matters such as promotions, hiring or setting recruitment standards “are extremely important.” Todd added, “I don’t think it is necessarily problematic that the FPC spends a goodly amount of time on that. It is part of their core functions. It’s been part of their core responsibilities for more than 150 years…Since 1885 no person has been appointed or promoted to any position in the police or fire departments without the express approval of the FPC board.” 

Yet even this function of the FPC has come under fire. In January, the commission was criticized by conservative elected officials, right-wing media outlets and the Milwaukee Police Association after an officer was denied promotion. WISN12 reported that the FPC considered promotions for seven officers, and only denied officer Jason Daering. A couple of weeks later in early February, the FPC reversed its position and voted to promote Daering to sergeant. Prior to the final vote, FPC co-chair Bree Spencer said that the police department didn’t provide a full file, that Daering did not appear for an interview and was unprepared. “So we really encourage, going forward, that people take this process seriously,” said Spencer. 

The commission’s voting record was another issue for the Milwaukee Turners. In their report, the group noted that over its monitoring period last year, the FPC took up 122 agenda items, of which 120 received unanimous approval. Only two agenda items – one involving the promotion of a detective and another concerning reappointing a former police officer – received No votes, with both items receiving two No votes. “Given the current practices of the FPC, including closed sessions and lack of Commissioner participation during regular sessions, the public is left unaware of why these aye or no votes were made,” the report states. “We observed an overall lack of transparency when it comes to Commissioners’ voting records. Even if Commissioners are actively participating in deliberation and debate during closed sessions, the public has no way of knowing this.” 

Todd also pushed back against the Milwaukee Turners’ claim that the FPC has become a rubber stamp. Harkening back to the pre-Act 12 era Todd, who was appointed by former mayor Tom Barrett in November 2020, recalled the FPC’s record of pushing for police reform measures “that the [police] department did not agree with.” From a ban on chokeholds and no-knock warrants, to approving a policy of publicly releasing video of incidents like police shootings within 15 days of the incident. Those decisions – made when the FPC was led by Chairman Ed Fallone and Vice Chairwoman Amanda Avalos – were “probably, if not the reason, a big reason why the Legislature took away [FPC’s] policy-making authority, because they were acting independently and listening to community members from Milwaukee,” Todd told Wisconsin Examiner. 

After the passage of Act 12 in 2023, Fallone and Avalos resigned their positions in protest. Stripping the FPC of its decades-old policy-making powers emerged as a bargaining chip in negotiations between Milwaukee elected officials and the Republican-controlled Legislature. In exchange for targeting the FPC, reversing the Milwaukee Public School district decision to remove school resource officers from its facilities at the request of students and community members, and agreeing to never reduce the police force, Milwaukee was allowed to raise its sales tax which allowed the county to avoid a fiscal catastrophe. Act 12’s law enforcement aspects had previously been proposed as bills favored by Republican lawmakers and the Milwaukee Police Association, which failed to pass. 

For the FPC, it seems that many roads lead back to the shared revenue and sales tax deal codified by Act 12. In its report, Milwaukee Turners recommended that Act 12 be amended to return the policy-making powers of the FPC. This state-level solution, however, relies on cooperation from the Republican-controlled Legislature which helped craft, negotiate, and implement Act 12. 

In the meantime, the Turners recommend that the FPC bring ideas for policy changes to the common council. “We recommend that the FPC dedicate less of their regular sessions to closed door personnel matters, and instead publicly engage in discussions about new and amended [Standard Operating Procedures] that are brought forth by the [Milwaukee Police Department],” the report reads, adding that “the Common Council might actively invite policy recommendations from the FPC, especially as it relates to the concerns of their constituents.”

Todd told Wisconsin Examiner that the commission adopted a new rule requiring that the police department provide copies of any new or amended policies to the FPC within 48 hours, and no less than 30 days before the policies take effect. When that happens, a communication file is created by the FPC which goes into the regular agenda, and thus becomes public. Todd said that so far, the commission has not sent policy recommendations to the common council. 

Todd is considering other ways to beef up the FPC’s oversight capacity. Specifically, he wants to encourage a focus on the FPC’s audit unit as a way of being “more proactive” and “not just reactive.” Todd pointed to an audit on police pursuits, and the police department, Todd said, is also looking to create a vehicle pursuit committee. The commission also continues tracking citizen complaints about officer behavior, as well as progress the department makes in eliminating discriminatory stop and frisk practices as part of the Collins settlement agreement. This year, the audit unit is expecting to do six or seven audits which are unrelated to the Collins settlement, said Todd.

Additionally, an ordinance passed in the common council to ensure the elected body is quickly notified of policy changes. 

How the commission attracts more members of the public to attend meetings is another issue. Todd acknowledged that there have been fewer citizens attending public comment after the passage of Act 12. “I think that’s unfortunate,” he told Wisconsin Examiner. “I think that we welcome people to come and express their views, their input.” 

The last major policy he could recall passed before Act 12 was the video release policy concerning police shootings and related deaths. Local activists fought for the reform, as did the families of people killed in incidents involving Milwaukee-area police. 

Todd said that the FPC still has “soft power” such as through audits, which it can use to influence the police department. “So I’m hoping that we will get more public input going forward,” he said, noting that FPC recently welcomed in a new commissioner, Krissie Fung, from the Milwaukee Turners. 

“Our findings highlight the importance of fostering a culture of police and fire accountability within the FPC,” the Turners’ white paper concludes. “By advocating for legislative changes to restore policy making authority, increasing public engagement, and ensuring rigorous Commissioner participation, the FPC can rebuild public confidence and strengthen its capacity to address systemic inequalities in policing.”

“We really hope to continue to provide civilian oversight of the FPC and see what happens over the course of the next few months,” said Sterk, “especially as we continue our lobbying for the amendment of Act 12, as we hope members of the FPC and members of the public do as well.”

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The Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety. Seated at the table are Detective Joseph Mensah (left) and Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police President Ryan Windorff (right) (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

A Republican bill aiming to shield police officers from investigations after fatal shootings spurred committee debate and a deadlock vote Tuesday morning. The Senate’s Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety held an executive session to vote on the bill, which would prevent the use of John Doe hearings to review cases where officers are involved in fatal shootings of civilians. The hearing ended in a deadlocked 4-4  vote on advancing the bill. 

The bill was reported out of committee “without recommendation.” This means that the committee “has not recommended either approval or rejection of the bill,” Eric Barbour, the Senate committee clerk explained. It will next go to the Committee on Senate Organization, where it can then be scheduled for a vote by the full Senate.

Republican Sens. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), the bill’s author, committee chairman Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), Sen. Jesse James (R-Altoona), and Sen. Andre Jacque (R-De Pere) voted in favor of the bill. Democratic Sens. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee) and LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) were joined by Republican Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) in voting against the bill. 

Wimberger also voted against the bill last year, when it was first introduced by Hutton and Rep. Clint Moses (R-Menomonee). The bill’s original version was criticized for potentially preventing crime victims from having cases reviewed after a prosecutor declined to issue charges. Its latest version makes a specific carve-out for police officers involved in fatal shootings. Were it to pass, judges would be unable to hold hearings under Wisconsin’s John Doe law in cases where prosecutors have declined to issue charges. Instead, new or unused evidence would be required before a John Doe hearing could be considered. 

During a committee hearing earlier this month, Hutton said that the John Doe bill is archaic, and is increasingly being used to harass police officers. He and the law enforcement officers who testified  pointed to two instances of the law being used in recent years. One John Doe hearing held in 2021 reviewed the 2016 shooting of Jay Anderson Jr. by then-Wauwatosa officer Joseph Mensah. The other hearing was held in 2023, and reviewed the shooting of Tony Robinson by Madison Police officer Matthew Kenney. Both hearings were unsuccessful, with a judge dropping Robinson’s case and special prosecutors declining to pursue charges after Anderson’s hearing. 

Mensah spoke to the Senate committee when Hutton re-introduced the bill this year. During public testimony, Mensah described going through multiple investigations into his shooting of Anderson. Over a five-year career as a Wauwatosa officer, Mensah was involved in three fatal shootings. No charges were issued by the district attorney’s office in any of these cases. Anderson’s was the only one of Mensah’s shootings to get a John Doe hearing. 

Hutton has said that although he’s talked extensively with law enforcement about the bill, he has not engaged with any of the families of people killed by police. 

During Tuesday’s executive session, Sen. Roys expressed concern that the bill would create a new class protection for police officers. Roys highlighted recent findings regarding the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT), which investigates police shootings and deaths in the Milwaukee area. Roys noted that the team’s policies afford officers numerous protections and privileges including the ability to refuse to give a recorded statement and the ability to make additional statements after viewing video evidence. 

James, who has had a career in law enforcement, responded that officers get to view video evidence because the incidents themselves happen so quickly, that they may forget certain details. “I don’t think there’s a real understanding of the complete process,” said James, who described Mensah as a victim because the shootings he was involved in were reviewed multiple times. 

Sen. Drake said that while officers deserve support, changing the John Doe law would take away an avenue of recourse from victims of police shootings and their families. 

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The Milwaukee Police Administration Building downtown. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Oak Creek Police Department is handling the investigation of a man shot in Milwaukee this week after a Milwaukee police officer was wounded by gunfire. 

The exchange of shots Wednesday morning took place as a thick blanket of snow fell on the city. According to a Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) press release, officers responded at about 11:50 a.m. to reports of a man firing a large weapon near north 27th Street and Wisconsin Avenue. When officers arrived, the man didn’t drop his gun and fired at officers, police said. 

One officer was wounded by gunfire and was taken to a hospital for surgery. The wounded officer is a 34-years-old man, and has eight years on the job. Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said the officer was wearing a protective vest when he was shot.

Another officer shot and killed the man carrying the gun. That officer is 37 years old and also had eight years of experience with MPD. That officer was placed on administrative leave, a routine procedure after police shootings. 

The man with the gun has been depicted carrying an AR-15 style rifle in photographs circulating online. Wisconsin is an open carry state. 

The man was identified as Isaiah Walker Stott and was an ex-Marine with no criminal history, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

Oak Creek police are investigating the shooting as part of the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT). An MPD press release said that video of the shooting will be released within 15 days to the public, as required by its Standard Operating Procedure 575. 

During a press conference, Norman described the man’s rifle as semi-automatic and denounced its use on a city street.

Norman said that the winter storm presents challenges for police and that officers reacted quickly to the situation. People and cars on the street “could have been harmed by this particular individual,” said Norman. “This is not acceptable. This type of action, this type of behavior, must stop.”

Mayor Cavalier Johnson expressed gratitude for the service of police  and said his thoughts are with the wounded officer, his family and the police department, but that he didn’t want to draw conclusions about the incident itself. 

Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern — who had been at a Milwaukee Press Club luncheon about 25 blocks from the scene — joined the police department press conference at the scene of the shooting. Lovern also expressed concern and gratitude for the officer and for  people in the community who have helped provide information. 

Representatives from the Milwaukee Police Association called the incident “a stark reminder” of what officers face and asked for prayers from the community. 

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Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Nearly a month after being sworn in as Milwaukee County’s 32nd district attorney, Kent Lovern says the job is exactly what he prepared for. “It’s everything I expected it to be,” Lovern said during a luncheon hosted by the Milwaukee Press Club Wednesday. With 27 years of prosecutorial experience under his belt, much of it as an assistant DA in the Milwaukee office, Lovern said that he’s facing both the challenges and opportunities in the office head on.

Lovern discussed his work with cases involving domestic violence, firearms enforcement, long-term drug and gang investigations over the years. “My general approach to crime is that violent crime, including reckless driving, deserves a strong response,” he said. And, he added, he is  “very familiar with what that means…And it ultimately means removing people from the community for some period of time, in response to their transgressions.” 

But Lovern, who succeeded John Chisholm as district attorney, also said that not every transgression  needs to be addressed through the “punitive justice system.” People dealing with mental illness and addiction could be handled with therapeutic treatment, he said. Lovern also highlighted the use of community prosecution units, which he described as partnerships to address criminal justice issues at the neighborhood level. 

He  stressed the need for collaboration across the criminal justice system and  with community organizations, nonprofits and people who work with vulnerable residents. Community collaboration, plus attracting family-sustaining jobs to Milwaukee County, will go a long way towards building safer communities, he said. 

During the luncheon, Lovern took questions from a panel of local news reporters. He noted that reckless driving continues to be a top concern in Milwaukee, even in neighborhoods where gun violence is common. “Years ago there used to be a term for this — they would call it ‘joy riding’,” said Lovern. But there is nothing joyful about  “endangerment to people out there in the roadway,” he said.

Asked about a Milwaukee County Court Watch finding that, in reckless driving cases, judges gave lighter sentences than  prosecutors recommended 69% of the time, Lovern said prosecutors will continue to make recommendations for tougher sentences. 

To work cases, however, you need lawyers, and those are in short supply across Wisconsin. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys are in need of more staff in Milwaukee County, Lovern said. “We have an office that is very young, in terms of experience,” he said, adding that of the 125 lawyers in his office, “over half of those prosecutors have less than five years of experience.” More funding from the state Legislature would help a lot, he said. 

Federal funding cuts

Lovern said that 12 and a half positions within the district attorney’s office were supported by American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) federal funding. That money replaced losses in other grant funding. Statewide, district attorney’s offices are looking at possibly losing 28 total positions. “The state is the funding source, legally, of DA positions across the state of Wisconsin,” said Lovern. “I think the role of government is to give us what we need, and not more,” said Lovern. “And I’m asking for what we need.” 

Not having enough attorneys worsens backlogs of cases, creating  a cascade of effects. Everyone from lawyers to suspects to crime victims need to wait longer for the legal process to play out. “It’s important that our system functions at the highest level possible,” said Lovern. He stressed that “I want to see a fully staffed public defender’s office, and of course private bar, too. It’s imperative that our system function at the highest level possible.”

Resources for crime victims increases their survival rate Lovern said. He recalled that during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, people who were crime victims — such as for domestic violence — stopped sharing information with prosecutors and law enforcement. The pandemic isolated people, including those in dangerous situations and in some cases, Lovern said, victims lost their lives. 

Lovern also addressed issues with the Milwaukee County Criminal Justice Facility, jail, and courthouse. The massive concrete complex, which he described as “crumbling,” wasn’t designed for the roles it now must serve. Lovern noted that victims and suspects don’t have different hallways in which to leave court proceedings. In those drab, windowless hallways, lawyers have to review documents with their clients on trash bins instead of tables, Lovern said. Recently, the need for more security in Milwaukee courts was raised.

Lovern stressed that Milwaukee County needs to be safe in order to grow. Although the press club’s media panel noted that Milwaukee Police Department data suggests crime is trending downward, polls during the presidential election showed that people still felt unsafe in Milwaukee County. “Perception drives reality,” Lovern said, asserting  that he will be tough on crime.

During the luncheon, two cases were on  the public’s mind. There was the homicide of Sade Robinson, who was found dismembered in Milwaukee County in 2024. Lovern was asked if there were any updates as to the prosecution of Maxwell Anderson, who was arrested for Robinson’s murder, but he declined to comment. Likewise, the district attorney declined to comment on the death of D’Vontaye Mitchell, who died during an altercation with hotel security shortly before the Republican National Convention in 2024. Three of the hotel staff charged in Mitchell’s death took plea deals. There were also questions about TMJ4 finding that the Milwaukee’s Housing Authority was at risk of illegally using federal funds, to which Lovern said that nothing has been brought to his office. 

The district attorney was also asked about his office’s use of reckless homicide charges in overdose cases. While reckless homicide charges after a fatal drug overdose were originally intended to go after drug dealers, advocates fear that drug users who report a friend or spouse’s overdose may be arrested, which could discourage people from calling for help. Lovern said that drug overdose investigations are very complex, and the question of exactly what drug killed someone is harder to answer than people think. 

“We see a handful of these every year,” said Lovern, adding that police send a small number of drug overdose reckless homicide cases to the district attorney’s office. While some cases are charged, other times charges for possession with intent to deliver are used. Lovern said that he couldn’t recall any cases where a spouse was  charged, but because drugs like fentanyl can be lethal and are dangerous. “We’re going to prosecute those cases where we have the evidence to do so,” he told Wisconsin Examiner. “There’s no question about that.”

