Dennis Simmons didn’t expect that a regular visit to his probation officer would end in his arrest, and the prospect of being sent to prison. After a life spent in and out of the criminal justice system, Simmons was employed and trying to avoid trouble. “When I came in they arrested me and told me that I was being charged with robbery, battery, and carjacking,” the 28-year-old told Wisconsin Examiner, recalling that day in April 2025. “The detectives never came and questioned me to ask nothing, they just ended up charging me with it.”

Simmons learned that he was being accused of assaulting a man and stealing his car. But his attempts to explain that he had proof that the accusations were false fell on deaf ears, Simmons said. Instead, his probation agent planned on moving forward with revoking  Simmons’ release anyway. 

Had that happened, Simmons would have been among the over 8,100 people sent back to prison in 2025, according to Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) data. When you’re one of the over 64,000 Wisconsinites who are on probation or parole in Wisconsin, an unproven accusation is one of numerous things that can send you back to prison. Probation and parole agents wield immense power over their clients’ futures. 

Simmons told his agent, Laquisha Booker, that his accuser was the subject of a no-contact order with his mother due to a domestic violence case. The accusation against Simmons was false, he told her,   because there was video showing the man violating that no-contact order by arriving at his mother’s home in the very car Simmons’ had been accused of stealing, and attempting to break down the door. Simmons’ uncle, he said, fought the man off. 

“It don’t show me on the camera at all,” Simmons told the Wisconsin Examiner. Booker told the family to send her the footage, but then “acted like she never got the video,” said Simmons. “Well, she kept pushing forward with revocation the whole time. My uncle came in and gave her a statement, let her know what happened, that he was the one that got into the fight with him. And mom sent the video. Mom gave a statement and let them know what happened. My grandma gave a statement. And she still pushed forward with revocation.” 

Fighting against the stream of incarceration

Facing over five years imprisonment, Simmons was shocked and confused by Booker’s push to send him back. “How can you still go through with it?” He asked. “You got evidence showing that it ain’t true. And she, like, ‘Well, I’m pushing forward with revocation.” Simmons wanted to fight the revocation, but knew that it wouldn’t be easy to beat. For months he sat in the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility, a facility which held 637 people while Simmons was there in April 2025 despite only being designed to hold 418.  

Simmons found the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility  to be in a dire state. “They be short staff a lot, you know, so we be pretty much in the room all day,” Simmons told the Examiner. He recalled that people were let out of their rooms twice a day for a little  over an hour. 

“It’s kind of rough in there,” said Simmons. “So we pretty much in the room all day. Come out for a little bit. When you come out, you work out, get in the shower, and then try to make your phone calls, try to get everything did that you got to get did. Then you go back in the room. So it’s pretty much a stressful environment just being in there. Because you be in the room all day thinking, especially if you in there for something that you didn’t do and then you nervous. Like, I was actually kind of scared even though I didn’t do anything, like, they have my back against the wall so I’m like ‘five years, nine months, I got to fight it.’ But they like, ‘If  you lose you could get the whole seven years. And 90% of the people lose here.’ So I’m like, should I take a deal for something that I didn’t do?”

The people Simmons was housed with thought that would be his only option. “Everybody that been there for a while said that’s how it works,” Simmons told the Examiner. “It was stressful.” 

Prior to his final revocation hearing in September 2025, attorney May Lee — of the Lee Law Firm — intervened on Simmons’ behalf. In emails Lee shared with the Examiner, Booker  claimed that the videos sent by Simmons’ mother couldn’t be opened. “I emailed her back and told her to forward the videos to my supervisor,” Booker emailed Lee. “She never did. I won’t be using the videos in the rev hearing.” 

Lee shot back that Dennis’ mother had sent the videos “to your agency a total of three times, including once to your supervisor. She was unaware that you or your supervisor were unable to open the files and she is now locked out of her iCloud account, requiring Apple’s assistance to access those videos again.” Lee continued preparing for the revocation hearing, asking Booker to share the videos with her so she could try to open them, and to provide a supervisor’s contact information.

During the revocation hearing, Simmons’ uncle testified that his nephew was innocent and it was  he who had engaged in the fight leading to the accusation of assault. The uncle also testified to having already given Booker a statement that exonerated Simmons. Booker admitted during the hearing that she had lost the uncle’s statement, something which Lee said contradicted what the probation agent had told her in the days leading up to the hearing. According to a DOC human resources bureau review of Booker’s conduct, Lee had been told by Booker that the uncle never came to give a statement. 

After the Sept. 10 hearing, Lee emailed Booker to demand that the allegations against Simmons be dismissed given what came out during the hearing. Lee also noted that Booker’s supervisor was able to access the videos which Booker claimed didn’t work.  “The information you know to be true does not support the allegations against Dennis,” Lee emailed Booker. “I am hopeful you will consider doing the right thing here. I look forward to hearing from you.” 

The next day Booker responded that after talking with her supervisor, “the department is not going to withdraw the allegations against Mr. Simmons and will continue with the revocation hearing.” Emails obtained by Wisconsin Examiner show Booker’s supervisor asked her about the conflict over the uncle’s statement. Booker said that Lee was misunderstanding what she said, “I told her I reached out to [the uncle], we spoke but he never came in to give a statement. So I can see how she’s thinking I said he never gave a statement at all.” 

Later that day, Lee again asked Booker for her supervisor’s contact information. Otherwise, she said, she’d have to go above their heads to a DOC regional chief “and outline the blatant misrepresentations” made about Simmons. “We are expected to uphold justice, and I provided an opportunity to rectify this situation,” Lee emailed Booker. “As you have chosen not to, I have no other option but to escalate this matter.” Lee then notified DOC Regional Chief Niel Thoreson about her concerns. 

 

 

By Sept. 15, Thoreson and Lee were emailing about finally releasing Simmons. Although another agent was supposed to be assigned to Simmons, when he was released it was Booker he met with to review the rules of his conditional release. “It is unacceptable that she was allowed to meet with him after she attempted to use her own lie to strip away another five years of his life to lock him up as if his human life holds no value,” Lee emailed Thoreson on Sept. 22. “This was egregious due to the already six months he spent in custody because of those allegations.” Lee added,  “what is going on over there??” 

The tables turned 

Simmons recalled his last interaction with Booker. “When I came to the office the day I was released, I was actually excited, at the very least I was happy, and then I seen her,” said Simmons, adding that Booker told him that this wouldn’t have happened if she’d received the videos and statement from his uncle, essentially reverting to her original claims. “I was like yeah, this is crazy,” said Simmons. 

Booker was later interviewed by the DOC human resources department. She was  new to her job,  having started in January 2025. During her HR  interview, Booker was asked whether she received a statement from Simmons’ uncle. “Yes sir,” she began. “Well let me rephrase that, I didn’t have to. [The uncle] reached out to me and said he wanted to make a statement.” Booker said that he came to the office and that she gave him paper to write the statement. “I did not sit there and take his statement personally, but I did get a statement from him that he turned in to the front desk.” 

She went on to say, “I am being completely honest. From the time that reception told me that the statement is ready to pick up, I don’t remember if I went to get the statement from him or not or if I grabbed it and misplaced it sometime after that.” Booker said that she couldn’t recall whether she actually read the statement, or even if she’d picked the statement up from the desk. The statement wasn’t included in the packet prepared for Simmons’ revocation hearing because according to Booker, she didn’t have it. 

Booker denied telling Lee that she never took a statement from the uncle, but said that she admitted in court to having lost his statement. Booker couldn’t remember at what point she first realized she’d lost it, however. When asked during the human resources interview whether she ever told attorney Lee about the uncle’s statement Booker said, “Yes…I can’t recall. I have had many conversations with her at that time.” Booker said that her supervisor had told her that “we are proceeding with rev no matter what.”  

She added that, “I realize I made a mistake and that I tried to correct that violation and I understand that I messed up. No matter what my [supervisor] was proceeding with rev and I am a new agent and I talked to her to get alternatives because I knew mom and grandma were testifying and I tried to do other things. That was my first revocation hearing and I don’t even know how revocations go and I don’t have any rapport with the client because he was arrested before I even knew him…I am a new agent and I don’t have any information on that process or how it went.” 

The DOC found that Booker had potentially violated rules regarding falsifying records, insubordination, and negligence. The report asserts that Booker was aware of the statement clearing Simmons of wrongdoing, but that she didn’t tell her supervisor, and declined Lee’s attempts to provide her with another written statement. The HR report adds that Booker “knowingly provided false information” to Lee regarding her ability to access video footage sent by Simmons’ mother, and the uncle’s statement. 

A DOC spokesperson said that Booker resigned in November during her disciplinary investigation. For the first seven weeks of her time at DOC, Booker would have participated in the DOC’s basic training for agents, which all agents must graduate before working with clients. The training is intended to provide agents with baseline and foundational skills to help agents navigate tasks, make decisions, and understand the DOC’s expectations. 

