Chequamegon Family Restaurant, also known as the Ashland Family Restaurant, where two workers were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Monday, Dec. 15. (Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner)

Federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested two individuals at the Chequamegon Family Restaurant (also known as the Ashland Family Restaurant) Monday, Dec. 15 in the city of Ashland in far northern Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior.

This is the second arrest ICE agents have made in the Ashland/Bayfield area since July when an individual was arrested at Washburn Iron Works in the city of Washburn.

The Ashland City Police Department issued a statement Friday, Dec. 19 saying that ICE and U.S. Border Patrol officers had informed the police department that federal officers had a federal warrant for two individuals at the “Ashland Family Restaurant.”

The police department noted the federal officers had “picked up” one employee in the morning, and then returned after requesting that a city police officer be present because “the restaurant staff was very upset with them the first time they were there.”

A Dec. 15 police dispatch report notes that Officer Mark Campry was requested at 12:04 p.m. to the restaurant. 

According to the police statement, when the federal officers returned with the local police officer there was a request to open the doors and a second person was taken into custody.

The police did not say what type of warrant ICE had to make the arrest. ICE has not yet responded to a request for that information.

Alexandra Guevara of Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant workers’ rights organization, says there is an important difference between judicial warrants, signed by judges in cases where individuals are wanted for a crime, and ICE administrative warrants, which lack the same force.

“Nobody should open their doors for an ICE warrant. It’s an illegal instrument,” Guevara said.  “When we do our Know Your Rights trainings, it’s the first thing we tell people — you have to be able to get a warrant that is actually signed by a judge, that includes your address, that includes your name, your official name, and you have the ability to get that warrant, send it to a lawyer, send a picture to a lawyer, and ask, ‘Should I open the door or not?’”

Reporters for the Ashland Daily Press said they also were told by an employee of Deltco, a plastics manufacturer, that an employee at the plant was taken in custody by the federal officers Monday. Deltco management did not return calls from the Wisconsin Examiner attempting to verify whether an employee had been arrested.

Voces de la Frontera has identified one of the restaurant employees, a cook, as Luis Davids Coatzeozon Gomes, but has not been able to find out where he is being held.

“One of the things that happens with some of these detentions is that they’re detained and immediately sent somewhere else,” said Guevara, “so they don’t need to report them. And I mean, that creates a lot of confusion, that makes it impossible for their families to find them. It also makes it very difficult for lawyers to represent them, because they need to be in one place to be represented by a lawyer who can have access to them.”

She added, “We know that the ACLU has been dealing with that, talking all over the nation about how difficult it is now to trace where people are being taken because they’re being moved every two to three days, sometimes crossing state borders, like even being sent to places as far as Florida from here. And that makes it very, very difficult to know exactly how many people have been detained because they’re not being reported here.”

Guevara said most ICE detainees in Wisconsin are held, at least temporarily, in the Dodge County Jail. However, nearby Douglas County also has an agreement to hold ICE detainees. The ACLU reported in September that the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office had billed ICE for detaining 111 persons since the beginning of 2025.

State Rep. Angela Stroud, (D-Ashland) questioned why a city police officer accompanied the federal officers making an immigration arrest.

“My view on this is, if there’s probable cause that someone committed a crime, then you know, that’s a reasonable thing for the police to be involved in, because clearly, fighting crime is part of what we want to happen in our communities,” she said.

In answer to a question about the police involvement in the arrest, Ashland City Police Chief Bill Hagstrom sent the Ashland Daily Press a citation from the city’s police manual, 416.6 “Federal Request for Assistance” that states: “requests by federal immigration officials for assistance from this department should be directed to a supervisor. The Department may provide available support services, such as traffic control or peacekeeping efforts.”

Rep. Stroud also expressed concern about taking workers from employers struggling to maintain adequate staffing during a labor shortage in a city of fewer than 8,000 people.

“We have problems finding people to work generally around here,” she said, “and you know, we have an aging population. We have a lot of workforce shortages. What is the big picture goal here, and how does it help our community? How does this help our community?  I would like someone to explain that. And I recognize people need to, you know, follow immigration laws, but we’re seeing more and more that even people who do follow the law are being deported. And it’s just irrational. I don’t understand the big picture goal, except maybe to terrorize communities, and that’s, needless to say, is completely unethical.”