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Images of the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT) emblem, Taleavia Cole (the sister of Alvin Cole), protesters, riot police, and surveillance vehicles from the 2020 George Floyd-inspired protests. (Photos by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner. Graphic by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

This story was produced in partnership with Type Investigations, where Isiah Holmes was an Ida B. Wells fellow.

The last time Tracy Cole remembered speaking to her 17-year-old son Alvin, he was at the mall. After she told him to be safe and that she loved him, he asked what’s for dinner. Alvin told his mother, “when I get home from the mall, I want a big plate like my dad,” Tracy recalled of that early February night in 2020. 

Minutes after she spoke with Alvin, Tracy said her phone was flooded with worried calls. She recalled breaking news reporting that police had killed someone with a gun at the mall. Tracy couldn’t reach Alvin, so his family started searching for him. Since Alvin wasn’t at the Wauwatosa Police Department, nor the hospital, they tried the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s office. 

When the medical examiner invited her inside, Tracy’s whole body went limp. This can’t be happening. That’s not my baby, she thought. Her husband of nearly three decades identified their son, and then wept.

Not long after, two Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) detectives stepped in and asked whether Alvin carried a gun. “None of ‘em ever say ‘my deepest condolence,’” said his mother, who later used her experience as a former funeral home worker to clean and dress her son for the last time.

Although from Milwaukee PD, the detectives actually represented an entity known as the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT). In Wisconsin, investigations into deaths of civilians involving police officers are led by an uninvolved agency to help promote public trust. Since MAIT’s formation about a decade ago, the team has grown to include nearly two dozen neighboring law enforcement agencies which routinely investigate one another. MAIT’s investigations are reviewed by prosecutors who then decide whether officers will face charges for citizen deaths. 

Wisconsin Examiner, in partnership with Type Investigations, has found that MAIT’s protocols grant officers certain privileges not afforded to the general public. In a typical civilian death investigation, police interrogate suspects to try to elicit an incriminating response. Officers being investigated by MAIT for civilian deaths, on the other hand:

 

• Are only interviewed as witnesses or victims, unless directed by a supervisor, rather than as suspects, usually without a Miranda warning and in the presence of a union representative or lawyer. In Wisconsin, crime victims are provided specific legal protections in terms of privacy and interactions with investigators — protections that are extended to police officers because of their official victim status after an officer-involved shooting.
• Officers may refuse to allow their statements to be recorded, despite MAIT protocols stating it is “accepted best practice” to record all interviews; 
• Officers may make “additional statements” after viewing video evidence. 

 

Wisconsin Examiner/Type reviewed 17 investigations conducted by MAIT from 2019-2022, including the one that involved Cole. No officers were charged after any of these incidents. MAIT’s investigations rarely result in criminal charges against officers for citizen deaths.

Meanwhile, seven families interviewed by Wisconsin Examiner/Type, including the Coles, describe experiencing suspicion, hostility, stonewalling, or emotional disregard from police investigators. Some agencies have also monitored families of people killed by officers, even years after their loved one’s death.

MAIT’s commander, Greenfield Police Assistant Chief Eric Lindstrom, declined to comment for this story, as did a committee that oversees the team. But several of the member agencies responsible for shootings and investigations reviewed in our analysis disputed the idea that MAIT favors officers. 

Wauwatosa PD’s spokesperson said in a statement that the department “has full confidence in the impartiality and transparency of MAIT investigations, ensuring accountability to the families involved, the officers, and the public.” A West Allis PD spokesperson said West Allis MAIT investigators “conduct thorough, fair, and impartial investigations which enable a District Attorney to make a finding regarding an incident.”

Cole’s shooting was the first of 10 MAIT investigations in 2020. He was also the third person killed by the same Wauwatosa officer in a five-year period.

Shapeshifting Narratives 

Alvin’s older sister Taleavia Cole was still at Jackson State University in Mississippi when she learned her little brother was dead. “It’s been difficult without him,” she told Wisconsin Examiner/Type, four years after her brother’s killing. “Although he was the little brother, he was definitely the big brother…He was a protector. He’s not about to play about his sisters and his mama.” 

Taleavia gradually pieced together what happened to her brother by talking to family and friends, and by looking at local news reports. Alvin allegedly flashed a handgun during an argument and fled mall security with his friends as police arrived. Wauwatosa officer Joseph Mensah was one of several responding officers. Mensah chased after Cole and, as they ran, a single gunshot rang out in the darkened parking lot. 

Mensah later told MAIT investigators that he neither saw a muzzle flash nor knew who had fired. The radio broadcasted “shots fired,” and Cole fell to his hands and knees. “Don’t move,” some officers yelled while others demanded he “drop the gun” or “throw it.” Then five more shots boomed with dash footage capturing a voice yelling, “stop, stop!” 

Both Mensah and fellow Wauwatosa officer Evan Olson told MAIT that Cole pointed a gun after he fell. But four years later, a judge determined the officers gave “conflicting testimony.” Mensah said Cole pointed a gun directly at him and did not see it being pointed at anyone else. Olson, who was standing apart from Mensah, said the gun was pointed “westbound” toward Olson. 

Meanwhile, Wauwatosa officer David Shamsi didn’t mention seeing the gun raised at all. Squad video that February night captured Shamsi telling an unknown individual, “I didn’t see him have the gun in his hand, it was on the ground.” In July 2020, when he spoke with the district attorney’s office, it appears that Shamsi changed his story, saying he saw Cole “raise his firearm,” according to a Wauwatosa PD administrative review of the shooting. 

Shamsi later resigned from Wauwatosa PD while on military deployment. He was later hired by the FBI. In a 2024 ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman wrote that Shamsi testified in a deposition that “he [Shamsi] had sight of the gun at all times, and that the gun did not move at any time before Mensah shot Cole.” 

Mensah, Olson, and Shamsi all declined to comment for this story via representatives.

It wasn’t the only time an officer’s story changed during an investigation of police who killed a citizen. After a 2021 Milwaukee PD shooting, an officer who’d contradicted his partner by telling MAIT that a gun hadn’t been pointed at them later changed his story when talking to the district attorney. 

Mensah was the only officer to shoot Cole. As the teen struggled to breathe, officers handcuffed Cole and assessed his wounds. Police and medics soon arrived, and West Allis police officers started a log documenting everyone entering and leaving the crime scene while other officers combed the area for witnesses. 

Slipping around MAIT’s protocols

It didn’t take long for the investigation into Cole’s death to diverge from the official procedure. MAIT’s protocols direct supervisors to “ensure that the involved officer is separated from other witnesses and removed from unnecessary contact with other officers.” This is intended to prevent the contamination of officer statements.

Yet at some point that night, Olson became Mensah’s “support officer,” keeping Mensah company and comforting him, even though Olson had both witnessed the shooting and aimed his own weapon at Cole. Support officers are generally tasked with helping fellow police personnel cope with the stress of the job.

After the shooting, according to MAIT investigative reports, Wauwatosa officer Maria Albiter was told by a supervisor to sit with Mensah. Unlike Olson, Albiter had not witnessed the shooting. Albiter told investigators, however, that Olson then came by and said he’d sit with Mensah instead.

MAIT’s interviews with Olson and Mensah neither mention Albiter, nor that Olson and Mensah had been alone together.

Cole’s death investigation doesn’t address this apparent violation of MAIT’s protocols. An internal review of the shooting by Wauwatosa PD denied that there was any evidence of statement contamination due to Olson and Mensah not being separated. 

This instance of officers not being separated also wasn’t an anomaly. In six of the 17 MAIT investigations reviewed by Wisconsin Examiner/Type, officers were not separated after a civilian death, and some were captured on camera talking with each other about the incident. 

There were other indications of potential bias related to the Cole investigation. In February 2020, two detectives from nearby Greenfield PD joined the investigative team. One of them was Det. Aaron Busche, then vice president and now president of the Greenfield Police Association. Later that year, as protests mounted against Mensah for his role in multiple shootings of civilians – but before a charging decision in Cole’s shooting had been made – the Greenfield Police Association donated $500 to Mensah’s GoFundMe page, which raised money to cover his legal expenses, despite Busche’s prior involvement in the Cole investigation. Busche did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Officers may refuse to be recorded when interviewed by investigators, making it harder to track inconsistencies or confirm details in their stories. Like every other investigation reviewed for this story, Cole’s file suggests MAIT investigators did not record most of the officers’ statements. Only two officer interviews specify that they were recorded. 

MAIT routinely conducted unrecorded interviews with officers. After one September 2021 shooting, every officer who fired a weapon refused to be recorded. In another 2021 case, 80% of all interviewed officers refused to be recorded by MAIT detectives. 

Nearly two-thirds of MAIT’s investigations reviewed by Wisconsin Examiner/Type document such refusals. By contrast, MAIT’s protocols state that all civilian witness interviews must “at least be audio recorded” and that investigators “will be equipped with portable audio recorders for this purpose.” While they acknowledge citizens may “refuse to be tape recorded or videotaped,” in practice, civilian witness interviews seem to be recorded far more often than officers.

Both the Waukesha and Wauwatosa police departments confirmed with Wisconsin Examiner/Type that their MAIT investigators did not record officer statements for investigations reviewed for this story. A spokesperson from Milwaukee PD referenced protocols from the Milwaukee County Law Enforcement Executives Association, which state “the officer cannot be forced to give a recorded statement.”

Although recorded interviews cannot be forced, West Allis PD stressed that they have obtained voluntary statements from officers “in almost 100% of the cases.”

Civilians subjected to police questioning face far more pressure. After Cole’s shooting, one 14-year-old boy who was with Cole’s group of friends was questioned by MAIT for over an hour, under Miranda warning and without his parents or a lawyer. 

In the interrogation video, detectives asked, “Right before he got shot, what did he do?” The boy replied, “I don’t know…I was worried about me. I was trying to get away…I’m looking back and running at the same time.” Later, the detectives encouraged the boy to “think real hard, and just focus on it,” and said, “you have nothing to owe this guy,” referring to the deceased Cole. 

Both detectives repeatedly stressed the importance of honesty. More than an hour and 10 minutes into the interview, after the detectives again asked what happened, the boy replied,

When asked about this interrogation, the West Allis spokesperson said the department “follows all laws pertaining to juvenile interviews, including during MAIT investigations.”

The state law that later led to MAIT’s creation aimed to make investigations independent so that a police force is not investigating itself for potential wrongdoing. But Wisconsin Examiner/Type found that in 82% of the cases reviewed for this story, the agency involved in the death also participated in parts of the investigation. 

After one Waukesha PD shooting, officers transported weapons they’d fired back to their department before they could be located by MAIT investigators. (A Waukesha PD spokesperson told Wisconsin Examiner/Type that this was accidental, and that officers contacted MAIT once they realized the weapons had been used in the shooting.)

In another shooting by Wauwatosa PD, a wounded woman who’d been shot by officers called detectives, asking why Wauwatosa officers guarded her hospital room and wouldn’t allow her family to visit.

 

In 2019 after a Milwaukee PD shooting, a Milwaukee detective helped MAIT interrogate the victim’s girlfriend. In another 2021 case Milwaukee PD provided medical assistance to someone fatally shot by Greenfield PD, and then served as the lead MAIT investigating agency, even interviewing its own officers. In other cases law enforcement from involved agencies drafted and executed search warrants for the homes of people killed by police. 

None of these activities are strictly against the law, even if they raise questions about the neutrality of the investigators. A Milwaukee PD spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement that in the 2021 Greenfield shooting, its officers were not directly involved in the shooting as defined by Wisconsin statute. Likewise, a Wauwatosa PD spokesperson said that “each situation and investigation conducted by MAIT is unique” and that MAIT works closely with the involved agency to “determine the best approach”, which may include the involved agency “potentially conducting or assisting in the investigation.”

Cole was Mensah’s third fatal shooting over a five-year period. The district attorney’s office declined to charge Mensah in all three shootings, stating that his use of deadly force was reasonable, justified, or privileged. A civil lawsuit filed over Cole’s death in 2022, however, raised questions about the shooting.

After hearing arguments in 2024, Judge Adelman ruled that the lawsuit could go to trial. Explaining his ruling, Adelman wrote, “Based on the conflict between the testimony of Olsen and Shamsi, on the one hand, and Mensah, on the other, it is impossible to know what happened and whether Mensah’s use of deadly force was reasonable.” 

Trying to cover something

For families of people killed by police, trust is often broken as soon as detectives walk through the door. 

When MAIT investigators came to the Anderson family’s home back in 2016, the Andersons did not yet know that their son, Jay Anderson Jr., was dead.

Around 3 a.m., Mensah had noticed Anderson’s car sitting alone in a park. Anderson’s family says that he’d been out celebrating his birthday a few days early, and was sleeping off the intoxication. MAIT reports state that after waking Anderson in his car, Mensah noticed a handgun beside the 25-year-old.

Less than 30 seconds of mute dash footage captured Mensah pointing his weapon at Anderson, who was sitting in the driver seat with his hands raised. Mensah shot Anderson six times after his hands lowered.  

Jay Sr. recalled that Milwaukee PD detectives presented a picture of his son “with a big Glock 40 hole in his jaw” so he could identify him. His wife Linda said the detectives never expressed sympathy. Instead, she recalled, they started interrogating the family.  “It wasn’t, ‘Oh we’re sorry this happened to your son,’” she said. “It was: ‘Do he smoke? Do he sell pot?’ It was them trying to build a case, from the minute that they killed my son.” 

An MPD spokesperson said that it “takes complaints seriously” and encourages anyone concerned about the behavior of MPD officers or detectives to file a formal complaint through the civilian-led Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission.

Years later, a different mother also came away feeling suspicious after her interaction with MAIT detectives. Markeisha Evans who, like the Coles and Andersons, lives in Milwaukee, recalled an unexpected visit by Waukesha detectives. When they arrived on a February night in 2022, the detectives first asked whether her son, Keishon Thomas, lived there. The 20-year-old had gone out that night and she was waiting for him to return. Evans said that the detectives then suddenly asked, “Was he sick?”

Evans said that Thomas was healthy. “After them asking me a number of questions — and this about 15 or 20 minutes in — they tell me my son ‘didn’t make it’” … and that “he passed,” Evans told Wisconsin Examiner/Type. 

Milwaukee officers had arrested her son earlier that night on drug charges. Thomas was later found unresponsive in his cell at a district station. Milwaukee PD said that Thomas consumed and overdosed on drugs he’d allegedly managed to hide from the officers who handcuffed, searched, and booked him. Two Milwaukee officers were later convicted on charges related to falsifying cell check reports and neglecting to get Thomas medical attention after he’d ingested drugs. One officer paid a $5,000 fine, avoiding prison time and probation, while the other received probation.

The way the detectives opened their questioning without first saying Thomas was dead lingers in his mother’s mind. “I thought that it was inappropriate,” said Evans. “Almost like they were trying to cover something.” 

A spokesperson for the Waukesha PD apologized that detectives made Evans feel this way, but said that detectives must develop foundational information with interviewees, and denied that detectives were looking for a way to excuse Thomas’ death. 

Targeting families 

Some MAIT agencies have also closely monitored family members who join protests after their loved ones are killed by police.

Taleavia Cole became a regular speaker at protest rallies after her brother’s killing. “She was out there and she was good at it,” Linda Anderson told Wisconsin Examiner/Type. Wauwatosa PD noticed as well. 

“She’s a leader or informal leader, and people follow leaders,” Wauwatosa PD Capt. Luke Vetter said during a civil deposition in a lawsuit against the city for their handling of protests. 

The Cole family’s attorney pressed Vetter to explain how a family member who spoke out about her relative being killed by police became a suspicious person to police in her own right.

“We recognize that people will listen to her, and will follow her, and if she has a plan in mind or an event in mind, that she will garner support. And that is something that we have to just be careful of, and watch, and monitor,” Vetter said in the deposition. When asked why Taleavia was considered a threat Vetter described her as “passionate about her position” and that “sometimes she is more adversarial than she should be and I think sometimes groups will follow that.”