Crushed hopes and an uncertain future 

The entire ordeal was a major blow to Simmons’ ability to settle back into civilian life after serving a seven-year sentence. “You’re not even giving me a chance,” said Simmons, “and I’m showing you what’s going on.” 

Simmons told the Examiner that he’s tired of the revolving door to prison in his life. “I had a mindset of I’m tired of going to jail, I don’t want to be in prison no more,” Simmons told the Examiner. “I’ve been doing this my whole life, I’m going to try something different. Because the way I’ve been doing it keep getting me in trouble, it’s not working. So I want to try a way to stay up out. So when I get out and I decide that I’m not doing nothing that can put me back in prison, and try to stay away from it, and then I get locked up for something I didn’t do, it just make me feel like, ‘Man like, it’s hopeless. Should I just be back in the streets?” 

Simmons said the experience “crushed all the hope I had for even trying to do something the right way. Like…I ain’t understand it.” He told the Examiner that it’s important not to judge people solely based on what they did in the past. “That’s not who they are, that’s who they was,” said Simmons, recalling that he started getting into trouble when he was 13 years old. “I’ve been in and out since I was a kid,” he said. 

Growing up, Simmons said he didn’t have many positive role models around. “So basically if you grow up around people, if your whole family is involved in certain things and they teach you that the right thing to do is live the street life — be in the streets, sell drugs, do whatever in the streets — that’s what you’re going to grow up believing is the right thing to do,” he explained. “Now a lot of my family…They breaking the cycle of being in and out of prison. My dad started his own business. My auntie started her own business. Everybody is breaking the cycle from getting in trouble and going back to jail.” 

It took Simmons until his last prison sentence to decide he had to break the cycle. Before the experience with Booker, Simmons was working with his uncle and staying away from old friends and bad influences. But when he spoke to the Examiner, Simmons was being held at Milwaukee’s Community Reintegration Center, after being charged with firearms-related offenses in December for which he has yet to be convicted, and remains presumed innocent until proven guilty. If he beats this new case, Simmons hopes to transfer his probation to Texas where he has family, and leave Milwaukee behind. The DOC has recommended that his supervision be revoked. 

“I made some mistakes, I did some things in the past, made some bad decisions, and that made me who I am today,” said Simmons. “Everything I went through made me want to do better and be better.”

 

A Milwaukee police officer has been accused of abusing his access to the department’s Flock camera network, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Milwaukee district attorney’s office Tuesday. Josue Ayala is charged with one count of misdemeanor misconduct in public for allegedly using MPD’s Flock network to determine the locations of two people, one of whom was in a romantic relationship with Ayala. 

If convicted, Ayala could face up to nine months in prison and up to $10,000 in fines. The criminal complaint states that a negotiation is underway, “a condition of which requires Josue Ayala to resign his position as a police officer” for MPD. 

Flock cameras continuously photograph and identify vehicles with AI-powered Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) technology, and then store that data in a network which can be searched by law enforcement agencies across the country. Distributed by the multi-billion dollar company Flock Safety, the cameras have been criticized for facilitating mass surveillance of citizens using a system that can be easily abused or misused by law enforcement. 

According to the criminal complaint, one of the alleged victims used a website to determine that Ayala had conducted numerous searches of that person’s license plate. “VICTIM ONE believed that Officer Ayala ran VICTIM ONE’S license plate over 100 times,” the complaint states. Detectives reviewed audit data from MPD’s Flock network showing that one victim had been searched by Ayala 55 times while the other victim had been searched 124 times over the same time period. 

Detectives learned that both victims used to be in a relationship together but had since broken up. After the relationship ended, one of the victims began to date Ayala. The investigation revealed that Ayala had used Flock while dating the victim.

The complaint states that Ayala was on duty when he conducted the searches. When officers use Flock, they need to put in a reason for the search. Ayala used “investigation” in order to conduct the unlawful searches. Last year, an analysis by the Wisconsin Examiner found that “investigation” was the most common search term Wisconsin law enforcement agencies used to access Flock during the first five months of 2025. Other agencies used even more vague search terms, including  just a dot. Agencies disagreed about whether officers should be held accountable for using vague terms. 

In December 2023, MPD leadership issued a memorandum warning that staff who used Flock for reasons unrelated to law enforcement could face discipline. MPD’s policy on ALPR technology and Flock also states that the system should only be used for “bona fide law enforcement purposes.” 

Ayala had been assigned to the MPD’s District 2 station on Lincoln Avenue, but is now on full suspension. The resignation agreement is pending with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office, a police department press release states. 

Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said in a statement, “I am extremely disappointed to learn about the incident and expect all members, sworn and civilian, to demonstrate the highest ethical standards in the performance of their duties.” 

“If a member violates the code of conduct, they will be held accountable,” Norman added.  “… I want to remind the public that everyone is afforded the right of due process under the law, and as such, are innocent until proven guilty.” Norman also directed his department to create additional auditing mechanisms, although the department’s press release does not explain what exactly those mechanisms are. 

Ayala’s alleged use of surveillance technology for personal reasons is not an anomaly. In Menasha, an officer is facing felony misconduct in public office charges for using Flock to track a person’s vehicle while he was off duty. In Kenosha County, a sheriff’s deputy is also accused of using Flock and a squad car tracking system called Polaris to track one of his co-workers. The Examiner has filed records requests to obtain the internal investigation regarding the Kenosha sheriff’s deputy. 

The chief of the Greenfield Police Department is also facing felony misconduct in public office charges for installing a department-owned pole camera system on his property for personal reasons, and then deleting texts which may have been related to the investigation of the camera’s use. WTMJ reported that the chief captured himself deleting the messages using a body camera he’d worn to document a meeting where he was being offered the chance to retire. 

Residents in Milwaukee have been increasingly critical about the use of Flock cameras and facial recognition technology by both the police department and sheriff’s office. After a Fire and Police Commission meeting earlier this month related to facial recognition, where dozens of residents denounced the use of surveillance technologies, Norman announced that MPD would ban facial recognition for its staff. Locals have called for more oversight and transparency around police surveillance technology in the city.

The Milwaukee Police Association (MPD’s union) denounced Norman’s decision to restrict facial recognition. After the charges were announced against Ayala, the union posted on Facebook that he is innocent until proven guilty, that it respects “the integrity of that process,” and clarified that Ayala is not related to the union’s president Alex Ayala. 

Jon McCray Jones, policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, said in a statement that these latest accusations of Flock misuse “exemplify just how easily Flock cameras can be turned against the very people the technology purports to protect.”

McCray Jones criticized the use of vague terms to search Flock’s network, referencing reporting from the Examiner. “These meaningless, one-word descriptions make it impossible to know what the technology is being used for or whether it’s justified,” he said. McCray Jones called for greater public reporting and oversight of surveillance technologies in Milwaukee.

This story has been updated with comment from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin.

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Milwaukee Ald. Alex Brower was aware of fears in his community about immigration enforcement. Like many Wisconsinites, Brower had watched as Operation: Metro Surge in Minnesota led to thousands of arrests, community resistance, and the killings of Renee Good, and Alex Pretti by federal agents and the nonfatal shooting of Julio Sosa Colis. Hundreds of residents packed a town hall Brower held in early February. “People are ready to be engaged,” Brower told the Wisconsin Examiner. “People are just sick of what’s going on.”

On Wednesday, elected officials will host a bilingual ICE awareness community discussion on Milwaukee’s South Side. Earlier this month, Brower and other Milwaukee alders announced a package of local ordinances that aim to prepare Milwaukee for a surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.  

The package would require all ICE agents to be unmasked when interacting with the public in Milwaukee, and prohibit agents from staging raids on county property such as libraries and parks. Ald. JoCasta Zamarripa said that the local push is “an effort to deescalate fear, tensions and confusion,” WUWM reported. Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic said at the alders’ Feb. 11 news conference, “I stand here today to talk about something we can say yes to…You heard a lot of what we’re willing to say no to. We’re going to set the standards high in the city of Milwaukee, the largest city in the state of Wisconsin, that is built on our diversity. It is our strength.” 

Common Council President Ald. Jose Perez joined Zamarripa, Brower, Dimitrijevic, and community members in announcing the package. The proposals will need to be approved by the council, and then head to Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s desk. The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America have also been circulating a letter writing campaign to compel the common council to sign the ICE Out package. Over 1,800 letters have been sent so far, with the group’s goal being a total of 3,200 letters.

People in Milwaukee want to see their local government try to do something to protect against abuses by the federal government, even city ordinances could be struck down in court, Brower said. When he asked residents who attended his town hall if they would want local officials to at least try to do something, he told the Examiner, the crowd unanimously yelled “yes!”

“So many people are ready, themselves individually, to take action,” he said, ”either by supporting a mutual aid effort, getting trained to be an ICE verifier, or participating in any sort of picketing or protesting that happens at the site of an ICE abduction. So that’s No. 1 – I heard that almost universally. And then the second thing that I heard was that people want the City of Milwaukee to do everything it can to fight ICE.”