She added, “Unfortunately, we’re seeing these large raids and sweeps of people who are working and, you know, sometimes we’re even finding people who are American citizens getting caught up in that. So I recognize that people have a lot of strong feelings on this topic.” 

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A screenshot from a video released by the Wisconsin State Public Defender that shows a youth in detention being restrained and beaten by staff at the Jonathan Delagrave Youth Development and Care Center in Caledonia on May 27, 2025.

The Wisconsin State Public Defenders Office released a video Tuesday of an incident involving a staff member repeatedly punching a then-15-year-old at a juvenile detention center.

The incident took place on May 27 and involved a youth at the Jonathan Delagrave Youth Development and Care Center in Caledonia.

 The video appears to show four staff members directing him to move from a spot by a wall in a hallway, possibly to a nearby room, and Elliott not moving. After a staff member swung at him, the situation devolved into a struggle. Elliott was struck repeatedly by staff before and after he was on the ground.

The incident occurred less than a month after the 48-bed facility opened on May 1, the State Public Defenders Office (SPD) said. According to the SPD, the teen had bruises, swelling on his right eye, blurred vision and headaches, scrapes and cuts and dried blood in his ear, based on records from evaluations arranged by the facility. 

“To the parents who have kids in a detention center, check on your babies,” said Kianna Reed, his mother.

The SPD wants its client immediately transferred from the facility and placed in a group home “where he can receive specialized therapy and support.”

“The people in this video should have never been entrusted with caring for children. This is a sickening act of violence,” State Public Defender Jennifer Bias said in a statement. 

The family is looking for an attorney for a civil lawsuit against Racine County, the SPD said. 

In the SPD release, Reed said that “seeing that video and knowing my son is still in that facility is terrifying,” and that “the staff need proper training and accountability.”

In a statement emailed to the Examiner, a Racine County spokesperson described the publicly released video as a partial record of a longer incident  and said that staff’s interaction with the youth took place over several minutes. It said the youth clenched his fists and made multiple threats of physical violence to other juveniles and staff.

“Maintaining the safety of youth and staff in our facilities is our highest priority,” Amberlyn Yohn, administrator of youth rehabilitation services, said in the county’s statement. “Situations like this are complex and unfold quickly. While one employee’s actions became the focus of this incident, our broader team followed established protocols and cooperated fully with the review process.”

The county commits to making sure staff have the training, oversight and support needed for managing difficult situations, Yohn said.

The “primarily involved staff member” was immediately placed on administrative leave after the incident and resigned within three days, Racine County said in a statement emailed to the Examiner. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, his name is Robert Knight, and he told the Journal Sentinel his actions were justified based on Elliott’s history at the center. He disputed that he resigned because of the investigation.

A different worker seen repeatedly striking the teen was ordered to complete eight hours of remedial training and appears to still be employed at the facility, according to the public defender’s office. Three of the four staff members involved are still employed at the center, according to the public defender’s office, which obtained records showing the staff’s employment status.

Knight said her son was displaying signs of aggression at the time of the incident, according to the Journal Sentinel. He said he intended to force the boy back rather than strike him.

The teen had been found guilty of charges of retail theft and obstructing an officer.

A new alternative

Efforts to close the Lincoln Hills facility have not yet proven successful, and its location makes it difficult for youth there to maintain contact with their community and families.

Years after a 2017 lawsuit filed over abuses, Gov. Tony Evers announced in October that the state had reached full compliance with all of the court-ordered reforms. The Department of Corrections’ website describes plans to build smaller facilities and keep youth closer to home.

In addition, the state has awarded money to counties to establish Secure Residential Care Centers for Children and Youth (SRCCCY). Milwaukee’s is expected to open in 2026; Racine’s is the only one that is currently open. The county website says it provides a “structured and rehabilitative environment for male youth.”