Like her mother, sisters, attorneys, and dozens of others including this story’s author who reported on the protests, Taleavia was placed on a “target list,” as Wauwatosa police called it in an email, naming protesters and their allies in 2020. Some MAIT member agencies have also monitored the Coles, the Andersons, and other family members of people shot by police using an internal database that compiles confidential personal information ranging from car registrations to home addresses, criminal histories and more. The Milwaukee PD, which frequently searched the names of Keishon Thomas’ loved ones in this database, said that this is often done to identify contact information and next of kin. The department acknowledged that in at least one instance, a database search was done to identify a loved one of Thomas after “a social media post was discovered.”

On Oct. 7, 2020, the Milwaukee County district attorney announced Mensah would not be charged for shooting Cole. Wauwatosa declared a curfew, anticipating protests over the decision. That night, some in the protest crowd broke windows, and looted a gas station. The following night members of Cole’s family were arrested for violating curfew as they rode in a protest caravan. Police depositions conceded that they were unable to develop probable cause linking the Coles to any destructive behavior.

Taleavia was briefly jailed in Waukesha County and her phone was confiscated by Wauwatosa PD for 22 days. During that time, according to a motion to return seized property filed in the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, “her Facebook and Instagram has disappeared,” and her iCloud account with attorney-client information had been “tampered with.” 

Wauwatosa Special Operations Group Detective Joseph Lewandowski, who was both a MAIT detective and peer support officer and considered Mensah a friend, also identified Wauwatosa’s mayor as one of four “higher value” targets in 2020, due to his perceived support of protests. Interrogating a protester through a balaclava mask emblazoned with a thin blue line logo in 2020, Lewandowski said of Cole and others killed by Mensah, “he chose that. Just like the other ones. They all chose that.”

Lewandowski apologized for his behavior during a civil deposition, and added that “they [Mensah’s shooting victims] still have families and those families are victims as well. And I believe there was a chance that that sight picture was lost.” He also said that police deserve “a baseline of support” and answered in the affirmative when an attorney asked whether public officials should “blindly support the police.”  The Wauwatosa PD declined to comment further on Vetter and Lewandowski’s deposition testimony. 

Later in 2021, members of the public who were entering court hearings on Mensah’s 2016 shooting of Anderson were monitored by Milwaukee County Sheriff’s drones. Special prosecutors also later said that they declined requests from Milwaukee PD to keep Wauwatosa PD apprised of meetings with the Andersons, so that Wauwatosa could position squad cars nearby. The hearings, initiated under Wisconsin’s John Doe law allowing a judge to review a case where prosecutors already declined to file charges, found probable cause to charge Mensah with homicide by negligent use of a dangerous weapon. 

In his ruling, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Glenn Yamahiro blasted the Anderson MAIT investigation. Wauwatosa detectives including Lewandowski interviewed witnesses and attended Anderson’s autopsy. Anderson’s gun and body were also moved from his car before Milwaukee PD arrived to investigate.

“If the goal is to maximize objectivity and minimize bias, it will require a legislative alternative to having local law enforcement agencies investigate each other in officer-involved deaths,” said Yamahiro. “It is unreasonable to ask them [local law enforcement] to turn around and investigate each other in matters as serious as these, and for them to suddenly set those relationships aside.”

Special prosecutors still declined to charge Mensah. 

MAIT was born in an attempt to improve upon the previous status quo. Stephen Rushin, a law professor and dean at Chicago’s Loyola University, called Wisconsin’s law mandating independent investigations “unique” and “not representative of how most places across the country do it.” Rushin said that other police departments in the U.S. tend to investigate themselves after civilians die in custody or are killed by police in shootings.

But as Judge Yamahiro noted, outsourcing investigations to neighboring police forces doesn’t fix the problem of conflict of interest. Ricky Burems, a retired Milwaukee PD homicide detective, argues that police are indoctrinated to always protect one another. “The issue is police culture in general,” said Burems, who investigated police shootings and deaths during his career. Burems compares the relationship among police officers to the instinctive loyalty between siblings. “It’s truly a brotherhood…We are trained to protect each other.” 

Burems fears that investigators fail to humanize a victim’s family. “If the lives of the victims were valued as human beings, this could not happen,” said Burems, who testified as an expert witness in Jay Anderson’s John Doe hearings. “If they valued Jay Anderson’s life, Mensah would not have been able to kill Alvin Cole.”

When asked about this characterization, an MPD spokesperson wrote in an email that “we continuously strive to serve our community professionally and respectfully. We also recognize the need for additional resources for victims of crimes, which is why we created two new Victim Specialist positions within our Criminal Investigations Bureau, and hope to fill these in 2025.”

A West Allis Police spokesperson also objected that “the claim that MAIT actively works to protect fellow officers is categorically false, without merit, and without a factual basis. Reckless statements such as this erode trust in the criminal justice system and adversely impacts individuals who heavily rely upon the criminal justice system.” 

Oversight and accountability  

MAIT’s protocols state that a police agency’s reputation and credibility with the community “are largely dependent upon the degree of professionalism and impartiality that the agency can bring to such investigations,” and that “instances where citizens are wounded or killed can have a devastating impact on the professional integrity and credibility of the entire law enforcement agency.” 

Yet the team lacks transparency. MAIT is overseen by a committee made up of eight local police chiefs and members of the Milwaukee County Law Enforcement Executive Association Board. Team members communicate through encrypted chats while the committee holds votes in non-public committee meetings to choose committee leaders, set policy, and decide the team’s future. 

Releasing death investigations after a prosecutor’s decision is supposed to offer public transparency. Nevertheless, open records practices across MAIT’s member agencies are inconsistent. The Waukesha PD, for example, has a web page dedicated to its MAIT releases declaring that, “the documents below are posted in the interest of transparency.” Below that line the page is blank. 

When asked about the empty web page, a Waukesha PD spokesperson said that it was due to human error when the city’s website was rebuilt and that they are working to re-post the case files. 

Leon Todd, executive director of Milwaukee’s civilian-led Fire and Police Commission, said that since MAIT is made up of multiple agencies, “there is no single entity that has oversight over MAIT.”

Families are left with little recourse other than the courts. Yet criminal charges against officers are rare, as are victories in civil court. 

“It’s important to not overlook the fact that these suits can often be the only way that people can get any measure of justice in these cases,” said UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz, author of the book “Shielded, How The Police Became Untouchable.” Discipline or prosecution of officers is “exceedingly rare,” said Schwartz, making civil suits “the only avenue, and they’re certainly the only avenue by which a person could be compensated for that wrongdoing. In addition, these suits often are critically important ways of unearthing information about department practices.”

After resigning from Wauwatosa PD, Mensah was hired at the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office, where he’s a detective and has investigated a death at the Milwaukee County Jail. 

After the protests, Vetter briefly served as Wauwatosa’s acting chief before Chief James MacGillis was hired in 2021. Olson resigned from Wauwatosa PD in good standing in December 2023. He now works at West Allis PD, and serves as the treasurer for the West Allis Professional Police Association. Lewandowski was promoted to patrol sergeant at Wauwatosa PD after being disciplined for the higher value target controversy, and was moved out of both the Special Operations Group and MAIT. The Milwaukee PD has repeatedly denied allegations that it surveils the families of people killed by police. 

Declining to comment on the Cole family or surveillance they may have experienced, a Wauwatosa PD spokesperson said in a statement that “our focus is on the future” and that the department is “committed to our mission of providing dedicated service and protection to all.”

MAIT continues its investigations, including looking into the killing of an unhoused man by out-of-state officers during the 2024 Republican National Convention. In an interview with WOSU Public Media MAIT’s commander, Greenfield Assistant Chief Eric Lindstrom, said, “all of the agencies that are members of this team really feel it provides a benefit.” The team claims that other agencies nationwide have modeled their own teams on MAIT.  

Teleavia Cole still has questions about the decisions officers, investigators and prosecutors made in her brother Alvin’s case. A federal jury trial in her family’s civil case is set for March 17, 2025.

Losing Alvin was difficult for the Cole family, yet it also brought them closer. “It was difficult for my parents, but with us being a close family, and with me just being who I am, I’m going to make sure we figure things out,” Taleavia Cole told Wisconsin Examiner/Type. “We want to do more for him,” she added. “We want to tell his story.”

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The Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety. Seated at the table are Detective Joseph Mensah (left) and Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police President Ryan Windorff (right) (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

“Baseless,” “false allegations,” and “meant to harass” were phrases used by Republican senators and police groups to describe what they called the “abuse” of Wisconsin’s John Doe law to exact vengeance on police officers who were involved in fatal incidents. 

“Activists have discovered that the John Doe process itself can be the punishment they seek against innocent law enforcement officers in our community,” said Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) during a Thursday afternoon hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee. 

It was the second time Hutton has introduced a bill taking aim at Wisconsin’s John Doe law. The law, which applies to a wide range of crimes, allows a judge to review cases in which prosecutors have declined to file charges. A judge then decides whether probable cause for a crime exists. If so, then the judge may appoint special prosecutors to consider whether charges are needed. Hutton’s bill seeks to limit the law’s use against officers involved in fatal shootings. 

Hutton, calling the the law “archaic,” said that it’s “being often used with more frequency against police officers.” Any person or group can file a complaint with a court and request the initiation of a John Doe process, he said. If passed, Hutton’s bill would prevent the John Doe law from being used in cases where there is no new or “unused” evidence and where prosecutors already decided that a officer acted in self-defense.

Although Hutton didn’t clarify what might count as “new” or “unused” evidence, he did talk at length about his conversations with police officers. The senator described going on ride-alongs and watching officers respond to domestic violence calls, “legally going 90 miles per hour” to respond to emergencies, and how disrespected and criticized officers often felt. Hutton described having conversations with officers who said they felt more “timid” and feared being charged for something like a fatal shooting. Many officers, Hutton said, are leaving the job at a time when some agencies struggle with understaffing. 

Hutton said that two recent John Doe hearings involving police shootings have further damaged morale. A 2021 hearing reviewed the shooting of 25-year-old Jay Anderson Jr. by then-Wauwatosa Police officer Joseph Mensah. In 2016 Anderson, who was sleeping in his car in a park late at night when Mensah approached him, was the second person Mensah had fatally shot within a year. Over his five-year career at Wauwatosa PD Mensah was involved in three fatal shootings. Anderson, who Mensah said was reaching for a gun when he shot him, was the only person Mensah’s shot whose killing triggered a John Doe hearing. 

Another John Doe hearing in 2023 looked into the killing of Tony Robinson by Madison Police officer Matthew Kenny. The 19-year-old was killed in his apartment after officers responded to reports that he was acting erratically. His family was awarded a $3.3 million settlement in 2017, the largest for a police shooting in Wisconsin history at the time. 

Neither of the John Doe hearings succeeded, however. Although probable cause was found in Mensah’s case for homicide by negligent use of a dangerous weapon, special prosecutors declined to pursue charges. A judge declined to continue with Kenny’s case. Hutton referred to both hearings as a growing problem, but the Mensah and Kenny cases were the only two the senator and police lobbyists said they were aware of. Hutton pointed to Mensah, who attended the Thursday hearing to offer testimony, as the inspiration for the bill to limit John Doe proceedings. 

Other Republicans on the committee appeared supportive of changing the John Doe law. Sen. Andre Jacque (R- DePere) likened its use to “attacks on qualified immunity” for police, and Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) — committee chairman and a former police officer — as well as Sen. Jesse James (R-Altoona), another law enforcement official, and police lobbyists, stressed that officers need to be able to act without hesitation. 

Committee Democrats, however, were not sold. Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee), questioned the imbalance of power within the criminal justice system that the bill could create, and wondered whether Hutton had talked to representatives of the State Bar of Wisconsin, which is opposed to the bill. Hutton said he had not. Hutton described those bringing John Doe cases against officers as seeking to “demonize someone in law enforcement.” Whereas the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin and the Civil Rights and Liberties Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin registered against the bill, two Wisconsin police associations and the State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police registered in support. 

Under the microscope 

Mensah’s shooting of Anderson was investigated by the Milwaukee Police Department before the John Doe. Their investigation in 2016 was reviewed by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, who declined to charge Mensah. A separate civil rights review, and internal Wauwatosa PD review, were also conducted. In 2020, an independent investigator also found that Mensah had violated multiple department policies when he did a radio show interview. Hutton called the use of the John Doe law against police officers as “a gap that needs to be sown up and closed.” 

After the hearing was over, Hutton told Wisconsin Examiner that although he’s talked extensively with police officers and their families, that he has not spoken with family members of anyone killed by police, such as those in Mensah’s shootings. “I haven’t heard from any of them,” Hutton said of the Anderson family and other relatives of those killed by Mensah. “I would love to have conversations with any of them in that regard, I have not had any conversation with them at this point.” 

Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said that she was “troubled by the callousness” of the discussion of Hutton’s bill. Roys said police officers and the people they kill, as well as the family members of the deceased, are victims of a tragic situation. “You have to have accountability,” said Roys. “People need to be able to trust law enforcement.” Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) pointed out that John Doe hearings involving police officers are infrequent. 

Ryan Windorff, president of the Wisconsin Order of Police, called the allegations made during John Doe hearings “baseless.” Windorff said the hearings came into vogue after what he called an “anti-police movement” which had “infected” the country. Windorff said investigations are transparent, and that while families have rights, those rights do not “usurp” the ability of police officers to defend themselves. 

Mensah also testified at the hearing. In 2020, Mensah resigned from the Wauwatosa PD after being suspended by the Police and Fire Commission. He was later hired by the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department, where he said he underwent “a unique hiring process.” Besides a background check, the sheriff and Defensive and Arrest Tactics (DAAT) experts did their own review, which he passed. Nevertheless, Mensah said that other agencies had been unwilling to  hire him because of “publicly-made…available information.” He added that the only public information besides police reports is the news, about which he said, “they have their right, they can be biased if they want.”

Mensah described the investigations and scrutiny after his three fatal shootings as “a constant drain.” He said that a John Doe proceeding could be brought “literally for anything,” and that he lives knowing that he could be charged with a crime any day. Mensah said police “aren’t granted the same protections and the same benefit of the doubt, or anything.”

“Unfortunately now, the way the law is written, the scale is heavily not in our favor,” said Mensah. 

He also took aim at the protests that focused on him in 2020 and 2021. Mensah said he didn’t understand why protesters demonstrated at the home of the woman he has since married and his parents’ house, chanting Black Lives Matter when he is a Black officer himself. “My race was completely stripped from me. I was no longer considered Black. I was considered just an officer,” he said. 

The protests and hearings were difficult to explain to his family and kids, Mensah added. “There’s been clear civil rights violations against myself, no one cares,” said Mensah. “No one cares when it’s violations against my children. No one cares when it’s violations against my wife.” Mensah’s wife, whose maiden name is Patricia Swayka, is a former Milwaukee police officer. In 2024, she appeared on a “Brady list” of officers with problematic histories obtained by TMJ4 through records requests. 

Mensah added that “this has been just a cold, calculated process of just harassing me, harassing my family, and using this law to take advantage of it. And there needs to be some type of change before it happens to someone else.” 

Mensah talked about a protest outside his house that escalated into a confrontation, in which a protester brought a gun and fired it. Several protesters were arrested for the incident, and three were charged with either handling, firing, or transporting a shotgun. Wauwatosa PD, the FBI, and Milwaukee PD specialized units all helped investigate the incident. 

During the hearing, Mensah said that the judge in his John Doe hearing “got it wrong” and that “the system as we have it is flawed, and people are using it not to get justice, but to get revenge. And specifically revenge against me.” Mensah said that he used to be a “very proactive” officer, and that Anderson’s shooting occurred when he was more proactive on the job. 