A question for local law enforcement 

As a matter of policy, the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) does not engage in immigration enforcement. MPD’s policy 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 Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office — which oversees the county jail — does not hold people in custody for ICE. Prior to the arrest and conviction of former Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, local judges had been debating the creation of a draft policy after several immigration arrests by plain-clothes federal agents at the county courthouse.

Limiting cooperation with ICE is a philosophy shared by some police departments across the country, but not all. Under the second administration of President Donald Trump, more sheriffs and police departments have joined the federal 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to conduct immigration enforcement. The counties of Waukesha and Washington, which border Milwaukee County to the west and north, both have 287(g) agreements.

For counties that do not want to collaborate with ICE, it’s not clear what can be done to avoid the warrantless searches, mass arrests, and use of force Chicago and Minneapolis have experienced. When asked how police would respond to a Minneapolis or Chicago-style immigration surge, the Milwaukee Police Department said it would rely on its existing policies. Beyond that, however, the department said “we do not have an operation like Chicago therefore cannot provide information about a policy of something that we do not have in our city.”

Brower said that answers provided by MPD officials who attended his town hall did not satisfy community members. “I chimed in as well, sharing with the police department, and with those present, that I believe that MPD should commit to the very least investigating, if not arresting, individuals who break the law,” even if they’re federal agents. 

Back in 2020, when masked and militarized federal agents cracked down on Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland and other cities, then-Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm responded to videos showing people being beaten, sprayed, gassed and arrested by agents who also loaded detainees into unmarked vehicles, saying, “Kidnapping, false imprisonment, unlawful assault, those are crimes.” 

“Those are crimes no matter who commits them,” Chisholm said in 2020, “whether you’re a federal agent or a citizen. You can’t do that, not in the United States, and it won’t be tolerated here.” 

Would a shooting investigation be independent in Wisconsin?

After federal agents killed Good and Pretti within three weeks of each other, local and state officials in Minnesota called for independent investigations. Yet the federal government refused, and even blocked Minnesota state law enforcement investigators from accessing the scenes of the two killings. That lack of cooperation from the federal government continues today, as the FBI refuses to provide access to evidence from the Pretti shooting to Minnesota’s state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). 

In a statement reported by the Minnesota Reformer, the state agency’s superintendent Drew Evans said that “while this lack of cooperation is concerning and unprecedented, the BCA is committed to thorough, independent and transparent investigations of these incidents, even if hampered by a lack of access to key information and evidence.” Recently, ICE was also admitted that two of its agents are currently being investigated after giving false statements under oath about the non-fatal shooting of Sosa-Celis. Sosa-Celis originally faced felony charges for assaulting an officer, but those charges have now been dropped. 

Wisconsin state law prevents police from leading investigations into fatal shootings of civilians by members of their own agencies. Passed a decade after the Kenosha Police Department quickly cleared a killing by one of its officers, the Michael Bell law has required that such investigations be led by an agency uninvolved in the death. Local prosecutors then decide whether officers will be charged or cleared. 

Which agency leads the investigation depends on where you are. While the state Department of Justice (DOJ) leads many officer-involved shooting investigations across Wisconsin, sometimes local police departments and sheriffs need to step in. Since 2015, a component of the Wisconsin DOJ known as the Division of Criminal Investigation has investigated 136 killings of civilians by police from Racine to Blue Mounds, New Berlin to Pine River. 

In Milwaukee, however, those sorts of investigations are led by a group of nearly two dozen law enforcement agencies from Milwaukee County, Waukesha and Brookfield, known as the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT). The team, which has existed for over a decade, rotates responsibility for investigating officer-involved deaths between its various member agencies. MAIT’s practices, however, have been criticized for being too lenient to officers who kill civilians. 

The Examiner asked both MAIT and the Wisconsin DOJ how an investigation into a shooting by a federal agent would be handled, especially considering that DHS had prevented local agencies from accessing evidence. A DOJ spokesperson said in an emailed statement that “investigations of officer-involved critical incidents should be conducted fully, transparently, and impartially by an independent agency.” The statement added that the state DOJ’s Department of Criminal Investigation “regularly serves in this independent investigatory role and is prepared to investigate if necessary.”

But MAIT will only investigate incidents involving its own members, the team’s appointed commander, Wauwatosa Police Department Lt. Joseph Roy, wrote in an emailed statement to the Examiner. “MAIT is not a department, entity, or unit,” Roy said. Instead, he described MAIT as “a cooperative effort” which has not partnered with any federal agency to date. “Per our bylaws, MAIT is restricted to investigating officer-involved shootings from agencies in the cooperative. While we share a close partnership with our local federal entities, MAIT would not investigate those incidents. That responsibility would lie with the jurisdiction in which the shooting occurred, in coordination with the involved agency.”

If federal immigration agents killed someone within the jurisdiction of a MAIT member agency, such as Milwaukee or Wauwatosa, then that local agency would need to rely on its own resources to investigate, and coordinate with the federal agency responsible for the shooting. 

Although shootings by federal agents are rare in Milwaukee, they’re not unheard of. In 2017, task force officers from the city police departments of West Allis and Milwaukee were working alongside Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents to track down 32-year-old Jermaine Claybrooks as part of a drug investigation. WISN reported that Claybrooks sped away in his vehicle upon realizing that unmarked vehicles were attempting to block him in, crashing into a nearby tree. Officers said that Claybrooks appeared to be armed as they broke out his windows, and fired when they said he pointed a gun. 

Although local media and prosecutors focused on the DEA’s involvement, a DHS agent’s firearm was also inspected by investigators. More recently, DEA agents have supported arrest teams for immigration operations, including the team former Judge Dugan confronted outside her courtroom last year. 

The Claybrooks investigation was handled by an early version of MAIT called the Milwaukee County Suburban Investigations Team, with the Wauwatosa Police Department serving as the lead agency. Later that year, prosecutors decided against charging the officers who shot Claybrooks. Although this earlier iteration of MAIT did investigate a shooting involving federal agents, the team in its current form would not step in. 

Brower said that at the very least, he’d expect MPD to “at least attempt” to conduct a serious investigation. During his town hall, Brower said that law enforcement officials expressed doubts that prosecutors would be able to secure a conviction against federal agents who kill local residents during immigration operations. “OK, that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t try,” he said. 

A community preparing itself

On Wednesday, local elected officials will host a bilingual ICE awareness community discussion at the Sister Joel Read Conference Center on the campus of Alverno College. Dubbed the “Safety in Numbers: Protecting Our Historically Immigrant South Side” meeting, the discussion will provide residents another opportunity to share their concerns about immigration enforcement, and prepare for a surge in Milwaukee.

“As an immigrant-rich community, the South Side deserves clear, accurate information and reassurance that our local institutions are focused on safety, dignity, and the rule of law,” said Ald. Peter Burgelis. “This meeting is about empowering residents with knowledge, connecting them to trusted resources, and making sure people know they are not alone.” 

County Supervisor Sky Capriolo said in a statement that “community safety starts with transparency and trust.” Capriolo said that “by bringing people together and sharing accurate information, we can reduce fear, combat misinformation, and strengthen our neighborhoods.” MPD Chief Jeffrey Norman, Milwaukee County Sheriff Danita Ball, and representatives from Voces de la Frontera and the Milwaukee Turners will also attend the Wednesday community meeting. 

Tamping down on misinformation has been a growing concern in Milwaukee, with unverified rumors of ICE agents roaming the city having floated around since January. The city and county governments in Milwaukee have also created Know Your Rights resource webpages. 

“Our South Side is strong because of its diversity and deep sense of community,” Zamparripa said in a statement ahead of the Wednesday meeting. “This conversation is about standing together, ensuring residents know their rights, and reinforcing that Milwaukee is a city that values all of its people.” 

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An effort to limit the Milwaukee Common Council’s ability to shape police and fire department policy passed an Assembly vote Thursday, in the form of an amendment to a completely unrelated bill. If the measure becomes law, the council would need a unanimous vote before suspending or modifying police or fire department policy. 

The amendment was offered by Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) on Thursday, as lawmakers undertook a lengthy Assembly floor session voting on legislation. Although the amendment falls in line with past Republican moves to weaken the control local government has over law enforcement, it was attached to a bill completely unrelated to that issue. 

Donovan’s amendment was attached to a Republican bill framed as granting parents and guardians more access to medical records of minor children. The bill, among other things, would eliminate the ability for children who are at least 14 years old to contest release of their mental health records and the results of HIV testing to their parents or guardians. 

Nothing about the bill Donovan attached his amendment to involves common councils setting policy for police and fire departments. Yet this sort of maneuver was not unheard of in the lead up to the Assembly floor vote on Thursday. Republican lawmakers also amended a bill regarding hunting sandhill cranes to include provisions covering wake boat regulations. Another bill designed to provide additional court support statewide was amended to selectively remove additional public defenders from Milwaukee County. 