The facility was built as an alternative to the Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth prisons, the SPD said in its release. Some juvenile offenders can now go to the facility instead of Lincoln Hills, Eileen Fredericks, the SPD’s youth defense practice coordinator, told the Examiner.

Fredericks said that “we only have one, and then shortly after it opens, we have this really serious incident.”

The county’s website says that youth are placed in the SRCCCY under a statute that requires that the youth committed an act that would carry a sentence of six months or more if the youth were an adult. The youth also must have been found to be a danger to the public and in need of restrictive custodial treatment.

In the weeks before the facility opened in May, the Racine County Eye reported that officials said the center is a more cost-effective and compassionate alternative to state-run youth correctional facilities such as Lincoln Hills.

According to the public defender’s office, at the time of the incident, the teen was a few weeks into a five and a half-month period of participation in the SRCCCY’s RISE-UP program. He has been in detention consistently since December 2024, the SPD office said.

In the SPD’s release, Bias argued that building “shiny new prisons” won’t prevent situations like what happened to the teen. 

“We need meaningful reforms to the way our children are treated in the juvenile justice system,” Bias said. “We need judges who will prioritize alternatives to incarceration and detention workers who value care over punishment.”

Fredericks said she wants “these kids to be seen as kids” and that “there’s kind of this mindset that they’re less than kids, because they’ve done something wrong.”

Transparency concern

Bias accused the county of seeking to “sweep this incident under the rug.” The public defender’s office called for a “full-scale” investigation into conditions at the facility and the qualifications of staff members who interact with children. 

Reed told the Examiner she did not see any of the video released Tuesday by the SPD until October. 

In its statement, the county said that immediately after the May 27 incident, the mother of the youth and the Wisconsin Department of Corrections were notified. The Examiner reached out to the DOC and was told that the Jonathan Delagrave facility is county-run, and questions regarding personnel or those housed there are best directed to Racine County. 

The county said important privacy protections for juveniles must be respected, but that the county has been and remains transparent in its response to the incident. 

Law enforcement and independent human services agencies fully investigated and reviewed the incident, the county said. The details of the investigation and relevant video were provided to the Racine County District Attorney’s Office, which declined to pursue prosecution, the county said.

Warning: the video released by the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office contains graphic footage of violence against a child.

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Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday that he has signed 34 bills into law, including a bill requiring judges to sentence offenders to at least 10 years in prison if convicted of a human trafficking crime and 15 years for a child trafficking crime. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday that he has signed 34 bills into law, including a bill requiring judges to sentence offenders to at least 10 years in prison if convicted of a human trafficking crime and 15 years for a child trafficking crime. 

“Crimes of this nature — most especially when it comes to our kids — should be punishable by the full extent of the law,” Evers said in a statement. “With this bill, we are helping ensure that we’re protecting some of our most vulnerable youth and holding predators accountable, most especially when they prey on our kids.”

The bill includes increases to the maximum amounts of prison time a person can receive for human and child trafficking crimes, and it allows more time for prosecution of human trafficking crimes. 

Human trafficking involves using force, fraud or coercion for labor, services or a commercial sex act. Trafficking of a child can involve a knowing attempt to recruit a child for commercial sex acts. Wisconsin trafficking law also bans benefiting from trafficking or knowingly receiving compensation from the earnings of debt bondage, a prostitute or a commercial sex act. 

Last month, the Wisconsin Examiner reported on lawmakers’ reasons for supporting the bill, such as preventing human traffickers from doing further harm. Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond Du Lac) cited cases that appeared to have taken place in other states in which people convicted of sex trafficking received between six and eight years in prison. 

The Examiner reported on criminal justice advocacy groups and attorneys’ criticisms of the mandatory minimums, including a concern from attorneys that judges would sentence people who are trafficking victims themselves to the mandatory minimum punishment without being able to consider whether the person deserved a lighter sentence because their trafficking crime was influenced by their trafficker. The bill didn’t contain an exception to the mandatory minimum for that type of situation. While Wisconsin law allows a defense in court for people who committed a crime as a “direct result” of trafficking, that didn’t allay critics’ concerns.