Mensah told the Senate committee “I did not have a chance to defend myself,” during the John Doe hearings. “Anytime something was brought up, I couldn’t question it.” According to court filings from the hearing, however, Mensah pleaded the Fifth Amendment, since he was subject to criminal charges. After the Senate committee hearing when asked about this, Mensah said “I honestly don’t remember.” He told Wisconsin Examiner that “I was instructed that we weren’t allowed to say anything in that hearing.” Mensah vaguely recalled “some mention of it”, referring to his Fifth Amendment pleading. “I honestly don’t remember if I did, or if there was questions about what if it got to a certain point.” 

 

19 – Brief in Support of Motion to Quash Subpoena of Joseph Mensah

 

When asked how the Anderson shooting was misrepresented by Anderson’s family and their lawyers, Mensah recalled people saying “I shot him 13 times in the back,” which wasn’t correct. Elsewhere Mensah saw people mistaking his ethnicity. “I get it…You can only report what you know…What you’re told, what you find out. Some stuff’s true, some stuff isn’t. Some stuff’s intentional, some stuff’s not. I can’t say what isn’t intentional, and what’s not. At the same time, it’s kind of like in law enforcement, if I’m interviewing someone and they tell me something, I can only take that at face value and put it forward.”

Asked whether he felt that his career in the Waukesha Sheriff’s Department had been negatively affected, he said, “All I know is I applied for the detective position, I got it. I applied for a lieutenant position, didn’t get that.” 

“In some ways I’ve been promoted, in some ways I haven’t,” he said. 

Democratic Sens. Johnson and Drake expressed skepticism in comments after the hearing.

Johnson compared the John Doe bill to Republican efforts to impose stricter regulations  on bail and parole, arguing that judges need more authority to keep violent offenders incarcerated. Yet Hutton’s John Doe bill, she pointed out, takes away discretion and power from judges. 

“It really boils down to who we decide are victims,” said Drake.

Clarification: This article has been updated to reflect that the Civil Rights and Liberties Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin, not the State Bar as a whole, registered against the bill to end John Doe proceedings against police officers.

The state endangered regal fritillary butterfly. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

With nature comes change. It’s seen in migrating birds, heard in frog songs, smelled between wildflower petals, touched in the gentle landing of a butterfly, and tasted in the pollinator-dependent food we eat. But what happens when the flocks thin out and the marshlands fall silent? When flowers cease to bloom, and crops wait in vain for the aid of bees, butterflies, bats, or hummingbirds? What happens when the biodiversity witnessed by one generation fades into memory the next? 

These questions are crossroads at which modern societies, including the U.S., now find themselves. And for researchers like Jay Watson, a conservation biologist focusing on terrestrial insects, it’s heartbreaking. “It’s very frustrating and depressing,” said Watson, who works with the Bureau of Natural Heritage Conservation/Division of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR). “You just want to keep trying to help any way you can.” 

For years, scientists have warned of Earth’s 6th great mass extinction, with species now disappearing at an estimated rate of 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than natural according to the World Wildlife Foundation. From 1970-2020, according to the 2024 Living Planet Report, there has been a 73% decline in the population sizes of over 5,400 vertebrate (backboned) species. About 3 billion birds have been lost in the United States and Canada over a single human lifetime. 

Research in 2019 also showed that 40% of insect species worldwide were declining, and expected to disappear entirely within a century. How that shows up in Wisconsin depends on where and how you look. Many people reflect on memories of cleaning cars of insects after traveling with both nostalgia and sadness. If you’re one of those people, then you’re not alone. 

Change before our eyes 

“Since I started in 2010, [the] northern blue butterfly, that’s related to the Karner blue butterfly . . . has, as far as we know, been extirpated from the state,” said Watson. In other words, we can no longer find the butterfly species in the Badger State. The butterfly thrived on a rare plant species called the dwarf bilberry which grows in frost packets, or areas that freeze late enough to where other plants wouldn’t survive.

Butterflies are crucial for ecological balance. Many plant species depend on their pollinating prowess, including food crops. According to an article in Forbes, pollinators contribute between $235 billion and $577 billion in global food production. Butterflies and moths are also important in the food chain as prey for many species such as bats. “One in three bites of [human] food have been touched by some type of insect, typically as pollination,” said Watson.

Although just as valuable as insects, bats are often misunderstood creatures. J. Paul White, a DNR ecologist studying mammals with a specialty in bats, told Wisconsin Examiner that the flying mammals contribute “upwards of $3 billion to the U.S. agricultural industry, through pest control and in other ways.”

Wisconsin bats mostly consume insects, including those that harm crops and forests. “So they keep our forests healthy,” said White. “Bats provide many different benefits…They’re the primary nighttime flying insect predator.” Bats, especially when coming out of hibernation or when rearing young, can regularly eat their own weight in insects. With that, White explained, “they bridge a lot of gaps between you know, farmers, forestry industry and just in general, the human population and helping predate on many of the insects that can cause people either discomfort, or crop damage, or forestry damage.”

Wisconsin has eight bat species, some of which migrate and others that over-winter in caves.  A ninth – now listed as federally endangered – hasn’t been seen in the state since the 1950’s. 

It’s not unheard of, though, for nature to throw us a curveball. “For the longest time, we only had seven species,” said White. Around 2015, breeding colonies of a newcomer species – the evening bat — were discovered in southern Wisconsin. It’s not the only time that happened. In Grant County, populations of Indiana bats were found hibernating, unusually far north for the species. 

Watson pointed to a similar situation with the Southern Plains bumble bee. Another newcomer, the bee was first noticed within the last couple of years. “We’ve had a few observations last year [2023] and a few again this year,” said Watson in a 2024 interview. “So it’s like, you know, what’s going on here?” Watson speculated that it likely began moving north slightly. It’s also possible, however, that naturalists and enthusiasts just missed it. “Something’s changed,” said Watson, “because we’re having people detect it, and we didn’t have that prior.”

Both the evening bat and bumble bee discoveries underscore the importance of field work. The evening bat was found as researchers looked for two species threatened in the state, the northern long-eared bat and tri-colored bat, also known as the eastern pipistrelle. White explained that the area being searched was not a traditional survey area. Nets established near a small riverway captured bats flying on their night time hunts. “And we happened upon a juvenile evening bat,” said White, “which indicated, obviously, that there was at least some reproduction occurring within a short area and short distance.” 

Several Wisconsin bat species are vulnerable. The Northern long-eared bat is listed as federally endangered. “All four cave bats are considered state threatened in [Wisconsin],” said White. Others are being reviewed for possible new listings.

Among the greatest risks to Wisconsin bats is an invasive fungus which causes White Nose Syndrome. “There is no greater threat to bats,” White said of the fungus. It targets hibernating bats by causing them to be more active during hibernation and burn through their reserves. “Leaving a hibernation site anywhere from January, February, March, is pretty much a death sentence,” White told Wisconsin Examiner. “So we had individuals not only dying from exposure to the elements, but also predation.” Predators would circle around bat dwellings, picking them off as they left.

Pesticides, habitat degradation, and climate change could also be macro-stressors for Wisconsin’s bats. Yet, it’s not always easy to know why a species may be disappearing. Over the years, Wisconsin populations of grassland skippers, a group of numerous butterfly species, have also declined. 

“They get their name because they skip across as they fly,” Watson explained. “But quite a few of those have been disappearing or decreasing from sites in Wisconsin, and I know that’s happening on a bigger scale when you look outside of Wisconsin too.” According to the Wisconsin Natural Heritage Inventory’s working list, six species of skipper butterfly are listed as rare. Watson said that one, the Cobweb Skipper, can’t be found in Wisconsin anymore. Another, the Poweshiek skipperling, hasn’t been seen in Wisconsin since 2012. “We lost it,” Watson told Wisconsin Examiner, “we don’t know exactly why.” 

The more you know 

Determining what causes biodiversity declines can be tricky. Sometimes, a species vanishes due to natural selection and evolution. Owen Boyle, species management section manager at the DNR’s Bureau of Natural Heritage Conservation, highlighted that all living things on earth – including humans – are the results of billions of species that have come and gone with time. Boyle told Wisconsin Examiner that “extinction is a natural process…it’s the flipside of evolution.” Climate change and human behavior can produce a perfect storm.

In other cases, surveying is difficult, whether it’s tracking frog songs in springtime marshes or carefully searching for the rarely seen Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake. This small, well-camouflaged, shy species — nicknamed the swamp rattlesnake —  is listed as federally endangered. “Wisconsin has very few populations of that left in the state,” said Andrew Badje, a conservation biologist and herpetologist at the Bureau of Natural Heritage Conservation. 

Another unique and difficult-to-monitor reptile is the state endangered slender glass lizard. It’s Wisconsin’s only species of legless lizard, differentiated from snakes by visible ear openings and blinking eyes. Their ability to jettison their tails — a trait of some lizards but not snakes — gives the glass lizards their name. The slender glass lizard is found in south central Wisconsin, preferring sandy habitats. These are some of the glass lizard’s northernmost populations, Badje noted. 

There also isn’t a whole lot we know about their populations. Lots of favorable habitat for glass lizards has been destroyed by  humans. Prior to colonization, Badje explained, indigenous tribes in Wisconsin would clear environments with controlled burns. After colonization — with many tribes shuttled off to reservations and their liveways interrupted — Wisconsin’s forests were left to thicken and mature. That change was difficult for the glass lizard, which prefers open sandy areas. 

Some regions have been rendered unrecognizable. “When what we now call Wisconsin was surveyed back in 1836 by the General Land Office, in Milwaukee County as a sample, they found there were about 2,822 hectares of oak savanna,” said Chris Young, director of conservation and environmental science at UW-Milwaukee. “And in 2000 there were zero…That’s a whole… community that’s gone and so that wouldn’t just be the loss of a particular species. That would be a loss of a whole web of species.” 

Young explained the number of wetlands has been reduced from 6,392 hectares in 1836 to 1,904 in 2000. “So that’s not as significant a reduction,” said Young. “And it actually points to the fact that hey, Milwaukee County still had a bunch of wetland. Where are those wetlands? What’s still there? And to what degree might we see persisting, intact communities?” 

Wetlands are sensitive habitats offering refuge to often equally sensitive beings. The Milwaukee-area used to have healthy populations of wetland-loving frogs like spring peepers and wood frogs. “Even if those wetlands that they used to breed don’t necessarily get taken away,” said Badje, “a lot of people are building in the uplands nearby,” which are important for foraging and surviving winter. In other regions, habitat for reptiles like the land-dwelling ornate box turtle have been turned into farmland. Badje said this has caused box turtle populations to collapse and not be sustainable. Even turtles with some strong populations, like the Blanding’s turtle, are on the decline. 

The state endangered queensnake is another sensitive and difficult to survey species. It’s a non-venomous snake specializing in eating freshly molted crayfish.  It depends on clean waterways and is a “good indicator of water quality”, Badje told Wisconsin Examiner. Water quality remains a top environmental policy concern statewide for both urban and rural communities, which dot the landscape in southeastern Wisconsin where queensnakes are found. 

The quest to understand changing ecosystems holds a special place in Wisconsin’s history. Naturalists like Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), sometimes called “the father of conservation”, began the labor of counting species. “As a pioneer, one of the things that he did was start to quantify species,” said Young. With a forest service background, Leopold applied his talents at quantifying lumber and acreage to hunting and game management. 

Game species are good for conservation. Whitetail deer and walleye are great examples — “You know, the species that you can harvest,” Boyle told Wisconsin Examiner. Yet those species also provide public interest and revenue. Hunting licenses help fund wildlife management, and Wisconsinites can buy license plates emboldened with the images of wolves and eagles to help support conservation efforts. Boyle noted that at one time, both wolves and bald eagles had all but disappeared from Wisconsin. “Both have made amazing comebacks,” he said.  

Wisconsin has some of the earliest game surveys of anywhere in the U.S., Young explained. “Leopold was going across the Midwest, so he extended beyond Wisconsin,” he told Wisconsin Examiner. “But this was his home starting in 1924 and really was the focus of a lot of his work.” 

To know that biodiversity is declining, it helps to have a baseline to work with. “And I think in Wisconsin we have pretty good baselines for a lot of game species in particular, and also predator species which were extirpated, if we’re talking about wolves, even before the 1920’s really,” Young said.

Although not flawless, quantitative work provides benchmarks for comparison. “So I think what scientists and what species specialists are always doing is, they’re saying what’s the best baseline numbers that we have, and where are we at now with the methods that we’re using, and how do we make adjustments?” he said.

Piercing the veil 

Boots-on-the-ground field work is an important tool. It’s also one which the DNR and conservation organizations heavily rely on the public for. Every year Wisconsinites participate in frog and toad surveys, bat roost monitoring, the Bumble Bee Brigade and other programs to assess our ecological neighbors. Hunters, farmers, hikers, fishermen, and other enthusiasts also provide valuable data by reporting deer harvests, black bear dens, wolf tracks, and even the occasional game trail capture of mountain lions. 

Using modern genetic science — another tool in the chest — we can get even deeper perspectives. Emily Latch, a professor of biodiversity genomics at UW-Milwaukee, said that genetics can help answer questions like whether populations are isolated, if they’re migrating, how individuals are related, the prevalence of disease, and more. 

“All of those demographic trends can be, are, reflected in their genetic diversity,” Latch told Wisconsin Examiner. Genetic material comes from a variety of places such as waste, hair, skin, or carcasses. There have also been advancements in testing, such as using environmental DNA, or “eDNA” for short. By sampling things like soil or water, scientists can test for any DNA left behind. This provides incredible glimpses into what organisms may reside within an ecosystem, especially those most elusive.

“You can do a lot of things with genetics that help you understand the ecology of a system,” said Latch. The data allows researchers to peer into the secret lives of organisms, like the badger. Although it’s our state animal, we know little about the badger. “They were listed as a species with information needs,” said Latch. Without knowing more, it’s impossible to know how best to protect it. 

To shed light, UW-Milwaukee launched a badger genetic study. It aimed to learn about isolated and vulnerable populations, gather data on what habitats badgers favor and what barriers they may face. “You might imagine things like the Wisconsin River,” said Latch as she listed off examples of barriers. “You might think of things like farms.” Scientists relied on roadkill animals, public reporting, hair samples, den finds and other data points. 

While badgers are admired for their connection to Wisconsin, other animals attract controversy. Wolf management is a contentious issue, with hunting concerns remaining high among conservationists. Surveying wolves through collars, field work, and genetics have helped monitor the animals in Wisconsin. In 2021, a wolf hunt in Wisconsin was criticized after hunters exceeded the state-set quota. 

On the other end of the food chain, research also shows strain among the deer population. In 2024, the DNR completed a study of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a fatal degenerative neurological condition in deer. It collected data from 1,200 adult deer, fawns, coyotes, and bobcats, focusing on three northern Wisconsin counties where CWD originally surfaced in 2002. Dubbed “unprecedented” for its size, the study found that the chances of survival for female deer dropped from 83% to 41%, and from 69% to 17% for males, when taking CWD infection into account. The study found that Wisconsin’s deer population is expected to decline when CWD prevalence among females passes 29%. Deer hunting contributes upwards of $1 billion to Wisconsin’s economy. 

A bigger picture

Researchers, biologists, and conservationists stress that the impact of losing species is far greater than just recreation and food for humans. “I think our society is too fixated on having these things kind of like in a controlled setting, because that’s just the way humans are,” Badje told Wisconsin Examiner. He values “seeing these things out in the wild,” he said.  “And that’s honestly why I do the work that I do, because I want other people to experience those things out in nature as well.”

There are strategies people can employ to slow the decline. Not using pesticides that wipe out pollinators like bees, and changing agricultural practices could go a long way, experts say. Growing native plants, and encouraging people to keep wildflowers in their lawns — which are often ecological deserts — could also help. 

Boyle stressed the importance of robust, permanent funding for conservation and surveying. “We rely on grants and donations, mostly federal grants and donations,” he told Wisconsin Examiner. There’s also the license plate and hunting revenues, and the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin also helps. In addition, Boyle highlighted the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, a federal proposal that would invest up to $1.4 billion annually for “proactive, on-the ground, collaborative efforts to help species at risk by restoring habitat, controlling invasive species, reconnecting migration routes, addressing emerging diseases, and more,” according to the National Wildlife Federation. It failed to pass in 2023, but has been reintroduced. 