It’s also not the first time Republicans worked to disrupt the ability of officials in Milwaukee to oversee the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD). In 2023, after failing to pass bills backed by the Milwaukee Police Association aimed at preventing the city from ever reducing its police force and removing, forcing Milwaukee Public Schools to re-adopt school resource officers, and eliminating the policy-setting power over MPD that the Fire and Police Commission (FPC) had enjoyed for decades, Republican leaders attached those same provisions to a shared revenue deal which Milwaukee County needed in order to avoid a fiscal catastrophe.

Since the passage of the deal, FPC members and local activists alike have decried the attack on the FPC’s ability to oversee the police department. In lieu of setting policy, the FPC is able to make policy recommendations to the common council, an alternative avenue Donovan’s amendment is tailored to close.

Although the amended bill passed the Assembly, it now needs to pass in the Senate, and then to the governor’s desk. It’s unclear if the bill will gain Senate support, where several organizations have lobbied against it.

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If your local court is struggling with a backlog of cases then help is on the way — except for people living in Milwaukee County. Although initially included in a Republican effort to fund more legal staff statewide, Milwaukee was largely removed from a bill authorizing additional circuit court and criminal justice system positions, in a move both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have said was purely political. 

On Thursday, lawmakers voted to pass the Assembly version of that bill (AB 514) during an Assembly floor session. Under its original form — authored by Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Gillett) and Rep. David Steffens (R-Howard) — the bill would have provided Milwaukee County with funding for four assistant district attorney positions, four assistant state public defender positions, and six support staff positions for the Public Defender’s Office by 2028. 

That aid is sorely needed in Milwaukee, where courts are burdened by thousands of unresolved cases, Wisconsin Watch reported. The backlog creates situations where cases are dismissed, people are held in custody for excessive periods waiting for trial, and attorneys on both sides of cases are overwhelmed. “Justice delayed, justice denied,” is how Kent Lovern, Milwaukee County’s District Attorney, described the backlog’s consequences. Yet in late January, the bill was amended to cut assistance for Milwaukee except for additional assistant prosecutor positions. 

When questioned about the cuts during an early February Senate hearing, Steffens said “there were certain things that had to be done” in order to get unanimous support for the bill among his fellow Republicans. Other counties, including Waukesha, Green Bay, Menomonee, Kenosha, Richland, Sauk, Ozaukee, Washington, Jefferson, Eau Claire, and numerous others didn’t see cuts in the number of additional public defenders the bill supports. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, courts across the state have battled backlogs and staffing shortages. In August 2025, Wisconsin Watch reported, there was a backlog of 12,586 felony cases across the entire Wisconsin court system. Currently, according to Wisconsin Watch, there are over 10,000 unresolved felony cases in Milwaukee County’s court system.

Answering questions from Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), Steffens explained that the original bill was designed based on clear and “clinical” needs assessments. “However,” said Steffens, “there does become a period where politics sometimes gets involved. And the substitute that was passed, again unanimously in the Assembly, did reflect some of those political pressures.” Instead of ensuring Milwaukee’s justice system gets the resources it needs now, Steffens said there would be “a continued opportunity through the next budget” to accomplish that.

“People have different positions on things all the time, and we have to respond to that as bill authors,” said Steffens. “I will say this, though, with every piece of legislation we introduce we have an opportunity to do nothing, something, or everything. This is quite something. This will be the largest increase in well over 15 years for these positions. The people who have been working on this look at this as a historic opportunity. If you are looking for perfection in this bill, you will not find it.”

Steffens declined to say which Republican lawmakers did not want to support Milwaukee County’s court system.

In a statement to Wisconsin Examiner, State Public Defender Jennifer Bias stressed the need for more defense attorneys in the court system. “Wisconsin has a dire need for more public defender staff statewide,” Bias said in an emailed statement. “Even in its amended form, this bill is a big step in the right direction and has the full support of our agency.”

On the Assembly floor Thursday evening, Steffens said that over his nearly 12 years in the legislature, he has worked with the Republican majority (which he noted has maintained “nearly uninterrupted control” for 30 years) to pass new crime laws or measures to enhance existing crime laws hundreds of times. Steffens said he was unaware of how this would shape the court system, and that the thousands of case backlogs is a sign that he and other lawmakers have failed the court system. He recounted hearing about a man in the Brown County Jail, who claimed he was innocent, and spent over a year waiting his case to conclude. As a result, he lost his job, his wife, and his job.

“That’s not justice,” said Steffens. “The Constitution guarantees that every person shall be provided with a speedy trial. We’ve been denying that to people throughout this state. In Brown County alone, we have a backlog of 8,000 cases.” Steffens added, “I’m trying to make up for my errors, my failure as a legislator, and I hope you’ll join me.”

Recalling a colleague who said that the bill “is the cost of being a law and order state,” he declared, “it’s time to pay that bill, and we’re going to do it by hiring these people. So I hope you’ll all join me in supporting this bipartisan piece of legislation and making a substantial step forward in restoring some measure of justice for all the people in Wisconsin.”

After Steffens spoke a voice vote was called on the bill. Some lawmakers very audibly yelled “no!” but were unable to stop the bill from passing and being messaged to the Senate. 

Safety and support for everyone, except if you live in Milwaukee

“We see time and time again that Milwaukee County is blamed for its criminal activity,” Johnson said in frustration during an interview earlier this week. “We’re blamed for the rise in crime in other suburban areas, and other surrounding areas in Milwaukee, but this is a clear indication of why that continues to happen. Because when we have opportunities such as this…And I’m upset that other counties are getting these resources. If they need them, they deserve them. Milwaukee deserves those same measures of safety and security, too.” A spokesperson for Steffens said that he was unavailable for comment, and Wimberger’s office didn’t respond to Wisconsin Examiner’s request. 

Johnson said that the motivation to cut Milwaukee out of the court support bill stemmed from a conflict involving the district attorney’s office, public defender’s office and a court watch group called Enough Is Enough. The group is dedicated to Erin Mogensen, a 32-year-old Shorewood woman who was pregnant when a driver crashed into and killed her in 2023. Enough Is Enough monitors similar cases in the court system, and has issued reports suggesting that judges delivered sentences in reckless driving and fleeing cases that were more lenient than what prosecutors recommended. 

Last fall, two regional managers of the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office issued a letter to judges in the Milwaukee County Circuit Court’s criminal division accusing Enough Is Enough of being little more than “an extension of the DA’s office,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The defenders obtained 258 emails from a public records request, showing “extensive meetings” between members of Enough Is Enough and the Milwaukee County DA’s office. Current and former assistant district attorneys were involved in the meetings, and even worked to review and draft letters from Enough Is Enough addressed to the judiciary. The public defenders warned the judges to consider this when evaluating impact statements or the presence of Enough Is Enough. 

Both the group and the DA’s office pushed back against the public defenders’ accusations, the Journal Sentinel reported. Lovern acknowledged that he was approached by the group’s members in 2024, when he announced his bid for district attorney after John Chisholm retired. By the time Lovern became DA, Enough Is Enough had obtained 501(c)3 status. Lovern said he offered the group access where appropriate and assistance from his office. 

Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) jumped to the group’s defense, accusing the public defender’s office of trying to intimidate and discredit what Donovan called a “volunteer” and “grassroots” organization. Donovan had backed Enough Is Enough since its inception, has focused on the issue of  reckless driving in recent years, according to the Journal Sentinel. Donovan didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story. 

“When we talk about how things in this building can be political,” Johnson told the Wisconsin Examiner, speaking of the state Capitol, “this is a perfect example of a petty argument between two factions of the court system can be interjected by somebody in the state Legislature that just takes this argument to a whole new [level].” 

The decision to strip the public defender positions from Milwaukee will only worsen the court backlog, Johnson said. “So you’re going to make things more complicated simply because you’re being petty,” she told the Examiner. “And what really pisses me off is the fact that we know in this building that if the rest of the state is taken care of with their needs, and the only entity that has a need is Milwaukee County, it will not get met. Because we’ve seen them slight Milwaukee County before…You don’t get to trump public safety for hundreds of thousands of people simply because you’re being petty, and petty politics is playing into this state Legislature, and their responsibility to an entire county.”

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On Friday, an administrative law judge upheld a permit issued by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources last year to allow the Canadian oil company Enbridge to build 41 miles of new pipeline in northern Wisconsin. The current rerouted path for Enbridge’s Line 5 would mean that although the pipeline would avoid the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa reservation, it would still go through the Bad River’s watershed. 

The judge’s decision is likely to be appealed, and the Bad River Band is continuing to challenge the pipeline project in federal court. But the approval of the DNR’s permit came as a blow to environmental advocates working alongside the Band to challenge Line 5. 