The anti-sex trafficking organization Shared Hope International gave Wisconsin law failing grades on multiple categories relevant to survivors of child sex trafficking: “protection from unjust criminalization,” “legal relief” and “survivor-centered supports.” The analysis was based on laws enacted as of July 1. 

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A bill in the Wisconsin Legislature would make youth who received life without parole eligible to appeal to shorten their sentences; currently 28 states ban life without parole for juveniles offenders | Getty Images

Since the 2022-23 session of the Wisconsin Legislature, a bill (SB-801/AB-845) has been discussed that would eliminate the court-imposed sentence of life without parole for a juvenile (under 18 years of age) and require the court to consider specific factors when sentencing youth, namely their level of maturity.

The bill would also allow those already sentenced to life as a juvenile the opportunity to appeal and adjust their sentences after serving 15 years for crimes that didn’t involve murder and at 20 years for those who were convicted of homicide.

Two U.S. Supreme Court rulings (Miller v. Alabama, 2012, and Montgomery versus Louisiana, 2016) have held that life without parole for a juvenile comes under the category of cruel and unusual punishment. The Court has found that youth shouldn’t be held to the same level of accountability as adults because they are not psychologically or emotionally as mature and their brains are not fully developed.

According to an April 2024 report by the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, “Unusual & Unequal: The unfinished business of ending life without parole for children in the United States,” 28 states have banned juvenile sentences of life without parole (JLWOP):

“The scientific understanding that young people have limited decision-making abilities and impulse control informed widespread, rapid rejection of JLWOP in state legislatures, the Supreme Court, state courts, and the court of public opinion. Declaring that youth is ‘a mitigating factor’ that must be considered by sentencing judges in Miller v. Alabama (2012), the U.S. Supreme Court held that life without parole is disproportionate for the vast majority of youth.”

Nikki Olson, founder and executive director of Wisconsin Alliance for Youth Justice, is one of the advocates pursuing the legislation in Wisconsin.

“Their liberty was taken away before they even had full rights because they were kids,” she said of juveniles sentenced to life. “We are talking about people who weren’t even 18, who couldn’t legally smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol or couldn’t even drive without their parents’ permission. They couldn’t sign contracts or be on a jury or vote in society. We understand that kids are fundamentally different. The science says kids are fundamentally different. The Supreme Court says they are fundamentally different. We would like Wisconsin law to reflect that as well.”

Two past Republican sponsors of the proposed Wisconsin legislation are Rep. Todd Novak and Sen. Jesse James.

“Ending juvenile life without parole in Wisconsin is not just about reforming our justice system; it’s about restoring hope, potential and the promise of a future for our youth,” Novak has said. “This would also ensure that Wisconsin remains in compliance with the United States Supreme Court precedent.”

Sen. James has also gone on the record endorsing the bill. “The science is clear: brains are still developing. They cannot fully comprehend the extent of their actions,” James said. “For example, how is a 15-year-old supposed to understand life without parole when that sentence is literally quadruple the entire time they’ve been alive. People can grow; people can change, especially when their brains are still forming. Juveniles deserve a second chance.”

According to Sen. James’ office, the bill will be reintroduced as soon as the Department of Corrections (DOC) provides data on how many people currently incarcerated in Wisconsin  would be eligible to apply for a sentence adjustment if the bill is passed. The advocacy group Kids Forward puts the number somewhere north of 100.

Sen. James was asked whether his Republican colleagues known for supporting tough-on-crime legislation would also back the bill.

“As legislators, we introduce legislation with the hope that it’ll pass,” he said. “It is a part of our job to advocate for our bills and highlight the potential benefits and positive impact of the legislation with supportive research. Last session was my first time authoring this bill, and I’m still learning new information about this issue myself. We unfortunately didn’t get the opportunity to have a public hearing on this bill in the Senate last year, so myself and other advocates have not had the chance to testify in support and provide that background and context to members of the Senate.”

Convicted as a juvenile, serving life as an adult

Zachary Reid, 33, incarcerated at the New Lisbon Correctional Institution, has been in prison for 17 years. He is serving a life sentence, but he can apply for extended supervision after serving 40 years. If there isn’t a change in the law or Gov. Tony Evers doesn’t offer him a commutation or pardon, Reid is looking at another 23 years of incarceration.