Such a move could prove revolutionary for conservation work and persevering biodiversity, advocates say. The act’s future, however, is even more murky with the election of President Donald Trump, and a Republican majority in the House and Senate. Trump has promised to roll back climate policy and has called for more domestic fossil fuel production. Although a recent attempt by the Trump administration to freeze federal grants and programs was halted by a federal judge, the fate of federal environmental workers — such as those in America’s Yellowstone National Park — remains uncertain. During Trump’s last term from 2017-2021, he removed a variety of environmental protections. One example was removing the gray wolf from the endangered species list, which then led to the controversial Wisconsin hunt. 

The faster species vanish, the more we all lose together. “That’s the other scary thing right now about the biodiversity crisis is that we’re losing species that we know nothing about,” said Boyle. “We could have lost, like, the cure for cancer in some native plant in South America, and we’ll never even know it, you know?” 

 Why should we care about losing a butterfly here, or a legless lizard there?  “It’s a very, very clear sign that there are things wrong in the environment,” said Boyle. 

Young believes that the work will take lifetimes. “It’s going to take, not just the next generation,” he told Wisconsin Examiner. “We can’t just look at the kids and say, ‘well they’re going to have to fix all this.’” Instead, every generation has had its work to do, “and for generations to come, this will be part of that work.”

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Tents in the Street Angels warming room in 2021. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

In Milwaukee, during a spate of freezing winter weather earlier this month, cold-challenged frontline organizations are providing crucial services to hundreds of residents, many of whom are unhoused. Night to night, week to week, the level of need some advocates and outreach groups have witnessed is staggering. 

Eric Collins-Dyke, deputy administrator for Milwaukee County Housing Services, said that since early December, the housing division’s outreach teams have encountered between 75 and 100 people on a regular basis. Last Monday, a day center was opened inside the Marcia P. Coggs Health and Human Services Center, which serves over 100 people daily. While Collins-Dyke said he was happy to see the center serving so many people, he also saw it as a sign of how many people are in need. The most recent data showed that the county’s warming rooms “had seen 800 unique individuals” since opening in late November, he said. 

Pastor James West, executive director of Repairers of the Breach in Milwaukee, also said that the group’s resource center sees up to 140 people each  day. “Nothing less than 100,” West told Wisconsin Examiner. Repairers of the Breach provides food, private showers, employment assistance, free health care, telephones, and other services every day except Sunday. Since late November, West’s staff have been on “double duty,” he said. Dozens of people are showing up at night, in addition to those who arrive during the day. Recently, when temperatures across the state dropped below freezing, Repairers of the Breach was open for a 44-hour stint – including on Sunday – due to the cold. Over those days, West saw many people including the elderly,  wielding canes or walkers, and struggling with mental illness come in. 

While Milwaukee’s unhoused population is made up of a diverse group of people from many backgrounds, a growing number are elderly. “I think of the 800 unique individuals, 248 were over 60 [years old] off the top of my head,” said Collins-Dyke. “That’s an increase that we’ve seen. So unfortunately we’re seeing individuals who are older experiencing unsheltered homelessness.” It’s something that the county is “trying to wrap our arms around,” Collins-Dyke explained, with plans for a new grant focusing on elderly unhoused people in the works. 

From Nov. 27 to Dec. 13, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office documented five deaths due to hypothermia. All of the individuals – four male and one female – ranged from 56 to 82 years old. Three of them were logged as “homeless” and were found in the cities of Milwaukee and Oak Creek. 

According to Medical Examiner records the oldest victim, 82-year-old Michael Kies, was found dead in November after Meals on Wheels, which provides meals to 2.2 million seniors nationwide, and Kies’ loved ones asked police to conduct a welfare check. Kies was found in his bedroom. 

In early December, the Oak Creek Fire Department reported the death of Jehovah Holy Spirit Jesus, 60, who was found seated in a chair behind trash dumpsters outside the business Eder Flag. Jesus “appeared dressed for the weather and was not visible from the roadway,” medical examiner records state. Surveillance footage reportedly captured Jesus walking in a nearby field on Nov. 28. By the time staff returned to work on Dec. 2, Jesus – believed to be unhoused and struggling with mental illness – was found cold and unresponsive behind the business. 

Three more elderly residents died from Dec. 11-13, including two unhoused Milwaukeeans who died on the same day. One of them, 64-year-old Carolyn Lovett, was taken to the Aurora Sinai Medical Center by firefighters for hypothermic cardiac arrest. She’d been found unresponsive in a roadway, medical examiner records state. Although friends of Lovett arrived at the hospital later, including a cousin who said that they lived together, records list her as homeless. 

That same day, firefighters also found 60-year-old Richard Montgomery in a vacant, fire-damaged house on Milwaukee’s North Side. Montgomery’s family had contacted city departments for a welfare check on Montgomery. One of his neighbors – who believed Montgomery struggled with schizophrenia – had also requested a welfare check. The house was owned by Montgomery’s parents, who’d been deceased for many years, reports state. Although multiple fires had left the home uninhabitable, Montgomery continued living there, according to records. 

In the third and fourth weeks of January, arctic cold whipped Wisconsin with 30-35 below zero wind chills. Residents in southern Wisconsin were warned that just 15 minutes of bare skin exposure to the cold could cause frostbite. By the end of January, three more people (ranging from 40-69 years old) had possibly succumbed to the cold. WISN reported that on Jan. 12, a 64-year-old man was found under a bridge. The next day, a 69-year-old man was found in a vehicle that was being used as shelter. Two days later on Jan. 15, a 40-year-old man was found on a heating mechanism near railroad tracks.

The recent deaths spanned from the south of Milwaukee to the north. Although Repairers of the Breach is based in Milwaukee’s King Park neighborhood, the group sees people from as far away as Waukesha and Germantown. 

King Park has become a focal point for housing issues in Milwaukee over the years. In 2021, people expressed concerns about a growing tent community made up of dozens of people in the park. Although county officials have worked to find housing and services for those living in King Park, the area has never been entirely free of unhoused people looking for space and privacy. 

Last summer, King Park’s unhoused population again began to rise as the Republican National Convention approached. During the convention, out-of-state police officers from Columbus Ohio killed Sam Sharpe, a man who’d been living in the park. Sharpe was known to housing outreach groups like Street Angels, who said after his death that they serve up to 300 unhoused residents a night. Whereas some find quiet spots off to themselves, others group together in encampments, or stick together in nomadic caravans of half-working vehicles. 

While county and advocate groups work to get unhoused people supplies and shelter, many living on the street also display a unique kind of resilience. Collins-Dyke told Wisconsin Examiner that “seeing sort of the resilience and the ingenuity of a lot of the people that we serve on the street is pretty incredible, to be able to survive.” 

Nevertheless, county teams always encourage even the hardest of folks to come with them and come to a warming site. Collins-Dyke also noted that the county is working with landlords to get people housed more quickly. The county’s housing navigation and outreach teams, Collins-Dyke explained, are currently working to assess people visiting warming sites to get them into housing. 

In December 2024, Milwaukee County received federal funding for housing support and other services for elderly residents, and those transitioning out of the Community Reintegration Center (formerly known as the House of Corrections). “Housing is a matter of public health, and housing security is a critical social determinant of health,” County Executive Crowley said at a press conference announcing the funds.  

“Our shared vision for Milwaukee County includes expanding equitable access to safe, quality and affordable housing and supportive services for those in need,” Crowley added. “By supporting our aging population and investing in reentry housing services for those seeking a second chance, we are working to improve outcomes for some of our most vulnerable residents and build a stronger Milwaukee County for all.”

“Housing is a key social determinant of health. We want to ensure that older adults and people reentering their communities from the CRC have access to safe and affordable housing,” said Shakita LaGrant-McClain, Executive Director of the Department of Health and Human Services. “Through these efforts, we are working to empower vulnerable residents to lead full lives.”

Orders by the Trump administration, however, have thrown the grant and other funds into uncertain territory. A two page memo from the Office of Management and Budget announced the sudden freeze of federal program funds to state and local governments. Wisconsin joined other states and the District of Columbia in filing a lawsuit to stop funding from being cut off to local and state governments, and af ederal judge ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration must wait at least a week before pausing funds. On Wednesday, the administration rescinded the memo.  

Before the memo was rescinded a Milwaukee County spokesperson said in an email statement to Wisconsin Examiner that County Executive David Crowley “remains concerned” about the memo “and the potential impacts to not only County projects and services, but the overall health and safety of Milwaukee County residents, families, and children who rely on federally-funded programs and services.”

Numerous Milwaukee County departments rely on federal funding including human services and transportation services. “We will continue engaging with local, state, and federal leaders on this evolving matter,” said the spokesperson. 

Pastor West also stressed collaboration between the county government and community groups. Beyond receiving government funds, West wonders “why not outsource it to us…Let us service the people in the way that we know how to service that’s been successful.” That would allow different community organizations working on the frontlines of the housing issue to learn from each other, he said. “I will say in the last five years, there’s been more of that,” said West of  support from the city and county. “And it’s working.” 

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Kent Lovern being sworn in as Milwaukee County's 32nd District Attorney (Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

At Milwaukee’s War Memorial Center along Lake Michigan, dozens gathered in a spacious room Thursday evening to welcome  Kent Lovern, who succeeded John Chisholm as Milwaukee County’s 32nd district attorney. Throughout the evening, speakers praised Lovern as compassionate to people, wherever they find themselves in the criminal justice system. 

Jeff Altenburg, chief deputy at the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office, called the evening the biggest day for the DA’s office in 18 years. Lovern has been at the office since 2005, rising in  the ranks from assistant district attorney to chief deputy and  now to district attorney, after serving under both of the county’s former top prosecutors. E. Michael McCann, who was district attorney from 1969 to 2007, and John Chisholm, who was elected in 2007 and now passes the reins to Lovern, were both in the crowd. 

“When you stepped into this office, you inherited a profound responsibility to uphold the rule of law, while ensuring that justice is fair, equitable and accessible to everyone,” said Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball. “As you know, this is a task that no single person should shoulder alone.” Ball said that working together with law enforcement, public defenders, advocates, community leaders and other citizens is important. “Together, we are not just enforcers of the law, we are builders of trust and guardians of our community’s wellbeing,” said Ball. “By working together, we can achieve more than any one of us can accomplish alone.” 

Carmen Pitre, president and CEO of the Sojourner Family Peace Center, called Lovern a fierce advocate for providing high-quality victim services to people across the county. The Peace Center offers  services and interventions for domestic violence victims, serving nearly 10,000 people a year according to the group’s website. Lovern’s family have remained involved in the peace center, where Lovern himself has also held leadership roles. “Even on our best day, Kent believed that we could do better,” said Pitre, recalling that Lovern would sometimes say, “we have big city problems, but we’re small enough to get our arms around it through relationships.”

Darryl Morin, president and board chairman of Forward Latino. said his group often engages with residents who have been victimized by acts of hate, whether verbally or physically. “These victims are often just terrified and extremely reluctant to report the acts that have been done upon them, for fear that those who perpetrated this crime would come back and in their own words, ‘to finish what they started.’” Morin said that in other cases, there is a lack of confidence that if they did report these incidents, nothing would be done. “I’m so proud to say that that is not the case here in Milwaukee County,” said Morin, saying that Lovern meets with these families with “empathy” and “compassion.” 

Joel Brennan, president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, said too many people confuse vengeance and retribution with justice. Brennan said Lovern “understands that the road to justice is complex, it is winding” and that “the lasting justice that we seek includes penalty and sanction, but also incorporates education, economic opportunity, access to mental health, rehabilitation and renewal, and standing up for the most vulnerable in our community.”

Adam Procell, re-entry specialist co-founder of the Milwaukee-based consulting service Paradigm Shyft, has lived those words. When he was 15 years old, Procell said that he faced a 25-year prison sentence. “I didn’t believe in myself,” said Procell. He recalled when he was paroled in 2008 he ran into Chisholm who, like Procell, was wearing a blue suit that day. They had a conversation, and through Chisholm Procell was introduced to Lovern, with whom he  built a friendship. “Nobody is beyond redemption,” said Procell, “you don’t have to be defined by your mistakes.” 

Chief Judge in Milwaukee County Carl Ashley, conducted Lovern’s swearing-in.  When he took the stage, Lovern said, pointing to Lake Michigan outside, “We live in a community of abundance.” Lovern said that Milwaukee County faces a complex web of challenges, which can only be tackled if “we become a safer, healthier, and more prosperous community.” He added that “everyone in every neighborhood in our county deserves to feel safe in their daily lives. We all need to feel a sense of security so our children can enjoy our parks and playgrounds, our children can focus better in school, and our parents can build a future for their families.” 

The community must have a strong sense of accountability to one another, including within the criminal justice system, he added. “It must be clearly understood that a threat to safety within our community will be met with the measured response,” said Lovern. “In doing so, our justice system must itself demonstrate accountability to this community by acting fairly and consistently, with measured firmness in our response. Our system must always seek to uphold the rule of law, in order to protect our commonly shared values.” 

While Lovern referenced the importance of “safety and security” throughout his remarks, he also stressed the need for economic, educational, and rehabilitative opportunities for Milwaukee’s most underserved. Milwaukee County is among the most segregated communities in the nation, where life expectancy can vary depending on what zip code you’re born into. “Many who encounter our justice system have experienced trauma in their lives, and for trauma that trauma has existed for generations within families and neighborhoods,” said Lovern. The work of peer supporters, therapists, and advocates, “literally saves lives as they help members of our community face and treat their traumatic conditions.” 

Lovern called for more resources and support for Milwaukee’s non-profit sector, which is often on the frontlines, providing mental health and substance abuse treatment. The new district attorney also called for investment in Milwaukee, to push back the county’s “unacceptable” levels of poverty. “Violent crime does not thrive in neighborhoods with high rates of housing stability, and family-sustaining jobs.” Lovern stressed that Milwaukee is an “innovative community”, and that everyone has a role to play. “My commitment to all of you is to work tirelessly to make our community safer,” said Lovern. “I will respond to the actions strongly that threaten our collective safety. I will respond with appropriate compassion to those who need help. I will work with anyone – anyone – who genuinely wants to strengthen our county so that we can create the community that we aspire to be.”

Correction: This article has been edited to correct the name of E. Michael McCann, who served as Milwaukee County District Attorney from 1969 to 2007. 

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Over 4,000 people gather for the Voces de la Frontera march for immigrant rights on May Day, 2022. This was part of a two day action. (Photo | Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Some Milwaukee residents are alarmed over a plan to move an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into their neighborhood on the Northwest Side. Local officials said an ICE and Homeland Security building in downtown Milwaukee, which currently processes detainees, may move to 11925 W. Lake Park Drive, nestled in a neighborhood near freeway exits, a church, a grocery store and a hotel. 

Ald. Larresa Taylor, who represents the 9th District, spoke at a press conference Wednesday afternoon saying she wanted to properly inform residents of the federal government’s intentions. “We never want anyone to be caught off guard,” said Taylor. She received an email from the Department of City Development on Dec. 9, she said, informing her of an application for “proposed minor modifications” to a building in the Park Place business park. 

The building is privately owned by Milwaukee Governmental LLC, which Taylor said requested the modifications to the building. The LLC is an affiliate of the Illinois-based WD Schorsch LLC, according to city assessment records, an entity that owns properties leased to federal government agencies, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Taylor said that although the 9th District — covering the uppermost northwest end of Milwaukee — is a growing district, this “doesn’t mean that we’re going to accept any and everything.” 

“And it certainly doesn’t mean that we’re going to allow someone to come into our district without warning, or without knowledge,” she added.

Taylor said that the proposed facility would operate “exactly as they do downtown.” Although it is called the “Chicago Field Office,” the existing ICE facility in downtown Milwaukee is the one slated to move into the District 9 neighborhood. The facility is involved in processing ICE detainees, as well as immigrants who must come there for regular check-ins. Detainees who are being held for deportation are transferred to the Dodge County Jail in Juneau, where there is an ICE detention facility.

