MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin teenager charged in the deaths of his parents faces wider allegations that he killed them to “obtain the financial means” to assassinate President Donald Trump and overthrow […]
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The electric-versus-combustion debate isn’t just about performance or emissions anymore—it’s also about dependability. And according to Europe’s largest roadside assistance organization, the German Automobile Club (ADAC), electric cars might be quietly winning that fight.
More: The Most Reliable And Longest Lasting Used Cars
Its workers, sometimes known as “Yellow Angels” thanks to their bright uniforms, responded to more than 3.6 million breakdowns over the last year making this study. They recorded the details of each call, and that mountain of data shows that electric vehicles are breaking down less often than internal combustion cars.
EVs Show Fewer Breakdowns
For the first time in 2024, the ADAC said it had enough data to make a confident call on EV reliability, and that call favors electric. With another year of data behind them, the case has only grown stronger. While it responded to more EV calls for service than ever before, those accounted for just 43,678 out of the 3.6 million total or just 1.2%.
The organization pointed out in its recent study that the rise is likely due to the increased popularity of electric vehicles. In addition, the results should be more accurate since some of the EVs on the road are a year older now.
Crucially, 2024 marked the first year ADAC felt it had enough data to confidently say EVs were more reliable. With another year of records, that finding looks even stronger. “For cars first registered between 2020 and 2022, electric vehicles experienced 4.2 breakdowns per 1,000 vehicles,” German outlet Handelsblatt reports. For combustion cars in the same age range, that figure was 10.4.
Common Weak Spot For ICE and EVs
Interestingly, the most common issue for both types of propulsion was the same: the 12-volt batteries. They were the issue in 50 percent of the breakdowns for EVs and 45 percent of the breakdowns for combustion cars. In almost every single category over the last few years, combustion cars have seen more or equal issues when compared to EVs, including the electrical system, engine management, and lighting.
The one area where EVs seem to have more problems is when it comes to tires. Specifically, 1.3 calls for service out of 1000 were due to an EV with tire issues, while combustion cars saw just 0.9 in the same population. It’s worth pointing out that newer EVs do not seem to suffer from the same problem.
Of course, EVs are also devoid of potential ICE issues regardless of age. They don’t have oil to replace, nor the complex propulsion system that an internal combustion engine is, and as a result, they have fewer pieces that can break.
The ADAC acknowledges the challenges with comparing EVs and ICE cars at this point. The data is limited since all-electric vehicles just haven’t been around all that long, thus we can’t know just yet how reliable they’ll all be after they’re 10+ years old. Still, this is a good indication that EVs are improving and could indeed be a more practical mode of transportation, even when we ignore their effect on sustainability. For more detailed information.
Prisoners sit at the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, a mega-prison in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador, on April 4, 2025. The Trump administration has acknowledged mistakenly deporting a Maryland resident from El Salvador with protected status to the prison but is arguing against returning him to the U.S. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)
A disgraced former Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) officer was found to be linked to a high-profile deportation by the Trump Administration. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Charles Cross Jr. 62, signed a report that claimed Andry José Hernandez, 30, a gay Venezuelan citizen who worked as a make-up artist, was linked to the Tren de Aragua gang and cited his tattoos. Cross, now employed by the private prison company CoreCivic, left MPD under a cloud of conduct and credibility problems, which also landed him on the Brady list of untrustworthy officers maintained by the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office.
In 2012 when he held the rank of sergeant at MPD, Cross was fired after driving his car into a family’s home while he was intoxicated. Cross was allowed to resign after appealing the decision to the Fire and Police Commission (FPC). The Journal Sentinel also reports that Cross was being investigated for claiming overtime he allegedly hadn’t earned when he was fired from the department.
Prior to the crash, Cross had been placed on the Brady list after kicking in the door of an apartment shared with his girlfriend and threatening to kill himself with his service revolver. The incident, in 2007, cost him his job, but Cross was reinstated after appealing to the FPC. Four months after he separated from MPD in 2012, Cross was hired by CoreCivic, the Journal Sentinel reported.
According to court filings, Cross identified himself as an “investigator” in a form claiming Hernandez was part of Tren de Aragua, one of the gangs that the Trump administration says it is targeting through mass deportations and detentions of non-citizens. Hernandez had tattoos depicting crowns with the words “dad” and “mom.” Hernandez’s attorneys say the crowns are a reference to the “Three Kings” festival in his hometown of Capacho, Venezuela, and are not connected to Tren de Aragua, as Cross reportedly assumed.