Evan Feinauer, an attorney with Clean Wisconsin, said that “despite this ruling, the evidence presented during the hearing remains undeniable: Enbridge’s Line 5 reroute poses significant long-term risks to wetlands, waterways, and treaty-protected resources in northern Wisconsin.” Feinauer said in a statement that “experts testified that the DNR underestimated ecological impacts, relied on an inadequate monitoring plan, and overlooked Enbridge’s troubling history of environmental violations. This decision does not erase those facts.”

John Petroskey, a senior attorney with Earthjustice, also said that the judge’s decision ignored “strong evidence that the DNR broke the law when it approved the Line 5 reroute.” Petroskey added, “Enbridge’s project threatens permanent damage to the Band’s treaty-protected water, plants, and medicines, all for the enrichment of a foreign oil pipeline company. The Band will continue to fight to protect their interests and halt construction.”

Rob Lee, senior staff attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates, said that while the decision was disappointing, “it does not diminish our resolve or end our responsibility to protect Wisconsin’s waters from the irreversible harm this project threatens to cause.” Lee continued, “the record in this case is clear, and our work is far from over. Based on the significant legal issues presented and the strength of the record, we believe there is a strong basis for appellate review, and we are considering all appropriate next steps.”

Other environmental groups and tribal allies expressed that they remain determined to keep fighting Line 5. “Ultimately, this doesn’t change the fact that Line 5 must be shut down to protect the Great Lakes and our climate,” said Elizabeth Ward, chapter director of the Sierra Club – Wisconsin. Debta Cronmiller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, said that standing up to Line 5 is in line with the group’s values of protecting sensitive environments, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, advancing renewable energy and supporting tribal rights. 

“Every effort to oppose the construction of new pipeline infrastructure builds power in the broader movement to end our reliance on dirty fossil fuels,” said Emily Park, co-executive director of 350 Wisconsin. “Instead of facilitating more carbon emissions, we should be investing in renewable energy, sustainable transportation, and technologies that will help us transition to a clean energy future.” 

Environmental groups and the Bad River Band are pushing for Line 5 to be shut down, with a court-imposed deadline for their case set in June. The reroute project would involve blasting and horizontal drilling through at least 186 waterways and 101 acres of high-quality wetlands which drain into Lake Superior.

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To the beat of a ceremonial drum, flags representing Wisconsin’s 11 Indigenous nations streamed into the State Assembly Tuesday, carried by military veterans who are regarded as warriors in their tribal communities. Their families and loved ones, many also dressed in traditional regalia, watched from the gallery above during the 2026 State of the Tribes Address.

Chairwoman Nicole Boyd  of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians thanked her relatives, community members and lawmakers from both political parties for assembling in the ornate room. Boyd’s community lies six hours north of north of the Capitol in the northernmost point of Wisconsin on Lake Superior and within “the ceded territory of the Ojibwi Nations,” the Chairwoman said. 

“Today, you will learn of my beliefs and values and why I think education is the key to making tribal nations in Wisconsin great,” said Boyd. “I intend to reflect on the work our tribal nations accomplished in 2025, and to set a course for the milestones we will celebrate in the future. We are ready to work hard. And we expect that same dedication from our state partners.”

Boyd spoke of “trust” and “responsibility” in the 250-year-old legal relationships tribal communities have with the U.S. government, including court decisions reaffirming tribal sovereignty and the treaties that ceded “millions of acres of our land in this region,” Boyd said. “But for the original inhabitants of this land, the Anishinaabe, trust-responsibility has much deeper meaning. The Anishinaabe were brought to this Earth by the Creator for a greater purpose: To caretake for this place, the people, and all beings. To ensure it now, and for many generations to come. We are not here simply to take. Our ancestors knew this, they fought for this, and they left us the teachings of reciprocity.”

Boyd said that “wealth is not solely defined by monetary value and material items.” Her elders often reminded her that “we’re the richest people on this Earth because we have everything needed to survive from the Anishinaabe Walmart,” a reference to the land and water that has provided Indigenous people with shelter and sustenance for generations. Boyd shared a traditional story that the Anishinaabe once had an abundance of sweet syrup that would flow from the sugar maples in the forests, a gift from the Creator so that they could fulfil their caretaking responsibilities. But one day, the Creator visited the people and found that the Anishinaabe had over-indulged in the syrup and were sleeping lazily under the maple tree. The Creator decided to water down the syrup, causing the people to labor more to get the final product they craved. 

“To this day, the gathering of this bountiful resource from the Anishinaabe Walmart is a lengthy lesson-learning process,” said Boyd. “Some years we have bountiful harvests, and other years we do not. We believe this is a result of many factors, including how well we are taking care of the resource and our responsibilities. We have ecological knowledge about all of our abundant resources in the Anishinaabe Walmart. Yet, when we want to share our views on why we will protect our water, air, land and beans at all costs we continue to be considered radical, or less than our equal counterparts. We could show all the evidence or research in the world, and still be considered wrong. Meaningful diligence is more than just checking a consultation box. It is taking the time to truly understand the impact of something in the past, now and in the future. That is the legal, fiscal, and moral obligation we all must balance together.”

Boyd asked whether tribal communities were wrong to weigh in on changing a national lakeshore to a national park, or to push back when a major oil pipeline project is re-locating near the largest and most pristine aquifer in the region, connected to the Bad River watershed. Boyd asked, “Why is it wrong to expect that feasibility of projects of this magnitude be ecologically sound, and ensure the water will be protected?”

Each time the chairwoman finished a major point, the Assembly parlor would erupt with cheering and applause from tribal members and Assembly Democrats. Republican lawmakers, however, appeared mostly disengaged from the speech with many refusing to applaud, checking their phones frequently, or leaning over to joke and laugh in one another’s ears after Boyd’s remarks. Nevertheless, Boyd pressed on. 

“Your great great grandchildren will not be righting wrongs if you choose this path,” said Boyd. She encouraged people in the room who are unfamiliar with the issues she brought up  to watch the documentary “Bad River: A Story of Defiance.” “I guarantee that you will understand that ‘water is life’ is not a slogan, it’s why we exist,” she said.

Boyd praised Gov. Tony Evers for increasing collaboration with tribal communities. She asked that wild rice be made the state native grain, as it’s been in Minnesota since 1997 and in Michigan since 2003. She said she  hopes the Legislature will take it up during the next session. She also highlighted tribal gaming as a key part of Wisconsin’s economy. Boyd highlighted how the NFL draft, held in Green Bay in cooperation with tribal communities, brought $125 million to Wisconsin. Yet, a lot of sports betting revenue is lost to unregulated and even illegal platforms which operate outside of Wisconsin, and even outside of the U.S. Wisconsin tribes’ efforts to find  a way to regulate and legalize mobile sports betting platforms would help secure even more revenue for Wisconsin, while creating a safer environment for consumers, Boyd said. 

Health care access is another major issue for tribal communities. Boyd said that tribal nations in Wisconsin own 11 qualified health care providers, and have seen decreases in drug overdose deaths. Some tribal communities have been able to build new health care and fitness facilities, with millions of dollars worth of investments supporting the efforts. Yet, drug and alcohol abuse, as well as access to mental health treatment, are top concerns for tribal communities, as are high rates of suicide. Boyd also called on the Legislature to look closely at gun regulation, saying that in some places children are afraid to go to school because of fear of being shot. Assembly Democrats applauded Boyd, while Republican lawmakers held their applause or appeared distracted. 

Boyd also called on the Legislature to take on flavored vape pens which have grown in popularity among youth. “Kids are being expelled and they are experiencing permanent health damage,” said Boyd. Broadening access to healthy food and treatment to prevent and fight cancer are also key areas for the tribes. Boyd herself recounted having lost two uncles, her father, a father-in-law and many community members to cancer since 2024. 

Food sovereignty and independence, as well as supporting local economies based on food, was another issue she highlighted. Tribal communities produce nuts, fish, bison, maple syrup, rice and many other goods which support Wisconsin’s economy. To many tribal communities, food is also medicine, and having access to healthy and culturally appropriate food is something they hold close to their hearts. 

At one point in her speech, Boyd described what life is like “north of Highway 29,” both the successes and challenges. Although tribal communities have made great strides reducing overdose deaths, they’ve also seen a sharp decline in the number of narcotics investigators dedicated to northern Wisconsin. In 2013 there were four resident narcotic investigators from the state Department of Justice, Boyd said. In 2022 there were only three, and today there are none. Access to emergency medical services is another thing tribal communities hope to work with lawmakers to expand. “We need your partnership,” said Boyd.

Boyd praised Evers for acknowledging the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, a remark which earned applause from both Democrats and Republicans. Tuesday was the last time Evers would attend a State of the Tribes Address as governor. Boyd said that the newly established state Office of Violence Prevention is a good start, but not enough. Women hold important roles in Indigenous communities as the givers of life and matriarchs of their tribes, she said. On Tuesday for her address, Boyd chose to wear strawberry-colored clothing, symbolic of the moon under which her daughter was born. 