If the bill does become law, Reid said he would apply at his 20-year mark, and he would be granted a hearing for a sentence adjustment.

The current language of the bill says the hearing should consider “relevant information” including “expert testimony and other information about the youthful offender’s participation in any available educational, vocational, community service, or other programs, the youthful offender’s work reports and psychological evaluations, evidence of the youthful offender’s remorse and the youthful offender’s major violation of institutional rules, if any.”

In 2008, when Reid was 16, he was charged with killing his father. Then, in 2009, a Winnebago County trial jury convicted him of first degree  intentional homicide, and he was given a life sentence which he began to serve in Waupun Correctional Institution when he turned 17.

Reid continues to contend that the death of his father was not intentional but an accident and that  Reid was defending himself from his alcoholic, abusive father, who was wielding a knife and making threatening gestures. Reid claims he choked his father with the intention that his father would pass out, not die.

But Reid also admits he did some things after his father’s death that he shouldn’t have, such as placing the body in the trunk of his father’s car instead of reporting the death immediately to the police.

 At 16, Reid said, he was a very immature young person, often in trouble, using drugs, not attending school, and stealing, making many poor decisions.

“At that age, you think you’re an adult; you think you know everything,” he said. “Those things adults tell you to do, some certain things, and you think you know better. And I was guilty of all the same types of thoughts like that, of just thinking that I really knew what was best for my life.”

When Reid was arrested in October of his junior year of high school, he had not attended very many days of class, a trend of skipping school he had started as a sophomore.

“And I just thought I didn’t have to prove anything to anybody, like, I know this stuff,” he said. “Why do I have to prove to a teacher that I know? Just an ignorant way of thinking and really low maturity level compared to how I am now. I look back, and I just kind of shake my head a lot of the time. There’s just a lot of the stuff that I did, and on top of it, I was doing drugs and drinking. At the time, I was already binge drinking. I started drinking really bad when I was 15, and it really picked up even more when I was 16, because my grandmother passed, and I used it as basically a reason to implode. And so the combination of being immature and the drugs and drinking, I was making a lot of really poor decisions.”

At Waupun, Reid could have been a prison statistic with an attitude and gotten into drugs and gangs and trouble, but instead he decided to take a different path by learning to weld and machining and later to crochet and donate items to charities. He was transferred to New Lisbon, where he continued to work as a welder and machinist, and then five years ago, he began training dogs that assist the blind.

“We do basically high-level obedience training, preparing the dogs to be able to go to harness school, where they learn the actual skills of working with a blind person or visually impaired person, to basically give them back their life, to be able to get them out of their house and be able not to be stuck there,” he said.

In prison, Reid said, he’s applied himself to learn new skills and gain an education.

“I have valuable skills that Wisconsin needs right now, you know, like welding and fabricating is a really in-demand training, even the machining,” he said. “Like I can run a mill, a lathe, you know, that type of stuff. I’ve gotten two vocational certificates since I’ve been here. I got an electromechanical service technician certificate. It’s also part of a pre-apprenticeship program through the Department of Workforce Development. I’m actually a certified professional dog trainer, like I got that through Chippewa Valley Technical College. I just finished my associate’s degree earlier this year, so I have an Associate of Science through Milwaukee Area Technical College.”

Reid also intends to pursue a bachelor’s degree from Marquette University in peace studies.

“I contribute to society right now in the environment I’m in, so I have no doubt that I can contribute in a meaningful way out there,” said Reid.

Since he has been in prison, Reid claims he has only received two conduct reports or complaints, one in 2010, his first year in prison, and another in 2016 for a tattoo.

Not many 33-year-old men have to wake up every day and live with the consequences of an action they took as a 16-year-old.