Local residents are worried that by using a federal exemption, the ICE office plans to bypass Milwaukee’s zoning laws which would require public notice and input. During the press conference, several local officials and community leaders spoke in opposition to ICE’s plans. Others released statements to that effect. 

“Milwaukee is the site for statewide processing of any person put in detention in Wisconsin,” Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of the immigrant-rights group Voces de la Frontera, wrote in a statement. “This move by ICE is an effort by the incoming Trump administration to implement their policies of mass criminalization and mass deportation of immigrant workers and their families.” 

Neumann-Ortiz said her organization had a message for ICE and the incoming Trump administration: “Our communities will not be intimidated. We are committed to working with others to see that this facility is shut down. We reject your divisive tactics to pit working-class people against each other. We will defend our dignity and rights and the dignity and rights of others whom you attack.”

According to an ICE spokesperson, there are no ICE detention facilities listed or planned for the location in question. Information on locations of ICE detention facilities can be found at https://www.ice.gov/detention-facilities.

Ald. José Perez, president of Milwaukee’s Common Council, said that he is “firmly opposed” to any expansion of ICE facilities in Milwaukee. Perez, who like many other Milwaukeeans is the child of immigrants, spoke to the anxiety felt by people across Milwaukee due to President-elect Donald Trump’s promises of mass deportations that could separate families. 

“People are scared, kids are scared, this is the time to push back hard,” Perez said. He called on the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) to follow its own standard operating procedures, which states that MPD officers “shall not detain or arrest an individual solely for a suspected violation of immigration law.” SOP-130, which governs immigration-related activities for MPD, states that “proactive immigration enforcement by local police can be detrimental to our mission and policing philosophy when doing so deters some individuals from participating in their civic obligation to assist the police.” 

The SOP instructs officers to follow its guidelines “regardless of one’s personal opinion or political ideology on the issue of immigration.” However, the SOP does not prevent MPD from cooperating with ICE when a judicial warrant has been issued for individuals suspected of terrorism or espionage, those suspected of being involved in street gangs, violent felonies, sexual offenses involving minors, or people previously deported for felonies.

In 2019, MPD was embroiled in controversy after its officers were filmed arresting José de la Cruz-Espinosa outside of his home. MPD said that the Mexican-born de la Cruz-Espinosa was wanted for a probation violation, and was detained at the Dodge County ICE detention center. After weeks of media attention and pressure from local activists, de la Cruz-Espinosa was released and returned to his family. The arrest and organizing led to the Fire and Police Commission adopting new changes to SOP-130 regarding MPD cooperation with ICE. 

Perez stressed that “we are not simply going to roll over and have residents be punished, families be separated, and children left to fend for themselves.” The common council president said that there’s a process for everything, and that “federal facilities simply popping up with no notice isn’t fair to the residents of Milwaukee.”

A coalition of Milwaukee County supervisors Juan Miguel Martine, Caroline Gomez-Tom, Justin Bielinski, Jack Eckblad, Anne O’ Connor, Shawn Rolland, Sky Capriolo, Sequanna Taylor, Willie Johnson Jr., and Priscilla Coggs-Jones, and Chairwoman Marcelia Nicholson also issued a joint statement. “This is not just a building,” they wrote, “It represents a system that thrives on fear and perpetuates the suffering of families who are the backbone of our community.” Undocumented immigrants contribute $198 million annually in state and local taxes to Wisconsin, the coalition noted, saying “our city thrives because of their presence and contributions — not in spite of them.” 

Other elected officials joined the press conference, including State Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee), State Reps. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee) and Russel Goodwin Sr. (D-Milwaukee), as well as Milwaukee Alderwoman JoCasta Zamarripa. Anita Johnson of the African American Round Table in Milwaukee, whose church is “just up the street” from the proposed site for the ICE office, said, “We don’t want ICE in this state, period.” 

“Find another place to put this building or another state, we have enough problems — local problems — of our own, we don’t need yours,” said Johnson. 

Goodwin said communities in Milwaukee need “thoughtful, inclusive development” that brings “opportunity and growth.” Rather than bringing jobs, housing or investment, projects like the proposed ICE office “risk creating tension and instability where we need unity and progress,” Goodwin said.  “The people who live here deserve a voice in what is built in their neighborhood,” he added, and “our community deserves development that uplifts and empowers us.”

Representatives from two of Milwaukee’s Business Improvement Districts (BID) also objected to  the ICE facility. Mary Hoehne, executive director of the Granville BID, said the business park building should be used to generate jobs, not for immigration enforcement. “We can’t allow that in our neighborhood,” Hoehne said of the ICE facility. Stephanie Harling, executive director of the Havenwoods BID, said that local communities have been forced to address complex social issues on their own. With an ICE facility, “we’re not solving any problems here, we are displacing the problem,” she said. “This pattern has to stop, and this is the final blow.”

This story has been updated with a comment from an ICE spokesperson.

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A coalition of faith-based organizations, social justice groups and citizens has launched a campaign to eliminate costs for calls to people incarcerated in Wisconsin prisons and jails. (Photo by Caspar Benson/Getty Images)

For Royalty Grace, contacting her 20-year-old incarcerated son is both precious and costly. Grace told a room full of people in Milwaukee, “Every phone call, every message, every video call, every fleeting moment of connection comes with a price, literally and emotionally.” On Wednesday morning Grace was joined by others who knew her pain. The group gathered for the launch of the new statewide Connecting Families Campaign by WISDOM, a coalition of faith-based organizations, social justice groups and citizens, to eliminate costs for calls to people incarcerated in Wisconsin prisons and jails. 

“When a loved one is incarcerated, families like mine are not just dealing with the emotional toll of separation,” said Grace. “We’re navigating a financial system that profits off of our desire to stay connected to our loved ones.” Providing calls for people incarcerated in prisons is a $1.4 billion industry nationally. In Wisconsin, families contend with a patchwork of vendors and services, depending on where their loved one is housed. The Department of Corrections (DOC) contracts with the company ICSolutions to provide state prisons with phone calls and video visits. Jails and other county-ran facilities use a variety of  different vendors and practices. 

Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) began to learn about the issue shortly after getting elected to the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. Clancy, speaking during the WISDOM campaign launch on Wednesday, recalled touring what was then called the House of Corrections (now the Community Reintegration Center) asking people housed there what they would change about the facility. “So many people at that institution said ‘make phone calls free,’” said Clancy. “I spoke to one gentleman who…who had to pretend to his wife and children that he didn’t want to talk to them because he knew that every phone call they made to talk to him took food off their table and medicine out of the mouths of his kids. That is a horrific, terrible choice that we as a county, and as a state, and as a society are asking families to make. And it has to end.” 

In the 2024 Milwaukee County adopted budget, funding increases were made to provide free phone and video calls for people housed at the Community Reintegration Center and the Milwaukee County Jail.

Joined by Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee), Clancy advocated for state legislation to create uniform phone service policies across Wisconsin. By adopting the same plan, Clancy feels that municipalities could “leverage that purchasing power” to make communication more affordable and more consistent for incarcerated people and their families. States including Massachusetts, Minnesota and Colorado have moved towards making prison or jail calls free. WISDOM’s Connecting Families Campaign will also raise awareness of the quality of phone service for incarcerated people. Some families have reported unreliable service on phone calls and video visits, further compounding their frustrations. 

Not being able to reach friends or family can have a severe negative effect on incarcerated people. Rep. Madison shared his own story of visiting a high school friend imprisoned in Green Bay. Life hadn’t been easy for the friend, who’d been transferred to Green Bay Correctional from a youth facility. “I remember going to visit him, and seeing scars on his arm,” said Madison. “And I asked him what those scars were from, and he told me every time they sent him to the hole he felt so isolated, that he resorted to cutting himself to be sent to Mendota [mental health facility] so that he could get the chance to get a free phone call, so that he could all us, his friends — his family — because he spent most of his childhood in our foster care system.”

Being able to reach people who care about you is a lifeline when you’re incarcerated. Additionally, the more access to the outside incarcerated people have, the better their chances of successfully reintegrating into society upon their release. Jamone Hegwood, who spent 13 and a half years of his life in prison, has seen what happens when people lose contact with the outside. “I have come across hundreds and hundreds of guys that are institutionalized,” said Hegwood during the Wednesday campaign launch, referring to people who’d become more used to prison than being free. “Normally the institutionalized guys are the guys that does not have communication with their family. So the only thing that they know is prison.”

After living in a world limited to wardens, walls and gates, “when they come into the community, they are pretty much just like being dropped on an island,” said Hegwood. People who  maintaining contact with loved ones, can better separate themselves from prison and its internal politics. Sa ‘Aire Salton, a licensed mental health provider, said many incarcerated people are traumatized by their incarceration and locked in a cycle that often returns them to prison or jail. That cycle can only be broken with communication and love.

Frank Penigar Jr. told the group gathered for the WISDOM launch  that he was incarcerated for 26 years, during which time he met his biological mother. Penigar said that during the time he got to know her, while he was incarcerated, “we had 18 years where she was able to nurture me that she wasn’t able to do from her womb. And so, that’s how we learned about one another.” Gradually, Penigar found out about the family he’d never known, waiting for him when he got out. Penigar said that communication with loved ones is very important when you’re incarcerated. “And if it can be free, like we going to be pushing for it…it’s a real thing.”

“It’s real,” he added. “I went through it.” 

This story has been updated with new information regarding Milwaukee County budget funding to provide free phone and video calls at the Milwaukee County Jail and Community Reintegration Center. 

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Wisconsin State Capitol on a snowy day. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

Depending on your perspective, some of the most anticipated or dreaded parts of Wisconsin’s climate are winter snows and cold. This year, a blanket of snow around the holidays had all but melted away by the new year. In the future, holiday seasons accompanied by white, glittering snowfall will be less and less common. 

That’s according to a report by Climate Central, a recipient of funding by the Bezos Earth Fund and the Schmidt Family Foundation which describes itself as a policy-neutral, independent group of scientists and communicators.  The report found that over the last decade Wisconsin has seen more winter days above freezing. Those warmer temperatures have ripple effects on snowfall, winter recreation and ecosystems. Climate Central researched the effects of climate change in Wisconsin using meteorological data from 2014-2023, with a focus on the winter months from December to February. The analysis found that during those months over the last decade, nearly 40% of Wisconsin’s 72 counties added a week’s worth of above-freezing winter days. 

Wisconsin was one of 50 states and 123 countries and territories included in the report. Data for  901 cities covered observed average temperatures from 2014-2023, as well as estimates of what temperatures would have  been without human-induced climate change due to fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions. The report found “locations across the globe where cold winter days are disappearing in a warming world, compared to a world without climate change.” 

For individual Wisconsin counties, that meant significant increases in the average number of days above freezing. The report found that Milwaukee County, for example, added an average of 13 days above freezing, the most of any county. Ozaukee and Kenosha counties added 12 days, while Door, Racine, and Manitowoc added 11 days. The counties of Kewaunee, Waukesha, Sheboygan, and Washington all added an average of 10 more winter days above freezing over the last decade. 

The numbers across other Wisconsin counties showed a similarly dramatic shift.  In Wood County between 2014-23, according to the report, there was an average of 10 days above freezing during the winter months, with five days added by climate change. In Marinette County, there was an average of 10 days above freezing, with five attributed to climate change. In Brown County, there were 12 days above freezing, with six of them added by climate change, according to the report. 

But in a state known for its harsh winter weather, is milder weather really all that bad? “I like to call these strangely warm winter days delight-mares,” Kristina Dahl, vice president of science at Climate Central, told  Wisconsin Examiner in an email. “Having a relatively warm winter day can be a delightful break from the coldest, darkest season of the year. But if you take a half step back and think about why that day is so warm – or what it might mean for your local economy or ecosystems – you’re confronted with the reality that human-caused climate change is altering so many aspects of our daily lives.”

Addressing the effects of climate change has been a growing concern statewide. Some regions experience greater shoreline erosion, crops grown by agricultural communities struggle because of  volatile winters, unpredictable springs and dry summers. 

Noticeable swings in weather patterns have increasingly made headlines in Wisconsin. In 2021, there was  severe summer flooding in parts of Milwaukee, and strong winds downed hundreds of trees. In mid-December of the same year, temperatures in Milwaukee and Madison reached the low 60s. States across the Midwest experienced a rash of tornadoes which killed dozens of people. In January 2022, the previous year’s record-setting warm weather was replaced by arctic cold. During that summer, lives were lost in Milwaukee due to extreme heat and flooding. Extreme heat was a concern again in 2023, when a wildfire in Waushara County burned over 800 acres.  

The warmer winter weather has also started to change traditional recreation in Wisconsin. Last winter, some snowboarding and skiing spots closed due to lack of snow. The same thing happened during the winter of 2022. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has long highlighted the effects of climate change on activities like ice fishing, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, boating, hunting and other outdoor activities which Wisconsin is known for. Fishing alone represents a $2 billion industry in Wisconsin.

“Warming winter days, like those we document in this report, have repercussions throughout our society,” said Dahl. “When days are above freezing, any precipitation will come in the form of rain rather than snow, and snow on the ground begins to melt. That means that winter sports and recreation – an important facet of staying active in the winter months and an important source of revenue for our economy – are threatened. It also means that traditions and cultures can be impacted, for example, through the loss of access to traditional Indigenous hunting grounds. And because many crops, including apples, require a certain amount of chilling time in the winter in order to produce fruit come spring or summer, warming winter days can translate to reduced crop productivity.” 

As cold and inconvenient as snow can be, its disappearance changes many things which have come to define Wisconsin. 

This report has been updated with a link to the Climate Central webpage for its report.

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A marker for a segment of Enbridge Line 6 in northern Wisconsin. A leak in the line in Jefferson County is now under investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. (Photo | Frank Zufall)

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is investigating a major leak from a pipeline managed by the Canadian oil giant Enbridge. Last weekend environmental groups sounded the alarm after learning that Enbridge’s Line 6 pipeline had spilled the equivalent of 1,650 barrels — more than  69,000 gallons — of crude oil  in the town of Oakland in Jefferson County. 

The DNR issued a statement saying that a report of a two-gallon spill was sent to the state agency on Nov. 11. Notifications were sent by Enbridge to the DNR, the National Response Center (NRC), and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). The DNR then visited the site on Nov. 11 and 12, with additional follow-up on Dec. 6, according to the agency. On Nov. 14, the spill quantity was updated to 126 gallons (or 2-3 barrels). On Dec. 13, Enbridge again revised the spill estimation to 1,650 barrels (or 69,300 gallons) of crude oil. 

“Under Wisconsin law, entities that cause environmental contamination are responsible for reporting and remediating the contamination,” the DNR states. “Enbridge is providing weekly updates to the DNR regarding the investigation and cleanup process. As investigation and cleanup is an iterative process, the DNR continues to evaluate appropriate next steps, including any potential enforcement actions such as a corrective action order.”

Using the GPS coordinates from the accident report and Google Maps, Wisconsin Examiner found that the spill occurred near a roadway running through a grassy, wooded area. The spill occurred near a waterway that flows into Lake Ripley, close to  a grouping of nature preserves and campgrounds. The accident report noted that the pipeline’s leak detection systems did not notify anyone of the leak. 

The Line 6 leak occurred during the same week that environmental and tribal groups filed new legal challenges against Enbridge’s proposed Line 5 pipeline reroute. Opponents of Line 5 are concerned  that the pipeline, which currently runs through the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s reservation, will still present environmental hazards even if it is  rerouted around tribal lands. The Bad River Band argues that the pipeline poses a risk to the health of the Bad River, which the tribe relies on for food, medicine, and important cultural practices. Environmental groups echo those concerns, and feel state and federal agencies have failed to adequately evaluate the environmental risks posed by  Enbridge Line 5. 

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A sign protesting Enbridge Line 5 in Michigan. (Laina G. Stebbins | Michigan Advance)

“The land does not belong to us, it is borrowed by us from our children’s children” said Robert Blanchard, chairman of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. “We harvest our wild rice from the waters, we hunt from the land, fish from the lake, streams, and rivers to feed our families and gather the medicines to heal our relatives.” 