Boyd called on the Legislature to make greater investments in education, cultural immersion schools and professionals trained in language. She  called on the Legislature to consider establishing free school lunch programs for children, another remark which earned standing ovations and applause from Democrats but not Republicans. She also pushed for expanded access to higher education, with just 1.6% of college students in Wisconsin being from a tribal community, she said.

She thanked the Department of Transportation for creating dual-language signs around tribal nations, and for establishing a Ho Chunk World War II Memorial highway. Finally, Boyd also called on the Legislature to work together to finally legalize cannabis in Wisconsin. The chairwoman stressed that over 60% of voters want legalization, and that there is great interest among tribal communities to use this “plant medicine” for pain, PTSD, and other chronic ailments. “Wisconsinites are beyond ready and growing more impatient with lawmakers every day on this topic,” Boyd said.

In conclusion, Boyd said that tribes have worked hard to shield themselves from what she called “attacks on human decency” from militarized federal immigration raids as well as increased surveillance and cuts to essential services including  SNAP and Head Start. “Wisconsin is our home,” said Boyd. “The motivation to protect our home may never be relatable to some…I urge us to be vigilant and not surrender our values.”

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Disaster relief for six Wisconsin counties inundated by historic flooding back in August has again been denied by the federal government. It’s the second time that Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Grant, Milwaukee, Door and Grant counties have been denied assistance from the Trump administration since the floods drowned parks, damaged homes and trapped people in their cars in the middle of the night. 

This latest denial was in response to an appeal filed by Gov. Tony Evers in November, after the first denial came from  the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). At the time, Evers stressed that the extreme storms had left over $26.5 million in disaster costs. 

In a statement Monday, Evers called the new denial “completely unsatisfactory,” saying that the Trump administration  had again denied the  relief for Wisconsin “without any explanation” and calling for the decision to be reversed. “Wisconsinites have been hard at work to build back from these historic flooding events, but folks are not out of the woods yet,” said Evers. “Efforts to rebuild will cost tens of millions of taxpayer dollars that local communities will be on the hook for, and it’s really disappointing to see our federal leadership turn their backs on Wisconsin, our families, and our communities in our time of need. We will continue to advocate to the Trump Administration and our federal partners that Wisconsin needs these resources to rebuild and recover, and we will continue to do what we can to support our local partners however we can in the meantime.” 

FEMA’s letter to Evers said that assistance “is not warranted,” but does not otherwise explain the rationale for the denial. 

Evers declared a state of emergency on Aug. 11, as communities across Wisconsin picked themselves up from the storms. A ceaseless downpour began on Aug. 9, though the extent of the flooding wasn’t apparent to many until after the sun went down. In Milwaukee County, the Wisconsin State Fair had to close early as people fled the grounds in waist-high water. People who traveled the roads that evening found themselves trapped by floodwaters, requiring rescue from local authorities and neighbors. 

Swaths of Hart Park in Wauwatosa were left underwater, and the storm’s aftermath left neighborhoods strewn with downed trees and abandoned vehicles. Flooding also challenged emergency response in Waukesha County, though no injuries or missing persons reports had been received by the sheriff’s department. In Milwaukee, reports of people missing from homeless encampments emerged in the days after the floods. 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley called the denial for disaster relief “deeply disappointing” in a statement Monday. “My administration has worked to rebuild and recover after last summer’s historic storms and flooding,” said Crowley. “Without federal assistance, the financial burden of these public infrastructure repairs falls to local governments to cover. Communities rely on intergovernmental partnerships in times of crisis, and this decision by the Trump administration erodes that public trust. To move forward, my administration will continue working with the State of Wisconsin, our municipalities, and community partners to identify responsible funding solutions to rebuild our roads, bridges, parks, and public buildings. Our residents should not be forced to shoulder the full cost of disasters beyond their control, and we will continue advocating for the resources our community deserves.”

Leaders from the other counties, most of them Republican-leaning, that were denied disaster relief have not commented. The executives for Door, Washington, and Ozaukee counties could not be reached and Robert Keeney, the county board chairman for Grant County, refused to comment on the denial. 

Hillary Mintz, public information officer for Waukesha County, told Wisconsin Examiner that the county was disappointed by the denial. Although Mintz expressed gratitude that federal assistance for individual residents was approved by the Trump Administration, she explained that the county had estimated in the fall that an additional $300,000 in public repairs would also be needed. Mintz said that Waukesha County is working out how to plug that gap, but that its needs may not be as severe as some communities in Milwaukee, which are still dealing with storm damage.

This article has been updated with comment from Waukesha County.

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A years-long debate over the use of facial recognition software by the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) came to a head at a contentious Thursday meeting of the city’s Fire and Police Commission (FPC) attended by more than 60 local residents. Over the course of questioning, stretching late into the evening hours, commissioners learned from MPD leadership that the department had continued using facial recognition software, even as a draft policy to put guardrails on the technology was still being developed outside of the FPC’s control. 

By meeting’s end, FPC vice chairwoman Bree Spencer expressed a desire for the commission to consider finding some way to push for a pause to MPD’s use of facial recognition software, though the FPC itself did not take any immediate formal action. Less than 24 hours later, MPD Chief Jeffrey Norman announced that the department would ban the use of facial recognition technology, and discontinue its efforts to acquire permanent access to the technology. 

During the Thursday meeting, Norman and his staff were grilled by FPC commissioners after hours of impassioned public testimony. The sweltering meeting room was packed almost shoulder-to-shoulder, with every seat taken and people standing along the wall in spaces not already taken by the local news station’s bulky cameras. Many others waited in the hallway, as an overflow room had not been set up.

One by one, local residents expressed a variety of grievances about facial recognition. Some decried MPD’s prior use of software without disclosure to the public or FPC, while others expressed fears about how the technology could be used against Milwaukeeans by what many called an authoritarian federal government. 

Paul Smith, a member of the Oneida Nation who serves on Milwaukee’s Equal Rights Commission, was the first to speak. Smith described how his relatives had been among the first to come down from the Oneida reservation to Milwaukee seeking factory work. “We are also people who have to carry two IDs all the time,” said Smith. He suggested that facial recognition and other camera technologies are methods the government uses to track people it considers enemies. 

“I live in fear every day,” said Smith, describing how his heart rate accelerates when he drives out of Milwaukee County. Smith added that facial recognition technology is unreliable.  “My dad can use my phone because his face looks like mine,” he said.  “These cameras don’t work and they punish people, and there’s no presumption of innocence when you’re being watched all the time.”

Nadiyah Johnson, founder and CEO of the Milky Way Tech Hub, highlighted the notoriously high error rates facial recognition software has for people of color. Johnson said that federal tests have shown false positive rates as much as 10 to 100 times higher for Black people. “I’m sure that we all can understand why that would be a problem for the city of Milwaukee,” said Johnson. She added that “guardrails do not fix the core problem.” 

When surveillance infrastructure is created, Johnson said, the scope of who is targeted expands. She and other community members who spoke brought up Flock license plate reader cameras which, like facial recognition, are AI-powered and a top concern for many who attended Thursday night’s FPC meeting. Flock has attracted criticism for being used for vague or unlawful reasons by police, and for leaving some feeds exposed on the open internet. “This is not a future concern, this is already happening nationally,” said Johnson. “The public cannot meaningfully consent to systems we can not see, audit, or challenge.”

Amanda Merkwae, advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, recounted her attempts to learn more about MPD’s use of facial recognition by filing open records requests. After waiting five months and threatening to sue, the ACLU was sent a response that the MPD does not track requests made for use of facial recognition in individual investigations. When the city’s IT department ran an email search, the term “facial recognition” appeared in 196,688 emails from 2020-2025. 

When the ACLU narrowed the request to 16 cases which MPD cited in presentations to city commissions, they found that “in a handful of those cases” which had been “hand picked” by MPD for those presentations, “the police reports did not mention [Facial Recognition Technology] at all,” Merkwae told the FPC. “In conversations with some defense attorneys, it appears that [Facial Recognition Technology] use was not turned over to the defense in discovery in some cases,” said Merkwae. “In cases where attorneys filed pre-trial motions to get insight into the notoriously racially biased [Facial Recognition Technology] algorithms, they hit a brick wall because that information is proprietary.” 

In its presentations to city officials, MPD had said that facial recognition helped identify suspects in cases including sexual assault and shooting investigations.

Much of the public testimony Thursday focused on the potential for surveillance technologies to harm democracy. Speakers focused on the immigration crackdown in Minnesota, where thousands of people have been arrested and two people killed by federal agents. Videos posted online show immigration agents taking pictures of protesters, legal observers and vehicles, using facial recognition technology to identify detainees, and taunting members of the public by saying their pictures were going to be uploaded to a database of  domestic terrorists. An immigrants’ rights group recently discovered what it describes as a watchlist of immigration attorneys created by ICE.