“Most of the time I try to just, kind of like, live in the right now,” he said. “I know it’s kind of like, you hear that phrase a lot, like live in the now type of stuff. I try to do that to the best of my ability as a coping mechanism, because, dwelling, obviously, on what happened and everything like that, like it was my dad, you know, so to me, I think it’s even a little bit more burdensome than for most of these people in that, I mean, my intent wasn’t to kill him. I was trying to just get him to stop attacking me in the situation we were in, and he passed away. So it’s like it’s not only just the guilt of taking a life, but it’s like I was so drug-addled or whatever it was, but it’s like I failed in that moment, like that was my failure.”

In-prison testimonies

At a future hearing to have his sentence adjusted, Reid would likely hear from others who would offer endorsements.

Patricia Muraczewski provided the dog training for the residents in New Lisbon and worked with Reid for two years. She was impressed by his work ethic and character and believes Reid should be considered for an early release.

“He was a member of the Paw Forward team of inmates who train dogs for the visually impaired,” she said.  “Mr. Reid was extremely diligent in class attendance and was very serious in acquiring and understanding the methods needed to train each dog that he was partnered with.  He had a very relaxed demeanor and got along with all of the other teams.  Even though there were frustrations at times with new instructors and conflicting material, he never expressed any anger.”

She added, “Over the course of my time in New Lisbon, never was Mr. Reid disrespectful and he never broke any rules or overstepped his position.” 

“Of all of the inmates I had worked with during that time, in my opinion, he was the inmate most likely to be successful when released and least likely to reoffend,” she said, adding,“During the four years this program has been in existence at New Lisbon none of the men that have been released have reoffended.” 

Brandon Horak knew Reid as a fellow resident at Waupun and later at New Lisbon. Horak had been sentenced to 10 years of incarceration for felony murder in the commission of an armed robbery after he set up a drug dealer for a robbery that resulted in the murder of the dealer.

“I wasn’t in a good state of mind,” he said when he first entered Waupun and met Reid.  “I had just been sentenced to 10 years in prison, so I met him in Waupun and he ended up encouraging me to get a job, so we worked in the laundry room together for a year and a half or two years. He encouraged me to get into school, and I didn’t want to do any of this stuff, so he was a really big influence on my life.”

Both Reid and Horak left Waupun and then later met up again in New Lisbon, where Reid had begun training dogs, and Horak said he noticed that Reid had lost a defensive, protective shield that many residents carry in amaximum security prisons like Waupun.

“I asked him why he didn’t care if someone stole something from him, which is obviously a big no-no in prison, and he said the dog program had changed his life and he had something to live for,” said Horak.

Even though Horak wasn’t officially in the dog program, Reid taught Horak what he had learned, and after he left prison, Horak set up his own dog training business based on Reid’s mentoring, a business called EDU Training.

“We train dogs in people’s homes, and to be honest, it was all thanks to Zach,” he said.

Out of prison, Horak often reaches back to Reid and his cellmate for advice on working with client pets.

“I’ve never been back to jail,” Horak said “I have a full-time job. I own a business. I do all this stuff, and I honestly do not believe I would have been able to do it without his (Reid’s) help. I just talked to him last week and he always tells me, ‘You better be doing good out there.’”

In prison, Horak said, he saw many people released and then come right back. Because of that, he doesn’t automatically believe everyone deserves leniency. Still, he says, Reid isn’t one of those who should be in prison and he believes he could do more good on the outside.

Engaged to be married 

Reid and his fiancée Samantha, got to know each other as pen pals in 2013, and that developed into a relationship in 2018. In 2019, they became engaged. In 2024, she moved from Florida to Wisconsin to be closer to Reid.

“The only reason we’re not married right now is that we’re hoping to get him out one day,” said Samantha, “so we can have just a normal marriage out here, versus having a marriage done or a wedding ceremony done inside the prison.”

Samantha said she has been communicating with Reid since they were both in their early 20s, and she’s seen him mature over the years.

“But just even in the last maybe five years, it’s just blown up like he has just matured and wants to do so much good,” she said. “ … He loves that he can actually make a difference, and he’s done other charity programs that even the prison doesn’t offer. He crochets hearts for suicide prevention.”

She said it recently occurred to her how much Reid is trying to do good for others and also maintain a relationship with her from prison.