Hernandez was one of more than 200 mostly Venezuelan migrants sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center. Authorities at the prison have been accused of human rights violations and torture.
Hernandez fled Venezuela fearing persecution for being a gay man, as well as for his political views. The Journal Sentinel reports that after entering the U.S. illegally, he was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol agents and sent to Mexico, where he made an appointment and presented himself at a port of entry in San Diego. Hernandez was asked about his tattoos by federal agents, who named him as a “suspect,” but didn’t check any of the other categories on the questionnaire such as “intelligence information received from other agencies” or “group photos.” Since he was deported to El Salvador, Hernandez has not been able to reach his lawyers.
The developments have raised questions about the involvement of private contractors in immigration and deportation actions, as well as the ability of police officers with problematic histories to be hired by private companies like CoreCivic.
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A fourth grader in Maize, Kansas, drove his parent’s pickup truck to school after he missed his school bus, reported KSN News.
According to the article, someone saw the child driving the truck around 8:10 a.m. Wednesday and called the police. Responding officers could not immediately locate the pickup, until someone waved them down and pointed them to Pray-Wood Elementary School.
Police said the child drove the pickup about three miles from his home to the school. Officers added the child parked better than many adults.
Police reportedly did not ticket anyone and allowed the boy’s parents to handle the situation.
Related: Colorado School Bus Driver Dismissed After Leaving Students at Wrong Bus Stop
Related: Missouri Child Hit by Pickup Truck While Getting Off School Bus
Related: Concerns About Getting Kids to School Safely
Related: Child Safety Network
to Meet with School Bus Industry Leaders at STN EXPO East, March 20-25 in Charlotte, NC
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When a journalism nonprofit asked the Wisconsin Department of Justice in 2020 for the names and work histories of all law enforcement officers in the state, the agency initially appeared ready to grant the request.
But the department received pushback from law enforcement groups, and the records were not released.
This new information came to light in documents recently obtained by The Badger Project in its lawsuit against the state DOJ. The suit is seeking the names and work histories of most law enforcement officers in Wisconsin. The Badger Project’s co-plaintiff in the suit is the Invisible Institute, the journalism nonprofit that made the 2020 request.
Other news organizations, including the Washington Post, had seen similar requests rejected by the Wisconsin DOJ in preceding years.
In 2024, after the state DOJ denied another request for police names and work histories, this time from both the Invisible Institute and The Badger Project, the organizations sued for access.
In March, as part of the regular evidence exchange in the case, called discovery, the state DOJ released hundreds of documents to the two journalism nonprofits.
Among the documents was a letter sent by Assistant Attorney General Paul Ferguson, who heads the state DOJ’s Office of Open Government, to every police chief in the state. The letter indicated that the state DOJ intended to fulfill the request and release a list of all law enforcement officers in the state, but asked the individual agencies to identify any undercover officers who should not be included in that list.
The Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association responded with a letter to Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul the next day and urged the department to reverse itself, according to the documents obtained by The Badger Project.
Kenneth Pilegge, the association’s vice president, wrote that he had “significant concerns” in the letter.
“We have had contacts with members within our membership that have very serious concerns with this release and adamantly oppose this release without a court review,” he continued.
Neither the state DOJ nor the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association gave a comment for this story when offered the opportunity to do so.
Kaul assumed the position of attorney general, the head of the Wisconsin Department of Justice, in 2019. The department previously rejected the request for a full list of law enforcement officers’ names and work histories several times before he became AG, according to the released documents.
Dozens of states — including Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa — have released a full list of their law enforcement officers to a nationwide reporting project, which includes the Invisible Institute and The Badger Project.
The Wisconsin DOJ has, in response to repeated requests, released a list of “flagged officers,” those who lost their jobs due to termination, resignation in lieu of termination, or resignation prior to completion of an internal investigation.
This list, however, does not include officers who were fired or forced out of law enforcement jobs in a different state before taking a position in Wisconsin.
In previous denials, Ferguson has cited concerns that a complete list could “endanger” undercover officers and pose a general risk to officers and their families in a “volatile environment.”