Taleavia Cole and her husband Caliph Muab-El have experienced police surveillance after protesting the killing of Cole’s brother Alvin. Several of Cole’s family members, their lawyers and dozens of others were placed on a list created by the Wauwatosa Police Department. The list, which also included a Wisconsin Examiner reporter, was shared with numerous state, local, and federal agencies and was also referred to by police as a “target list”.

Muab-El said Black and brown communities have been used as test subjects for surveillance and militarized policing. This is how he views MPD’s deal with the data company Biometrica, which has offered to trade 2.5 million jail and booking photos from Milwaukee for MPD to have access to facial recognition software. 

“We’re talking about people,” said Muab-El. “And when we’re talking about people, we need to focus on the things that are most important for people to thrive in circumstances like this. Everything in our society and our community has been gutted from us almost. The resources are very scarce already…To institute something like this that will exacerbate the circumstances of our already falling and broken-in-pieces communities is definitely an attack on justice on our people.” 

He stressed that “anybody can be misidentified at any time,” and that the city will not be able to prevent federal agencies from accessing the data it collects using facial recognition software. “No one is safe,” said Muab-El. “Bystanders who believe in justice and the cause of people, these people are going to become more vulnerable. These attacks are going to become more prevalent…They’re going to become more intense.”

Cole recounted her own experiences of being placed on the target list, and her belief that even her family’s phone calls were being monitored. “So whose side are you on is the real question, because someday it could be your family member,” she said. “And next thing you know, they want to know what you know, what you’re saying, what you’re doing. Like you’re a criminal, like you’re nobody.” 

Testimony went on for several hours, pausing for a presentation on facial recognition technology from the New York University Law School Policing Project. The presenters said that while facial recognition can assist law enforcement investigations, the technology also carries serious constitutional and civil risks. Whether a city or town uses facial recognition software should be a decision made by the entire community, the presenters said, adding that having guardrails to prevent abuse of the technology is important. 

Late in the meeting, after many people had left, Chief Norman and MPD staff provided an update and took questions from the FPC. Norman said a draft policy his department’s use of facial recognition technology had not yet been finalized, and that he was “slow walking” the process to get as much input as possible. He stressed that facial recognition software is used to develop leads, and cannot be used as the sole basis for establishing probable cause for an arrest. The department had also begun logging uses of facial recognition, but those records only captured uses since 2024. 

Under sharp questioning from FPC Commissioner Krissie Fung the commission learned that MPD had continued using facial recognition technology even as the drafting of a policy was ongoing. Some sort of of a draft policy — described by Fung as a “draft of a draft of a draft” — appeared to have been viewed by at least some members of the city’s common council, but not the FPC. 

Although several commissioners expressed concerns about facial recognition technology and MPD’s deal with Biometrica, the FPC’s power to do anything about it is limited, since the Republican-controlled Legislature had worked to eliminate the FPC’s policy-making powers for the Milwaukee police. The debate over the use of facial recognition software in Milwaukee had gone on since last year, with members of the public speaking against its adoption consistently and in great numbers. Spencer, the FPC’s vice-chairwoman, said that the public shouldn’t have to attend more meetings to say the same things, and that her own trust in the department on the issue had eroded. 

In a statement issued Friday, Heather Hough, Norman’s chief of staff, said the police department understands “the public concern, particularly in light of national circumstances…Despite our belief that this is useful technology…we recognize that public trust is far more valuable.” Hough’s statement continued, “therefore, effective immediately, Chief (Jeffrey) Norman will issue a department directive banning the use of facial recognition for all members.” 

Hough said that MPD will continue work on creating a policy, but will not use facial recognition technology until that process is complete. While MPD appeared to be responding to the public outcry, the Milwaukee Police Association (the department’s union) said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned and disappointed” by the decision to restrict facial recognition technology. The police association was also irked by recent restrictions on vehicle pursuits saying that both policy shifts do not “eliminate crime or danger,” but instead “risks shifting that danger onto Milwaukee residents and the officers sworn to protect them.” 

The union’s statement described facial recognition as “an investigative tool that can assist detectives in generating leads in violent crime cases. It does not replace traditional police work or serve as a basis for arrest without further investigation. When used responsibly and with appropriate safeguards, this technology can help identify violent offenders, support victims, and improve case clearance rates.”

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Democratic lawmakers gathered at the Capitol Monday to announce their latest attempt to legalize recreational cannabis in Wisconsin. “Across the country, the cannabis debate is over,” Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee) said during a morning press conference, adding that “40 states and Washington D.C. have legalized cannabis in some form.” That group includes Wisconsin’s neighbors Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota. Yet Wisconsin continues a complete cannabis prohibition.

This is not a reality Wisconsinites have chosen for themselves;  two-thirds of Wisconsin voters who responded to a Marquette Poll in 2025 said that they wanted to see the cannabis plant legalized. “The will of the people is clear on this issue,” said Madison. “And today, we’re acting on it.”

Democrats in the state Legislature are aiming to fully legalize cannabis for responsible adult use, including a medicinal cannabis program. “Legalizing cannabis in Wisconsin is an economic necessity, a public safety strategy and a racial justice imperative,” said Madison. Using the state’s hemp industry as an example, Madison said that entrepreneurs built out a cannabis supply chain with hemp as its bedrock after the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. As a result, Wisconsinites began buying  hemp-derived products including  smokeable flower, beverages, vapes and edibles. 

“That industry now supports 3,500 jobs, and contributes $700 million to Wisconsin’s economy,” said Madison. All of that is at risk of completely vanishing after the federal government changed course by imposing THC limits on hemp products growers and distributors say are biologically impossible to achieve. Currently several bills with differing visions of how to regulate hemp in Wisconsin are circulating among Wisconsin lawmakers, with a deadline set by the federal government for businesses to either adapt or shut down coming up in November. 

Madison stressed that full legalization would both protect a thriving industry and generate revenue. “Wisconsin would raise nearly $300 million annually once the market is fully up and running,” Madison said, citing an analysis by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. “That’s hundreds of millions of dollars we are currently leaving on the table or worse, exporting to other states, while pretending that prohibition still works. We all know that it doesn’t. And nowhere is that failure clearer than in our criminal legal system.” Madison said, adding that in 2018, four out of every 10 drug arrests nationally were for cannabis. 

While Black and white Americans use cannabis at similar rates, Black people were more than five times as likely to be arrested for cannabis than white people in 2022, Madison said. He pointed to Ozaukee County, where Black residents were 34.9 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis, and Manitowoc County where Black residents were 29.9 times more likely to face cannabis-related arrests. Madison said that both counties rank in the top five nationally for racial disparities in cannabis arrests.

“Let’s be honest,” said Madison. “That is not about public safety,” he said. “That is about policy choices that criminalize Blackness, criminalize poverty, and criminalize entire communities. The idea that we can incarcerate our way to safe communities is a lie. And cannabis has been one of the most effective tools for enforcing that lie.” Madison called on Wisconsin to replace a failed punishment model with evidence-based regulations that would help enrich communities instead of harming them for generations. 

Mike Sickler, co-owner of TerraSol Brands, echoed the call for legalization. “We did not invent the demand, but we are here to respond to it,” said Sickler. The federal hemp ban shook the hemp industry, he said, spreading fear and confusion. “What is frustrating is that the solution is right here in front of us,” said Sickler. “We already have the infrastructure, we already have the best practices in place, we already have the workforce, we already have the market. What does not exist is a clear state law that allows us to continue operating responsibly.” 

Phillip Scott, a hemp farmer and advocate for the industry, said that the federal hemp ban and the lack of a legalized cannabis industry in Wisconsin has removed certainty and stability for family farms and small business owners who saw a light at the end of the tunnel after the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. “These are not speculative businesses,” said Scott. “These are working farms, these are family farms, and they follow the law. But today, that certainty is gone.” Scott said that cannabis legalization is about jobs, rural economies, and “giving farmers clarity instead of chaos.” 

Scott said that farmers are not asking for special treatment, but rather a fair and stable transition for those who followed the law. “We are asking for reasonable access to a legal market, and we are asking for a system that doesn’t shut family farms out before they even get a chance.” 

“Legalization is about freedom,” said Rep. Andrew Hysell (D-Sun Prairie). “Wisconsin is an outlier in terms of denying people this freedom.” Hysell noted a 1974 decision from the Alaska Supreme Court that found that the state’s privacy rights included an individual’s right to use cannabis. “And here we are over half a century later, and no one has the freedom to buy marijuana in Wisconsin. Standing in the way of the people’s freedom is not good politics, almost 70% of Wisconsinites want full adult use legalization, and even more want medical.”

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A Flock camera on the Lac Courte Orielles Reservation in SawYer County. (Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner)

On Wednesday, work to remove a set of AI-powered, license plate reading Flock cameras from the City of Verona is expected to begin. Until then, local officials have chosen to physically cover the cameras, blocking their ability to monitor passing traffic. 