The Bad River Band cites this relationship with the land in its fight against the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline, which has operated in trespass on the Bad River Band’s reservation for years. Now, the Band and its allies are challenging the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) decision to grant permits that the Canadian oil company Enbridge will need to construct a re-route of the pipeline. The new route no longer trespasses on the reservation, it will still run through the Bad River watershed. The tribe and a coalition of state environmental groups say a spill in that area could be devastating.

Last Thursday, Midwest Environmental Advocates, 350 Wisconsin, the Sierra Club of Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin filed a petition for a contested case hearing with the DNR, challenging DNR permitting for Line 5. Shortly after filing the challenge, Midwest Environmental Advocates received a report of a 69,000-gallon oil spill in Jefferson County.

According to an accident report shared with Wisconsin Examiner, the spill originated from Enbridge’s Line 6 pipeline. Some 1,650 barrels of crude oil are estimated to have leaked from the pipeline, with 42 gallons to a barrel. When plugged into Google Maps, GPS data in the accident report point to a roadway running through a grassy, wooded area. The map shows that the spill occurred near a waterway that flows into Lake Ripley, not far from a group of nature preserves and campgrounds. Although the pipeline segment had a leak detection system, the accident report states that this didn’t alert anyone to the leak, which was first noticed on Nov. 11 by an Enbridge technician.

Line 6 is one of four pipeliness that run from Superior, Wisconsin, to Illinois. It carries crude oil from Superior to Lockport, Illinois.

Tony Wilkin Gibart, executive director of Midwest Environmental Advocates, said in a statement that the Line 6 spill highlights the dangers of Line 5. “Consider that in the very same week that DNR issued permits for Line 5 based on its conclusion that the risk for a spill would be ‘low,’ DNR was investigating a significant oil leak on another Enbridge pipeline in Wisconsin,” said Gibart. “DNR’s reasoning for approving Line 5 defies common sense.”

In November, the DNR decided to issue wetland and waterway permits to Enbridge as a step towards moving the pipeline off the Bad River reservation. The DNR highlighted that the wetland permits would include over 200 conditions which Enbridge would need to honor, and which would keep the company in compliance with Wisconsin’s wetland and waterway standards. Both the DNR and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would need to approve the permits before construction of the reroute could begin. 

“Many of our people will feel the effects if we lose these resources,” said Blanchard. “In my view, the DNR failed our children when it gave Enbridge the permits to build this reroute. They failed to consider the company’s multiple disasters in Minnesota and in Michigan, which are still being cleaned up. They failed to consider our tribe, our water quality, and the natural resources of the entire Bad River watershed. As a tribal chairman and an elder, it’s my responsibility to protect the generations still to come. That’s why we are fighting this reroute in court.”

The Band is represented by EarthJustice in a lawsuit filed against the DNR which, like the petition filed last week by the environmental groups, accuses the state agency of producing an inadequate final Environmental Impact Statement on the reroute which violates the Wisconsin Environmental Protection Act. 

Blanchard highlighted his tribe’s reliance on wild rice fields growing along the Bad River and Lake Superior, as well as natural medicines, wild game, and the land itself which are crucial to the Bad River Band’s cultural practices and way of life. Every year the tribe holds an annual wild rice harvest, and Bad River Band members hunt and gather from the land all year. 

“If something was to happen during that time, or when that pipeline is in place, you know, it’s really going to affect a lot of things that we do here, and the way that we do things here on the reservation as far as our way of life,” Blanchard warned. 

Currently the Line 5 pipeline crosses the Bad River inside the boundaries of the reservation. If the reroute goes through,  Enbridge would construct 41 miles of new pipeline to cross the river outside of reservation land. The reroute would still place the natural resources the tribe relies on in danger if an oil spill or leak were to occur. 

Stefanie Tsosie, senior staff attorney at Earthjustice, also warned that constructing new pipeline damages natural formations and resources which are often irreplaceable. “Once construction starts they can’t undo the damage,” Tsosie said in a statement. “Enbridge has a terrible track record for pipeline construction and operation. And this place — this watershed and this territory — is not another place they can just plow through.” 

Opponents to the pipeline point to a history of ecological disasters due to spillage from Enbridge pipelines. In 2010, millions of gallons of crude oil contaminated the Kalamazoo River, creating a crisis which took years to address. Over the past 50 years, Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline has spilled over 1 million gallons in dozens of different incidents. 

Today, an area known as the “meander” is also creating concern for the Bad River Band. “The river is changing course, and it does that throughout the way it runs,” said Blanchard. At the meander where the pipeline crosses,  he added, “If we have high water events, flooding, harsh winter with a lot of ice build up, and all that breaks loose in the spring, then we get this high water that very well could take that pipeline out, and cause a spill.”

The tribe is monitoring the situation regularly, but this does little to ease their anxieties. The meander is “quite difficult to get to,” said Blanchard, and it’s also just one area of concern along the pipeline’s route. “A few years back, we had an exposed pipeline coming down one of the sidehills up there,” said Blanchard. “There was quite a ways where the pipeline was exposed and just kind of hanging in mid-air, which could have been disastrous if it wasn’t found and something done about it.”

If Line 5 were rerouted, it would still go through other wetlands and habitats outside the reservation. “These are some of the most treasured areas in Wisconsin,” said Brett Korte, an attorney with Clean Wisconsin. “When we think of the beauty of our state, our precious freshwater resources, the places we must protect, these areas are at the top of the list.” 

In a statement, Korte added, “This push from Canadian oil giant Enbridge is getting national attention because what it’s proposing to do here in Wisconsin is dangerous.”

This report was updated with additional information about Line 6.

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Kerrie Hirte, the mother of Cilivea Thyrion, looks over autopsy reports sent by the medical examiner. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

On a recent chilly November evening, Kerrie Hirte confronted a piece of mail she’d both anticipated and dreaded. Sitting at her kitchen table, beneath a picture of her late daughter Cilivea Thyrion, 20, Hirte examined the contents of an orange envelope from the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office. Inside were unredacted autopsy reports, with details that raised new questions about her daughter’s death in the Milwaukee County Jail nearly two years ago. 

Hirte invited the Wisconsin Examiner to her Green Bay home to accompany her when she first viewed the unredacted autopsy reports. They show that correctional officers were aware that Thyrion, who died after eating pieces of an adult diaper while on suicide watch, had a previous history of eating the very item she was given the day she died. In autopsy protocol records, the medical examiner also noted evidence of blunt force injuries to Thyrion, including injuries to her head, lower extremities, liver, and ribs. 

The reports described the scene of Thyrion’s death on Dec. 16, 2022. By then, Thyrion had been in the jail just two days short of 10 months. Thyrion was arrested by the Wauwatosa Police Department in February, after getting in a fight at her residence and charged with felony suffocation/strangulation and misdemeanor battery. Thyrion died before she was sentenced for the charges. 

According to the records later mailed to Hirte, medical examiner investigators found Thyrion “lying on a bare metal slate” with her arm “resting on a green mattress pad on the floor.” The green mattress was one of the only items in the cell besides a toilet, sink, a paperback book and intercom. Thyrion had been housed in the jail’s Special Needs Unit, where she’d been on suicide watch since Dec. 11. “It is unknown at this time what [led] to her needing this type of cell and supervision,” the medical examiner’s investigation report states.

On the morning of Dec. 16, Thyrion pushed the assistance button inside her cell to call guards for help. When correctional officers arrived, they saw Thyrion gesturing towards her neck. After gathering other correctional staff, they called 911 as it was apparent that the 20-year-old was suffocating. The medical examiner’s report states that correctional officers performed a Heimlich maneuver to help Thyrion clear whatever she was choking on. The report states that correctional officers called 911 three times, but Thyrion was unconscious by the time medics arrived. 

An investigation by the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department found that Thyrion had ingested an adult diaper, which correctional officers gave her while she was on suicide watch. Although why the diaper was provided is redacted in Waukesha’s reports, interviews with correctional officers strongly imply that it was to help Thyrion deal with her menstrual cycle. In a letter stating that no charges would be filed for Thyrion’s death, the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office wrote that the guards tried unsuccessfully to find underwear made specifically to limit self-harm risks, but could only find an adult diaper. The district attorney’s letter states that “they wanted to meet a basic need for Ms. Thyrion and did not consider that the diaper could be used in a way to self-harm.”

What correctional officers knew about Thryion’s self-harm risks is woven in and out of the redactions in the Waukesha sheriff’s investigation. One interview of a correctional officer noted that the guard “was aware of Thyrion’s history and had conversations with her about [redacted]”, and that the guard was “very sad about the situation because nobody thought that Thryion would hurt herself by [redacted] and they were just trying to make her ‘feel like a woman.’” 

Yet, the medical examiner’s scene report states that “according to Correctional Officers (CO) and jail staff, [Cilivea] had a history of trying to swallow inedible objections (sic) including plastic forks and diapers. She was seen trying to swallow unspecified objects today around 1030 hours and it is believed that she was unsuccessful at actually swallowing anything.” After reading that section of the report Hirte wondered why her daughter would be given a diaper if jail staff were aware of the risk. “They make it sound like they just gave her diapers all the time,” Hirte told Wisconsin Examiner. 

After reading a portion of the reports stating that Thyrion had no next of kin, but that detectives were aware that she’d called an unknown female, Hirte began to weep. While Thyrion was incarcerated, Hirte recalled talking to jail health care staff “several times about Cilivea.” She told Wisconsin Examiner that her daughter had signed “a release of information so that I could find out what was happening to her in there. And when you’re reading that [the medical examiner reports] it makes it sound like they had no idea who she was talking to. When they know darn well it was me.”

According to the medical examiner report, jail staff “stated they were not aware of any triggers, upcoming court proceedings, or recent events that would make Cilivea want [to] harm herself today or for any of the past self harm attempts.” 

Hirte wonders if jail staff knew that Thyrion had swallowed plastic forks and diapers before, and if so,  “why would you give her anything then?”

In late 2023, among Thyrion’s belongings released to Hirte by the jail was a handwritten note from Thyrion requesting to see a nurse. “I think I need a med adjustment,” Thyrion wrote. Electronic messages Thyrion sent jail staff throughout her incarceration also show that she regularly communicated her needs, without many results. The messages were obtained by Wisconsin Examiner through open records requests. 

In late March 2022, Thyrion messaged jail staff asking to be moved to another part of the facility because activity going on in her pod was “mentally upsetting.” The following month in April, Thyrion wrote complaints about jail staff mocking her with “fat jokes” and being rude. In June, Thyrion was denied access to the gym, and made multiple requests for a Bible and hygiene products. 

Redactions in the messages obscure crucial details about Thryion’s needs. Anything related to Thyrion’s mental health history, including the word “suicide” is redacted in most reports. “I have not been [getting] my [redacted] and I don’t know why. I really need it. I have been getting really bad [redacted],” she wrote on June 29, 2022. In August, she reported being verbally threatened by a correctional officer, and asked why she wasn’t getting her mail. When she asked to speak with friendlier and familiar jail staffer, Thyrion was denied. “I promise to be better,” Thyrion wrote in the electronic messages. “I Just need to talk to her please she’s a good friend she’s great to talk to please she was in cell four please I’m sorry.” 

On Dec. 2, 2022, court records show that Thyrion’s sentencing had been scheduled for January 2023. In her last message sent on Dec. 12 to jail staff, just four days before her death on Dec. 16, Thyrion reported that jail staff had used her cell’s intercom system to call her fat, pathetic, and that “no one in my family should have raised an inmate” and that “it all started because I threw up my food and she said that maybe if I stopped eating everything I would not be throwing up.”

 

RECORD REQUEST FORMS_Redacted

Records from the Milwaukee County Jail showing correspondences between Cilivea Thyrion and jail staff during her time at the jail, obtained through open records requests.

 

Thyrion’s messages to jail staff about harassment and neglect, her note asking for “a med adjustment,” the medical examiner’s note that correctional staff knew about her history of ingesting objects like diapers (seemingly at odds with the district attorney’s letter mentioning that jail staff didn’t consider the diaper to be a self-harm risk), and their subsequent decision to furnish an ordinary diaper rather than one designed to prevent self-harm, raise serious questions about the lack of accountability in her case. Hirte feels what happened to her daughter was intentional, “because they gave her something and then walked away.” 

With many crucial details about Thyrion’s medical history at the jail hidden behind black inked redactions, these various pieces form a picture of what her life inside the jail was like. Normally, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office does not release autopsy protocols. As Thyrion’s mother, however, Hirte was sent an unredacted copy which was also reviewed by Wisconsin Examiner. The report notes “blunt force injury” including an abrasion to Thyrion’s head, fractures to four ribs, and contusions or abrasions to her abdomen, liver, left hand, and “lower extremities and the bottom of the right foot.” Instead of food, plastic fragments were found in Thyrion’s stomach, and “a crumpled piece of cloth fabric” in her large intestine. 

“To me,” Hirte told Wisconsin Examiner,  “it’s like, should she have been in the hospital if she had that towel in her large intestines?” A few days after viewing the autopsy reports, Hirte traveled from Green Bay to Milwaukee, to speak before a Milwaukee County committee reviewing an audit of the Milwaukee County Jail. The audit revealed “systemic issues ranging from dangerous suicide watch practices and a mental health challenge to critical staffing shortages and occupant overcrowding.” 

Auditors noticed “unsafe restraining of occupants” on suicide watch, including being handcuffed to benches for hours at a time. Although the jail places an average of 36 people in suicide watch on a weekly basis, mental health assessments were inconsistent. While auditors were visiting the jail, staff realized that someone on suicide watch had not been logged on a white board. “This discrepancy highlights a critical breakdown in communication and procedure,” the auditors wrote. There was also a backlog of 51 people awaiting competency evaluations. Despite there being a high number of pre-trial jail occupants taking psychotropic drugs, suggesting “a significant mental health burden within the jail” according to the audit, medications are distributed in bulk stock, meaning they’re not individually prescribed or even properly labeled with instructions on how to take the drugs. 

The auditors also found a lack of supervision and clear duties for correctional staff in the jail’s restrictive housing units, and found that the jail’s suicide prevention policies — while complying with Department of Corrections (DOC) regulations — lacked “specificity and clarity.” The auditors warned that “this vagueness hinders consistent and effective implementation of critical procedures, particularly those related to suicide watch.” Throughout the audior’s visit, the auditors recommended that the Milwaukee County Sheriffs Office and its contracted jail health care provider Wellpath emphasis suicide prevention training and address staffing shortages, lack of supervison, and the various nonfunctioning light fixtures, graffiti, and damaged windows which create an unfavorable atmosphere within the jail.

Thyrion’s death came as part of a string of six deaths within the jail over a 14-month period. During the audit committee hearing on Dec. 2, Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball said that after each death, the office does a review to see what could be done better. As a result, Ball said before a committee of county supervisors, there hasn’t been a suicide at the jail since January 2023. “We’re putting things in place that is helping,” said Ball. “One death is one too many.” 

After the sheriff spoke, the floor was opened up for public comment. “From what I see from this audit shows all my concerns,” said Hirte. “It shows more. There’s stuff I didn’t even know that I now know. And I hope it opens everybody’s eyes as to why I came back here to fight for my 20-year-old daughter. The only daughter I have died, who died in the Milwaukee County Jail, they say while she was on suicide watch. This basically says how unequipped they were to handle her.” 

In November, days before the jail audit report was sent to Milwaukee County Audit Committee officials, the jail’s contracted health care provider Wellpath filed for bankruptcy.  The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office declined to comment, and the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office also did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. 

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Students gather outside the meeting Thursday of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. (Photo | CodePink)

On Thursday protesters disrupted a meeting of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, holding signs and chanting slogans including “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,” and “Free, free Palestine!” Numerous groups participated in the demonstration including CODEPINK, UW-Milwaukee Popular University for Palestine, Wisconsin for Palestine, Wisconsin Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) UW-Madison, Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) Wisconsin, and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)-UWM. 

Protesters gathered both inside and outside the room where the Board held its meeting. With chanting and speeches the protesters interrupted the meeting with one demonstrator at one point saying that protesters “will not be allowing” the Board to conduct business during the meeting, followed by loud chants from the group as officers flowed into the room to begin arrests. Activists say that 19 people were arrested during the demonstration. 