The state DOJ says it isn’t able to identify undercover officers and redact their names.
In Wisconsin, police and jailers who were fired or forced out of a previous job in law enforcement only to get hired at another one, called wandering officers, increased by 50% from 2021 to 2024.
The total number of law enforcement officers in Wisconsin is sitting near record lows, according to investigations by The Badger Project. So the pressure to hire previously fired or forced-out officers can be high, experts say. Chiefs and sheriffs need to fill positions, and officers fired or forced out from previous jobs already have their certification, which costs law enforcement agencies and new recruits time and money to obtain. Wandering officers are more likely to again commit misconduct on the job, studies have suggested.
A full list of names of law enforcement officers, including those separated from jobs outside of Wisconsin who now hold positions in the state, would alleviate a considerable information gap, the Invisible Institute and The Badger Project argue in their lawsuit.
The records requested would not include home addresses or family information.
The Badger Project’s lawsuit is being funded by The National Freedom of Information Coalition, through grants from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Society of Professional Journalists’ Legal Defense Fund.
The Wisconsin Transparency Project, a law firm dedicated to enforcement of the state’s open records laws, along with the University of Illinois First Amendment Clinic, filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs.
The parties are submitting written arguments, called briefs, to Dane County Circuit Court, and then the judge will likely rule on the case, said Tom Kamenick, lead attorney for the Wisconsin Transparency Project.
This article first appeared on The Badger Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Department of Justice withheld officer roster after police group pushback is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Throughout his life, Robert Miranda has served many roles.
Some know him as a motorcyclist. Having been vice president of the Latin American Motorcycle Association’s Milwaukee chapter, Miranda has crossed the country several times on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Others know him as a leader and innovator in the community. Aside from working as executive director of Esperanza Unida, a nonprofit labor organization that served Milwaukee’s South Side for decades, Miranda has also been recognized by the United Migrant Opportunity Services, or UMOS, with a Community Service Award and as Hispanic Man of the Year.
Many more see him as a leader – Miranda served as the first Latino student body president at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, helping establish programs such as U-PASS, in which students can access free transportation on Milwaukee city buses.
But even with a lifetime of accolades and achievements, Miranda prides himself most on fighting for his community, having dedicated himself to causes such as Milwaukee’s decades-old lead contamination problem.
His passion for these issues, Miranda said, stems from a belief that change can happen and that it is worth fighting for.
“We’re all in this together, and we all share the same ground,” Miranda said. “All we can do is to improve things so that we can improve our quality of life.”
Miranda credits his instinct for activism to his upbringing. Growing up in Chicago and attending a Catholic school, Miranda said, cemented many of his views.
“Social issues and social justice were ingrained in me,” he said. “This helped me build an understanding of the importance of community.”
Manny Perez, who formerly served as secretary of the state Department of Workforce Development, has worked with Miranda numerous times over the years.
He described Miranda as dedicated, honorable and forward-thinking.
“Robert, as an individual, has been a true leader,” Perez said. “His primary interest and priority has always been the improvement of conditions for the community at large.”
Serving in the Marines taught him many of his ideals, Miranda said. What he did there “was about protecting the community.”
The Marines provided a cause and a fighting energy, Miranda said. Now he seeks to “fight to improve what is going on in the community.”
Since then, his advocacy has largely featured issues that impact the people and community around him, extending to advocacy for incarcerated people, education and the environment.
“For me, if things in the community improve, my quality of life improves too,” Miranda said. “Safer streets, better schools, clean water – all of this is a part of the quality of life that I can see and that I can enjoy.”
For nearly a decade, Miranda served as a Marine at Camp Lejeune, a military base in North Carolina. Camp Lejeune, later designated a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency, was found to have dangerous water contamination, exposing an estimated 1 million Marines and their families to chemicals causing cancer and other health conditions.
“From 1980 to 1987, I was on that base drinking that water,” Miranda said. “A lot of people were getting cancer. A lot of people were going home.”
Drinking the contaminated water caused him health problems that live on to this day, he said. But knowing what happened at Camp Lejeune also brought him an awareness of issues with pollution in other parts of his life.
After hearing about lead poisoning issues in cities like Washington, D.C., Miranda started researching and looking into the problem closely.
“It really piqued my interest because of what I was going through,” Miranda said. “I started looking into it and I started seeing a lot of correlations between my experiences.”