A lack of public trust not in the police department, but in the company Flock Safety, fueled the decision. Despite the Verona Common Council vote last fall not to renew the city’s contract with Flock, and the contract lapsing in December, the cameras have remained in place. 

Mayor Luke Diaz said the police department had made several requests to Flock for the cameras to be removed. “They weren’t removing them,” Diaz told the Wisconsin Examiner. “We kind of looked at the contract, talked it over amongst staff, and the thing we felt most comfortable with was just covering them so they could stop spying on people.”

“I’m 100% certain that they were still working,” Diaz said, adding that some other communities have had similar experiences with Flock refusing to remove unwanted cameras. “It could have been an accident, it could have been an oversight on their part, but I think it was deliberate,” Diaz told the Examiner.“Because I think that they want to keep the cameras up, whether they have permission or not.” 

Concerns about Flock cameras, which are equipped with AI-powered automatic license plate reader technology, are on the rise nationwide. The cameras take pictures of passing vehicles, storing them for up to 30 days in a database which organizes the images based on identifiable license plates and vehicle descriptions. Law enforcement agencies are able to search Flock’s network of images, including those captured in other parts of the country. 

Any Flock network could contain thousands or even millions of compiled law enforcement searches. Exactly why those searches are being done, however, isn’t always clear. An analysis of Flock audit data by the Wisconsin Examiner found that from January to May of 2025, Flock’s network was searched by 221 unique local and state law enforcement agencies. The most common search term turned out to be “investigation” without other context to determine the reason for  the search.

Some agencies used even vaguer terms such as “cooch,” “hunt,” or just “.”  After the Examiner’s first report on Flock, a Waukesha police officer who repeatedly used only a period to label Flock searches underwent re-training on proper use of the system. By contrast the West Allis Police Department, which used “.” to search Flock more than any other Wisconsin law enforcement agency from January to May 2025, admitted no wrongdoing and asserted that its officers are properly trained on the Flock system. Recently, 404 Media reported that law enforcement officers in some parts of the country have been advised to be as “vague as permissible” when entering reasons for using Flock’s network.

Other cases have also emerged involving officers outright misusing the Flock system. A Menasha police officer is currently facing charges of felony misconduct in public office for using Flock’s network to track a vehicle belonging to a private person while off duty. In Kenosha County, a sheriff’s deputy was accused of using Flock and a squad car tracking system called Polaris to stalk one of his co-workers. Similar cases of officers using Flock to stalk love interests or others have also surfaced, as well as at least one use of Flock by a Texas sheriff’s office in an abortion-related case. 

There are also fears about how the cameras can be used by the federal government to monitor local communities, especially for immigration enforcement. Those sorts of questions led Verona city officials to take a closer look at what their own police department’s Flock data revealed. In Minneapolis, immigration and border patrol agents have been involved in numerous clashes with local residents, raising concerns about monitoring of protesters and legal observers.

Just before Verona voted not to renew its contract with Flock, Verona Police Chief Dave Dresser tried to ease some of the public’s concerns. “The data’s only stored for 30 days, which is actually very restrictive,” said Dresser. “After 30 days, the data is purged. I believe there is misinformation that the data’s held for months and months or years, it’s not. It’s purged.” Dresser added, “we’ve opted out of sharing data with federal agencies, we understand the concerns there. We have revoked automatic access to our data from out of state agencies to address some of the privacy concerns.”

In a document outlining her own review of Verona’s Flock data, Ald. Beth Tucker Long stressed that “I am not against participation in the Flock network because I think our officers are doing anything inappropriate.” In fact, Tucker Long wrote, “I am very proud of our police force and I know that our officers conduct themselves with honor and integrity.” Tucker Long said that “Flock is not operating with integrity,” and focused on the federal government’s level of access. 

Within Verona’s Flock network there were 974 searches tagged as “federal” in October 2025, Tucker Long said, despite federal access to Flock having allegedly been cut off months before. Another 1,628 searches were done by organizations “self-identifying as ICE,” according to Tucker Long. “This does not include organizations that did not disclose that the searches were for ICE.” Over 5,700 Flock searches were done for “other image search,” which means that law enforcement did not search for a license plate, but rather used AI to search the full contents of an image. Tucker Long also pointed to nearly 1,100 searches which were logged as “Outside Assist,” implying that information was shared with another organization whose identity was not recorded in the system. 

When Flock first came to Verona, Diaz explained, there wasn’t much debate. Although Diaz couldn’t remember everything, he believes it was handled administratively as the sort of equipment request from the police department which wouldn’t necessarily come before the common council for approval. “I don’t think there was the awareness of the abuses the company Flock has made, and I think there’s a lot of stuff happening at the national level where it’s clear and obvious that we have a federal government that doesn’t believe in the Fourth Amendment, or the First Amendment, or the Fourteenth, and the Fifth. And that this Supreme Court isn’t going to stand up for the Constitution either, and so I think that’s created a lot of angst and awareness. And that people are looking around at these Flock things and saying these aren’t benign. They aren’t just like a helpful tool for the local police department. They’re a way for the feds to spy on our communities.” 

A Verona police spokesperson told the Examiner that the department is “committed to exploring other alternative tools and strategies” which will maintain the high standards city residents have come to expect. The spokesperson added that the department was encouraged that the decision to remove Flock was due to a lack of confidence in the multi-billion dollar company, and not the police department. 

This article has been edited to correct the name of Ald. Beth Tucker Long.

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Protesters gather in downtown Milwaukee to voice opposition to the actions of federal immigration agents. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Hundreds of people marched up State St. Friday from the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus to the Wisconsin State Capitol to protest federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota and across the country.

The anti-ICE protest was part of a day of action across the country organized in reaction to the recent killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents in Minneapolis, and the ongoing federal crackdown in Minnesota. Friday’s national shutdown — a day of no school, no work and no shopping — was called for by student groups and immigrant rights advocates in Minnesota.

“What do we want? ICE out. When do we want it? Now,” protesters bundled in coats, scarves, gloves and hats chanted as they marched in the 13-degree weather.

“This month, I watched our neighbors in Minneapolis fight ICE on days colder than this one with love and solidarity,” Halsey Hazzard, a co-chair of Madison Area Democratic Socialists of America and a UW-Madison library employee, told the crowd gathered on the steps of the Capitol. Hazzard said the Trump administration “fears” people “coming together, reaching out to one another and learning that love is stronger than fear.” 

Dozens of businesses in Wisconsin’s capital city showed solidarity by closing up shop or donating proceeds to advocacy groups in Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

People carried signs expressing their opposition to the actions federal immigration agents have  taken in Minnesota and elsewhere, including detaining children. “Children aren’t criminals. Trump is,” one sign declared.

Recently, the Trump administration came under fire for its detainment in Minnesota of 5-year-old Liam Ramos and Vice President J.D. Vance defended the action. Ramos remains in a detention facility in Texas.

“No fear! No hate! No ICE in our state!” the Madison marchers chanted.

“Immigrants Make America Great,” another sign stated.

One sign called out the only Republican in the open race for governor of Wisconsin, stating “Tom Tiffany Likes ICE.” Tiffany, the congressman who represents the Northwoods, said in the wake of the shooting of Pretti, who was an ICU nurse from Green Bay, that he would work with local, state and federal law enforcement to “remove criminal illegal aliens.” He urged Minnesota leaders to do the same.

“Cooperation is how you avoid tragic consequences. Deporting illegal aliens is how you make America safer. And waiting for the facts is how you avoid escalating the situation,” Tiffany said.

Pretti’s death prompted protests across the country, including in Green Bay, last weekend. 

Once the group made it to the Capitol, a number of speakers criticized the Trump administration and called for the elimination of ICE.

“Today, we are standing together to demand defund ICE,” Hazzard said.

“Defund ICE,” protesters echoed. 

“Not another dollar for ICE to terrorize our communities. We must strip ICE of its funding for both enforcement and detention. Abolish ICE. End the occupation of Minneapolis and all other cities,” Hazzard said.

A big crowd descends on Milwaukee’s Cathedral Park

Hundreds of people raised their voices in Milwaukee on Friday in opposition to a federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Trudging through  a  fresh coat of snow,  protesters streamed into Cathedral Square Park by the dozens. Activists from various local groups charged the crowd with a short round of speeches before taking to the streets for a march. 

Chanting “move ICE, get out the way;” “no ICE, no KKK, no Fascist USA,” and the names of Renee Good and Alex Pretti — two Minneapolis residents who were killed in separate incidents involving federal agents — the marchers filled the streets of downtown. The crowd of people of all ages from  young children to older seniors, passed the Federal Building of Milwaukee and City Hall before returning to the park. 

No violence, conflicts, or destruction occurred. A single drone was seen hovering over the march, and police presence was minimal.

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