According to a CODEPINK press release, the demonstration stemmed from questions student activists sent the Board of Regents about the University of Wisconsin’s response after students joined a wave of encampment protests on college campuses. Students pitched tents on the grounds of college campuses nationwide last spring calling for institutions to sever their ties with the government of Israel. With U.S. support, Israel launched retaliatory strikes into the Gaza Strip following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, which killed around 1,200 Israeli civilians and resulted in hundreds being taken hostage. Since then the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed over 44,000 Palestinians, with a United Nations Special Committee recently finding the IDF’s warfare tactics are “consistent with genocide”. Both Hamas and Israel have been accused of war crimes in the ongoing conflict. 

University of Wisconsin students involved in protests against the war in Gaza say they continue to face hands-on law enforcement responses. Arrests during demonstrations and threats of academic punishment targeting student activists are increasing tensions with school administration, activists say, after negotiations in May quelled the college encampment protests. 

UW students have demanded that the university divest from Israel, and disclose all of the investments made in the country to date. At UW-Madison, campus police and Dane County Sheriffs broke up the encampments last spring, arresting 34 people in May. Injuries were reported both among people in and around the encampments, and among law enforcement. No arrests were ever made at the UW-Milwaukee encampments, though police monitored the protests closely.  

By May, administrators at both UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee reached separate agreements with students to end the encampment protests. In September, CODEPINK said in its press release, the Board of Regents met with student activists, who had questions about the university’s handling of the encampment protests. Activists say that the Board deferred responsibility for the protest responses to university administration, prompting the demonstration on Thursday morning. 

The Board of Regents did not respond to a request for comment on the protests Thursday. Relaying a statement to Wisconsin Examiner on behalf of the protest group, a spokesperson for CODEPINK’s branch in Madison said that the Board’s use of police against student activists “reflects a troubling disregard for dialogue or transparency.” The spokesperson added that “instead of engaging in a one-minute statement from peaceful protesters, they chose to shut off the recording and summon a heavy police presence. This response escalated to harassment by university police and arbitrary arrests of individuals who were peacefully exercising their right to participate in a public meeting.”

CODEPINK questioned why the Board won’t engage with student activists, and said that the Board is responsible for “a significant portion of the UW-Madison endowment money” and should explain how it can use that money to support Israel when the Board’s own guidelines prohibit it from knowingly providing gifts, grants, etc, to “any company, corporation or subsidiary, or affiliate” that practices or condones discrimination against particular groups. 

“The police’s use of force against peaceful protestors underscores a disturbing trend of prioritizing secrecy over public trust,” reads CODEPINK’s emailed statement to Wisconsin Examiner. “Transparency and accountability should not be met with violence, especially in spaces meant to serve the public and promote education.”

Such sentiments aren’t exclusive to UW-Madison. In late October, UW-Milwaukee student members of SDS-UWM held a press conference claiming to have faced continued intimidation by campus police. UW-Milwaukee student Robby Knapp recounted being awoken to someone banging on his door one June night at 2:30 a.m. Initially, he thought that the police car parked outside was from the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD), but the officers were actually from UW-Milwaukee. They’d driven over 20 minutes from campus to Knapp’s home in Milwaukee’s Washington Heights neighborhood. Addressing him by name, they asked about an alleged vandalism incident near campus. Knapp said he didn’t know anything about it, stepped outside, and was immediately arrested. 

Knapp told Wisconsin Examiner that the officers took him back “the long way,” taking side streets instead of the freeway. When they got to the campus, “they photographed me, booked me, the whole nine yards with that,” Knapp said in the October press conference. “They gave me a letter saying the DA [District Attorney] might give you a call, which I haven’t gotten a call from the DA since that night.” Knapp was never taken to the county jail, but was released after an hour, he recalled. 

After Knapp was taken in, officers visited the homes of SDS members Audari Tamayo and Kayla Patterson. “They went to my house at least twice,” said Tamayo. “And we found this out through the police report that they went to my house twice, but I didn’t open the door. They needed to get to the third floor, they needed to get through three different hallways.” Tamayo said that after the officers failed to get into the apartment, “they started calling me repeatedly saying that I had to come down for an interview or else.” 

A spokesperson for UW-Milwaukee was unable to comment on any aspect Knapp’s arrest due to federal laws protecting student records. The spokesperson also said that UW-Milwaukee cannot comment on the ongoing investigation related to the alleged vandalism incident, nor comment on what exactly the vandalism was. “SDS recognition as a UWM student organization is suspended due to student organization misconduct, and only officially recognized student organizations are permitted to use UWM’s name in their organization’s name,” spokeswoman Angelica Duria said. 

A Milwaukee PD spokesperson told Wisconsin Examiner that the department is, “aware that Students for a Democratic Society UWM have engaged in protest activity in Milwaukee. We monitored the tent city situation at UWM to ensure there was no impact to emergency services in the City of Milwaukee. We do not have requests from UWM to conduct any investigations related to the group. We do share when we are aware of a planned protest for the sake of public safety.”

SDS says that its members have also faced academic sanctions, directly related to their protests. Besides Knapp, whom SDS says is facing academic sanctions due to protest activity, Patricia Fish is also facing sanctions due to an occupation protest in February. Additionally, both Patterson and Tamayo were unable to enroll in time for the fall 2024 semester after holds were placed on their student accounts. 

The stress has  affected Knapp’s academic performance. “Since then I’ve been behind … I have to kind of  go to school, and go to class every day understanding that  any work, any midterms, any quizzes, any papers, any exams, any credit, as soon as that suspension becomes effective, then all of that is out the window,” said Knapp. “I have about four courses left until I graduate. I was going to take two this semester, and two that semester. So not only is my education up in the air, but my ability to graduate is now up in the air … It’s the energy, it’s the money, it’s the time, it’s the effort that I’ve put into getting this close to graduating and just this semester in general after having to deal with them holding me back to be able to take these classes in the first place.”

Duria said that “no student is subject to the misconduct process based on considerations other than their own behavior.” Duria said that the Dean of Students Office assesses “reports it receives to determine whether there are potential nonacademic misconduct violations.” Duria went on to say in a statement to Wisconsin Examiner that “UWM has communicated protest guidelines and behavior expectations in several previous emails sent to faculty, staff and students. UWM has also updated its free speech website to make behavior expectations and expressive activity policies easily visible. Protests and expressive activity must abide by state law and university policy and UWM will take appropriate action to enforce the law, and its policies and codes of conduct.”

Patterson feels negotiations between students and the administration were mainly “to save face,” and to also learn more about student activist groups in preparation for more crackdowns. She told Wisconsin Examiner, “It’s very heavy monitoring. They’re going both at the organizational level, and the individual level, in order to crack down.” 

This article has been edited to correct the last name of Robby Knapp, not “Napp”. 

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The Milwaukee Police Administration Building downtown. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Back in July, a lot happened while the Republican National Convention (RNC) was going on in downtown Milwaukee. Donald Trump accepted his party’s presidential nomination. Local residents protested the RNC. Out-of-state police killed an unhoused man in King Park, and the convention brought so much traffic to the gay and bisexual dating app Grindr that it crashed. Those events and more were probably followed by the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) using a new tool to scan, scrape and search online activity. 

In April, the MPD announced that it was seeking an open source intelligence tool ahead of the RNC. Basically, anything which can be openly seen and accessed online counts as open source intelligence. Using the tool, the MPD planned to augment its online monitoring capabilities. What would have taken hours just a few years ago could be reduced to minutes. By the end of May, MPD had settled on an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered software called Babel Street. The contract for Babel Street, which was not to exceed $43,673.50, was awarded on May 23.

A Request for Proposal (RFP) document, compiled by the Pewaukee-based technology brokerage company Abaxent, provides details on Babel Street. The document was obtained by Wisconsin Examiner through open records requests. Utilized by the U.S. Armed Forces, intelligence agencies and the federal government, Babel Street “empowers users to extend their search to the farthest corners of the globe, netting data beyond the traditional scope of [publicly available information] in a safe and secure environment,” the RFP document states. “It opens the door to enriched and standardized [publicly available information] data from over 220 countries.”

Not only can Babel Street search online content in over 200 languages, it also employs “sentiment scoring” in over 50 languages. A Babel Street glossary of terms webpage states that sentiment analysis involves determining “if a given text is expressing a positive, negative sentiment or no particular sentiment (neutral).” The RFP document also claims that Babel Street’s use of AI “accelerates investigations and uncovers connections.”  

An MPD spokesperson echoed that point, saying in an emailed statement to Wisconsin Examiner that the software has “increased the speed of investigations.” The spokesperson said that Babel Street is used by MPD’s Fusion Division. Social media investigations are a staple for Milwaukee’s Fusion Center, composed of both MPD’s Fusion Division and the Southeastern Threat Analysis Center (STAC). Originally created for homeland security, the Fusion Center serves a variety of roles today — whether that’s operating the city’s Shotspotter gunshot surveillance system, monitoring a camera network spanning Milwaukee County, conducting ballistic tests, accessing phones seized by officers, or processing information from cell towers. 

Within the Fusion Center, analysts assigned to the Virtual Investigations Unit monitor social media, investigating not only people but entire social ecosystems. Babel Street “pinpoints key online influencers, allowing investigators to explore networks from a powerful starting point,” the RFP document states. “Rapidly exposing and unlocking their web of relationships delivers crucial information in a matter of minutes.” All of that data then gets plugged into sophisticated visualizations such as maps, algorithmic scores, or graphs. “Visualized mapping unearths influencers who have the greatest impacts on organizations, senior leaders, and world events,” the document explains. “Advanced algorithms score and prioritize critical online entities to measure this influence, bringing to the forefront obscure identities that make up their network.” 

Babel Street can track the growth of online influence emanating from a person or group of interest to police. Investigators can also set real-time updates alerting them to new developments online, as well as “persistent” monitoring. “A persistent Document Search on an identified threat actor continuously monitors filtered topics the actor is publicly engaging in,” according to the RFP document. “By establishing a persistent collection via user-built filters/queries, users can not only increase their data access and insight, but they can also automate the rate aspects of analysis.”

 

Contract B20203, Purchase Order PUR20203 (RNC Open Source Tool – Abaxent response)_Redacted

Records from the City of Milwaukee Purchasing Division, obtained through open records requests.

 

Babel Street draws on a wealth of online information to gather intelligence for police. An aspect of the software known as “Synthesis” allows MPD “to understand the profile of key influencers based on attributes, such as person/organization, location, occupation, interests, areas of influence, and communication style, which are automatically tagged for millions of accounts using an AI model, while still giving the City the option of manual tagging.” Babel Street also allows MPD to pair keyword searches with geo-fencing, thus alerting the department to posts within a specific geographic area. MPD’s new open source intelligence tool also enables data to be extracted from the dark web — parts of the internet which are not indexed in search engines and require specialized internet browsers to locate.

The ability of law enforcement to map online connections between people worried privacy advocates leading up to the RNC. In early April, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warned that using an open source intelligence tool, MPD could more effectively track and profile people who were exercising their constitutional rights. David Maass, director for investigations at the EFF, told Wisconsin Examiner that open source intelligence tools “are designed to produce ‘results’ even if there’s no evidence of a nefarious plot.” 

Many police reform activists in Milwaukee also remember the protests of 2020, when police departments heavily relied on social media to surveil protesters. All of that information, however, takes time to collect and sift, especially when a department may only have so many analysts on hand. “No longer are analysts manually checking multiple data sources to identify changes,” according to  the RFP document, “as Babel Street Insights persistently and automatically collects, ingests, and alerts users when new information is available, dramatically increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of each analyst.” 

All of that information, however, also needs to be vetted to ensure that it’s accurate. “Intelligence often requires vetting in order to determine whether it is reliable or not,” MPD’s spokesperson wrote in an email statement. “Additional investigation would be required with all intelligence.”

MPD said that it does not track Babel Street’s involvement in investigations, either during the RNC or after. There is also no standard operating procedure governing the software’s use by MPD, a spokesperson told Wisconsin Examiner. “This software is utilized to investigate crimes or to assist with mitigating threats to pre-planned large-scale events,” wrote the spokesperson in a statement. No decisions have been made yet about renewing the MPD’s one-year contract for Babel Street. 

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A billboard promoting Enbridge Inc. (Susan Demas | Michigan Advance)

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has decided that it will issue an individual wetland and waterway permit to the Canadian oil and gas company Enbridge, as the company seeks to relocate its Line 5 pipeline. Permits will also be issued to the company for stormwater site construction and pollution discharge elimination systems. The state agency’s decision is the latest development in the contested operation of Line 5 in Wisconsin. 

A DNR press release states that the wetland permit authorizes specific construction-related activities that may impact waterways and wetlands. The permit contains “more than 200 conditions to ensure compliance with state’s wetlands and waterways standards,” according to the DNR. The construction permits for stormwater sites also involve “specific plans for erosion control and water quality protection.”

Both the DNR and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must approve the permits before the project can proceed. Enbridge may need to also obtain other permits involving  groundwater, burning and incidental takes of species listed as threatened or endangered. Enbridge will also need to apply for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit to discharge dredge or fill material to waterways, which is required under the Clean Water Act. The DNR has issued a water quality certification “that serves as a determination that the project as proposed will meet State of Wisconsin water quality standards.” The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will also have to consider Wisconsin’s water quality certification as part of the permitting process. 

The announcement earned praise from the Wisconsin Building Trades Council, a union with  a membership of over 40,000. Emily Pritzkow, the union’s executive director, issued a statement saying the decision “reflects an intentional and balanced approach to addressing the state’s energy infrastructure needs while ensuring responsible environmental stewardship.” Calling the relocation of Line 5 “a win for Wisconsin workers, Wisconsin families, and the Wisconsin economy,” Pritzkow said the reroute “ensures operation with the highest safety standards by incorporating cutting-edge technology and construction practices.” Pritzkow added, “together, we can advance Wisconsin’s infrastructure needs while protecting the natural resources that make our state exceptional.”

Plans to reroute  Line 5 have been debated for years. In 2019, when the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa filed a federal lawsuit to remove the pipeline from the tribe’s reservation, a judge determined that the company had trespassed on the Bad River Band’s land, and ordered the pipeline to be removed within three years. Although the decision was a victory for the Bad River Band, the tribe argues that Line 5’s rerouted path still crosses the Bad River watershed, and thus still poses a threat to the tribe’s natural resources. 

In late August, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers received over 150,000 public comments opposing the continued operation of Line 5. Nearly a month later, the DNR released a final environmental impact statement on the reroute plan, which itself was a step necessary for Enbridge to receive the permits it needed to relocate the pipeline. 

Opponents to the decades-old crude oil pipeline were displeased by the DNR’s decision to issue permits to Enbridge. “I’m angry that the DNR has signed off on a half-baked plan that spells disaster for our homeland and our way of life,” said Bad River Band chairman Robert Blanchard in a statement. “We will continue sounding the alarm to prevent yet another Enbridge pipeline from endangering our watershed.”

Stefanie Tsosie, who is helping represent the Bad River Band as senior attorney at Earthjustice, said in a statement that the DNR “chose to serve Enbridge’s interests at the cost of the Bad River Band’s treaty rights and the state’s future clean water supply.” Tsosie added, “it’s sad that they are willing to gamble the region’s irreplaceable wetlands, the wild rice beds, and even Lake Superior to secure Enbridge’s cash flow.” 

Clean Wisconsin is considering legal challenges against the permit issuances. “Wisconsin law makes it clear that projects causing harm to our waters must meet a high bar to move forward,” said Clean Wisconsin attorney Evan Feinauer. “Given the enormous impacts that construction of this pipeline would cause, we are skeptical that the proposed project meets these legal standards.” Opponents of the pipeline also point out  that constructing the reroute would involve clearing trees, digging trenches, filling wetlands, and other activities which could disturb vulnerable ecosystems in northern Wisconsin. 

“We will evaluate what actions are needed to protect our state,” said Feinauer. 

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