Over a decade after Miranda started researching the lead issue, he remains a staunch advocate for clean water and clean-living environments.
Miranda’s work has put him at the front lines, leading efforts with the Freshwater for Life Action Coalition and the Get the Lead Out Coalition.
He has been an outspoken critic of Milwaukee’s abundant lead hazards, having called for lead-free drinking water and living environments years before citywide efforts to address the lead problem.
“He anticipated conditions before his time,” Perez said. “He sees many things before other people.”
Fighting for a clean environment means more to Miranda than himself or his own past.
“It’s about community,” Miranda said. “This is about our babies, our children – the future of this city.”
Among the most important aspects of a community are its future generations, Miranda said. Ending lead poisoning is such a focus for him because of how much it could help children and young people.
Miranda cites research studies about lead’s negative effects, especially on the harm that it can bring as a neurotoxin. Eliminating lead, he said, could help improve children’s education and eventually lower violence levels.
In doing this work, Miranda also hopes to lift up others in the community and encourage them to use their own voices.
His advice to the next generation?
“Watch out for yourself, but also watch out for your community.”
Miranda acknowledges that this isn’t always an easy task.
“If you want to make real change, get ready to be challenged,” he said. “You have to stand strong on your own merits and realize that it’s not about you, but it’s about lives in our community and improving things for families, neighborhoods and schools. These are the things that make our city stronger.”
Milwaukee’s Robert Miranda on a life of activism, community and doing what’s right is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Federal funding is dwindling for victim support services including domestic violence shelters, crisis hotlines and counseling.
The post As federal funds for crime victims dwindle, Wisconsin AG asks state to fill gap appeared first on WPR.
Fox Lake Correctional Institution was the site of a meeting the Wisconsin Department of Corrections held this week with friends and family of incarcerated people. (Wisconsin Department of Corrections photo)
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections held its first friends and family forum at Fox Lake Correctional Institution on Wednesday. The event was closed to the press, but multiple attendees shared their reactions with the Examiner.
DOC Secretary Jared Hoy and much of the department’s leadership team met with over 40 friends and family members, according to a DOC press release.
“Family and friends play a huge role in determining whether an individual succeeds in the community,” Hoy said. “With DOC’s mission of safety and rehabilitation, we need to partner with families and friends throughout the process. Their support is crucial to success with rehabilitation.”
Rebecca Aubart, executive director of the prison reform advocacy group Ladies of SCI, said the event gave her hope.
“We have been a lost, hopeless group of people without a voice for decades,” Aubart said. “And they acknowledged us, they were respectful and kind and compassionate to us. And they gave us hope. The dangerous thing about this is, if you crush our hope, we are going to be devastated and come in full force with whatever we could possibly do to make sure that everybody knows they did not follow through on anything.”
The prison system has faced scrutiny amid deaths of incarcerated people, lockdowns at state prisons and criminal charges against the former Waupun Correctional Institution warden and members of his staff. In November, the DOC signed a contract with a management and consulting firm for a third-party review.
People who attended the event broke into small groups to talk about topics such as strengthening families, treatment and health care, classification and life in DOC facilities, complaint systems and reentry, the DOC’s statement said. DOC staff were there to listen and take note of suggestions.
Amy Rolack said her husband is incarcerated at Fox Lake Correctional Institution. She said she told DOC staff at the forum that her husband was told it would be a year and a half before he would be seen for dental care.
“I think that it was a really good meeting as far as who all attended it and who were all able to hear all of these loved ones talking about their experiences in each different facility,” Rolack said.
Betty Ziehme described it as a successful first meeting.
“I don’t think they were shocked by what they heard,” Ziehme said. “I think that they are aware that there’s issues, and I think they’re looking for input, and that they want to make some corrections. And I have to be hopeful.”
People who attended the event “made valuable suggestions” regarding visiting experiences and helping support families new to the Department of Corrections, Hoy said, according to DOC.
In an interview with the Examiner, Aubart mentioned the idea of having family orientations. She also pointed to neighboring Minnesota, where the Office of the Ombudsperson for Corrections (OBFC) — a prison oversight body — collaborated with the Minnesota Department of Corrections on a pilot project intended to strengthen loved ones’ support of incarcerated people.