“That is work, too, to just step up and almost religiously call somebody regularly, and never let me down, and to take care of me with all this distance,” she said.

If the legislation is passed, Samantha says that Reid would be the “poster child for this bill.”

“It’s like he went out of his way to get welding experience,” she said. “He went out of his way to do charity work. He went out of his way to do all these wonderful things over the years. And I mean, just since I’ve known him, he’s grown and matured. He’s checking off every box he can possibly check off, and could prove that over the course of 17 years, like he is not that person [that he was at 16], and look at all these good things he is doing and all the things he could contribute to society, and right now we’re just warehousing him. We’re wasting all these taxpayer dollars housing somebody that is very clearly not a threat.”

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A drone watching a protest. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

“It is a unique bill that has a lot of emotion and nuances to it,” said Rep. Chuck Wichgers (R-Muskego), describing a bill to give local law enforcement the power to disable or destroy drones. Speaking to the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety on Wednesday, Wichgers said that the bill would give “the bare minimum protection” for both the public and police as global drone technology continues to rapidly evolve.

Although current state law prohibits the use of weaponized drones, the devices are not actually defined in statute. Wichgers’ bill would define a weaponized drone as one which “is equipped with a taster, firearm, flamethrower, chemical, or explosive device.” 

Wichgers cautioned that “we can easily complicate this bill,” especially given the growth of drone technology around the world. Over the last two decades, drones have gone from being scarcely heard of outside military settings to becoming household objects. The U.S. military’s infamous Reaper and Predator drones, some of which are the size of small planes, have long been used in combat for reconnaissance and lethal strikes. Today, however, the same small and cheap quad-copter drones used by photographers, landscapers and children are being outfitted with explosives for kamikaze-style attacks on armored vehicles on Russian and Ukrainian battlefields, where an estimated 70-80% of casualties are caused by drones.

“It’s beyond fascinating,” Wichgers  said of “this is a big and global issue.” Wichgers told committee members that “we need to start getting language in statute,” since only certain federal agencies currently have the authority to down weaponized drones. “This bill allows Wisconsin law enforcement to mitigate a threat posed by a weaponized drone by detecting, tracking and identifying the drone and then intercepting, disabling, or in a worst case scenario, destroying the drone.” 

In order to protect public safety,  Wichgers said  that “these powers should be extended to local law enforcement.” He added that the federal government provides grants to help mitigate drone threats, as well as $500 million set aside for fiscal year 2026-27, as part of the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” “The difficulty is that law enforcement should not have to waiver if there is an immediate threat for a drone that is weaponized or carrying a load that is harmful to the public,” said Wichgers. “Our airspace needs to be safe, just like we’re safe on our roads.” 

A quickly moving goalpost 

The bill was requested by the Police Chief Association of Waukesha County, Wichgers said. “State law must be enacted that is responsive to current and future needs as best as we can determine them in order to prevent harm and protect our communities,” he added. 

Committee members chimed in with a variety of questions. Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) joked about farmers using weaponized drones to eliminate sandhill cranes consuming crops. Wichgers brought up  his own examples, including nervous neighbors calling the police to check out roofers who might be using drones for survey work, or a drone being used at a concert to drop fentanyl on people who then overdose in the crowd. “Right now the police would say, ‘Sorry, the Wisconsin Legislature is dragging their feet on passing a law that gives me permission to disarm that drone that’s a threat, we’ll have to wait till next session,” said Wichgers. 

Dan Thompson, chief of the Waukesha Police Department, told the committee,  that “drones carry contraband, surveillance equipment or worse, weaponized payloads” and that the technology can “present a unique danger that demands an immediate intervention.” 

The chief’s comments prompted Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard) to seek clarification that under the proposed bill a drone does not, in fact, need to be weaponized, and that law enforcement only need to “reasonably suspect” that it could pose a public safety threat in order to shoot it down. Sortwell said that the bill’s language seemed broad. 

Sortwell questioned whether as the bill is written, shooting down a drone could be justified at any time. Legislative counsel said, “I don’t know that I can really answer that.” Sortwell shot back, “The fact that you can’t say ‘no’ is troubling.”

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