The project included virtual meetings for family and friends of incarcerated people for two prisons. One of the prisons was an intake facility where most incarcerated people would only stay a few months before being transferred to a different facility. In that group, OBFC presented on topics families identified as being helpful, and afterward, staff members gave updates related to the facility and participants asked questions.
An OBFC report found the meetings were a helpful resource for families and facility staff developed a better understanding of difficulties experienced by families navigating the correctional system.
Prior to the pilot project, a 2021 Minnesota OBFC report found that families “face a wide array of barriers in supporting and staying connected with their loved one while they are incarcerated.”
After the small groups, Hoy answered some of the questions friends and family had submitted in advance. The answers to additional questions will be available on the DOC’s friends and family webpage in the coming days.
Hoy said it is important for the department to consider the opinions, ideas and feelings of people directly impacted by their work.
Attendance at forums is limited to friends and family members of people who are currently incarcerated or on active community supervision, a DOC webpage says. The DOC’s website includes an email where questions could be submitted virtually.
The forum was “the first in a series of efforts designed to continue improving communication” between the department and the loved ones of incarcerated people and people on supervision, according to DOC.
The department stated that it will continue to receive feedback from attendees for potential forums in the future or other events. Hoy said the department wants to know what family and friends want from events like this.
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When someone is charged with a crime, law enforcement testimony can play a crucial role in court, even determining whether the defendant lands in prison.
That’s why prosecutors nationwide must provide the defense with information that could call into question the credibility of officers or anyone else who might testify — whether that’s a history of criminal activity, dishonesty or some other integrity violation.
But how do prosecutors determine what to disclose about whom?
That’s where it gets complicated, and it’s the subject of an ongoing investigation by Wisconsin Watch, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and TMJ4 News called Duty to Disclose.
Many district attorneys maintain lists of officers accused of acting in ways that erode their credibility. These are often called Brady or Giglio lists, named for two U.S. Supreme Court rulings related to disclosure.
In investigating Milwaukee County’s Brady list of nearly 200 current or former officer names, reporters found inaccuracies and inconsistencies — raising questions about transparency in criminal proceedings.
How do prosecutors across the rest of the state and country disclose such information and what best practices do experts recommend?
Here’s what to know.
No clear state or federal standards exist for when officers should be listed for disclosure.
It’s up to district attorney’s offices, which are responsible for prosecuting crimes, to maintain such records.
The district attorney should know when an officer is referred for potential criminal charges. But when officers face non-criminal internal violations, prosecutors rely on law enforcement to share that information for consideration. That’s the case in Milwaukee County, according to District Attorney Kent Lovern. If such sharing doesn’t happen, his office may be left unaware.
The accuracy of a Brady list hinges on clear communication between law enforcement departments and prosecutors, said Rachel Moran, an associate law professor at University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis who has researched Brady systems nationwide.
“That is where a lot of the sloppiness happens is that prosecutors don’t set up a good system with the police for even learning about the information,” Moran said.
In Duty to Disclose, reporters asked 23 law enforcement agencies in Milwaukee County for policies governing how to handle Brady material.
Only seven provided a written policy. The Milwaukee Police Department and eight other agencies said they lacked a written policy, while the remaining seven did not respond.
A 2024 Wisconsin Watch investigation found some of Wisconsin’s counties keeping spotty Brady records. Records requests to 72 counties turned up more than 360 names of officers on Brady lists. The tally was incomplete since 17 counties either denied a records request or said they didn’t keep track.
Another 23 district attorneys said they had no names on file, although some said they would reach out to local agencies to update their list.
Milwaukee County disclosed incomplete information at the time. But after TMJ4 News made its own request and threatened to sue, the county released a full list of 192 officers listed for a wide range of conduct — from a recruit who cheated on a test to officers sentenced to federal prison for civil rights violations. Some officers were listed multiple times.
Of more than 200 entries on the Milwaukee County list released in September, nearly half related to an integrity or misconduct issue, such as officers lying on or off duty. About 14% related to domestic or intimate partner violence, and nearly 10% related to sex crimes, including sexual assault or possessing child pornography. Another 14% involved alcohol-related offenses.
But the list omits some officers who have cost taxpayers millions in misconduct lawsuits and whose testimony judges have found not credible. That includes two detectives who, according to a civil jury, falsely reported a man’s confession to a crime.
The consequences for failing to disclose Brady material can be dire, even leading people to be incarcerated for crimes they didn’t commit.
In one extreme case in 1990, an Arizona woman was convicted of kidnapping and murdering her 4-year-old son based largely on the testimony of a Phoenix police detective who had a history of lying under oath — details prosecutors did not disclose. As a result, Debra Milke sat on death row for 22 years before a judge vacated her conviction in 2014.
Official misconduct has contributed to more than half of wrongful convictions dating back to 1989, according to a 2020 study from the National Registry of Exonerations.
The lack of consistent disclosure has prompted some defense attorneys to maintain their own internal Brady systems based on information they learn, said Alissa Heydari, director of the Vanderbilt Project on Prosecution Policy and a former prosecutor.
That extra scrutiny makes it even more important for prosecutors to be aware of witness credibility issues.
“From a strategic point, you want to know the weaknesses in your own case and in your own witnesses,” Heydari said.
Consistent, transparent tracking of Brady information could also improve trust in police, Moran said.
“I don’t think this is an attack on police,” she said. “If anything, I think it could help the credibility of law enforcement to be more transparent about the officers with histories of misconduct.”
Some police unions have sought to influence how Brady lists are created or maintained — including in Los Angeles, Brooklyn and Philadelphia, according to Moran’s research.
Little federal enforcement and a lack of political incentive to challenge police power often prevent state or local tightening of Brady standards.
“Police misconduct disproportionately impacts communities that are often not heard and not represented in media investigations and not represented as well in politics and in places of power,” Moran said.
Following publication of the first Duty to Disclose installments, the Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police criticized Milwaukee County’s Brady list release, saying officers could face “significant career and reputational damage.”
“We appeal to the legislature to establish a standardized, transparent process that ensures the protection of officers’ due process rights, while maintaining the public’s trust in the integrity of our law enforcement agencies,” the police group said in a March 4 statement.
A Milwaukee officer who appears on the county’s Brady list has called for inconsistencies on the list to be exposed.
Brady list policies elsewhere range widely, with some jurisdictions more meticulous than others. Such policies should consider the rights of police and citizens, Heydari said.
Prosecutors are increasingly recognizing the importance of crafting such policies, but “my guess is that it’s a pretty small minority of offices that are doing it,” Heydari added.
John Jay University’s Institute for Innovation in Prosecution in 2021 highlighted 11 jurisdictions nationwide —from San Francisco to Philadelphia — that clearly spell out their policies.
The institute offers a variety of recommendations, including collecting as much information as possible from police departments about misconduct, providing staff with training, designating a group of people responsible for deciding when to list officers and crafting clear criteria for additions.
“You don’t want to be frivolously adding police officers who, for instance, have unsubstantiated allegations against them,” Heydari said.
Moran cautions against making that criteria too narrow.
The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office uses strict criteria, listing officers only when they have a pending criminal charge, a past conviction or an internal investigation “that brings into question the officer’s integrity.”
That has left off, for instance, some officers who a judge found to lack credibility.
That’s in contrast to Cook County State’s Attorney Office in Chicago, which tracks adverse credibility findings — as do prosecutors in New York.
Last year, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis expanded the type of conduct
that may qualify as Brady material, announced specialized training for attorneys, created a new tracking system for judicial orders related to witness credibility and hired staff to exclusively focus on Brady compliance.
Arizona and Colorado have developed statewide disclosure systems, although government watchdogs have called them imperfect.
Colorado became the first state to mandate standards for tracking dishonesty in law enforcement in 2019. But a Denver Post investigation later found inconsistencies in the tracking system.
A bipartisan bill in 2021 expanded disclosure requirements, making Brady list policies and mechanisms transparent to the public. The legislation requires minimum disclosure standards for counties, with options to disclose more than is required.
Colorado maintains a searchable Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) database that includes decertifications and disciplinary files including untruthfulness. The 2021 law required dishonesty flags be made public. However, the POST website emphasizes that the database itself is not a Brady list.
Still, more recent watchdog reporting found lingering gaps in the data and inconsistencies in enforcement.
Arizona lacks state mandates for tracking and disclosing Brady lists. The Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys’ Advisory Council does, however, publish a statewide database of listed officers — an effort that followed a 2020 investigation by ABC15 that found some prosecutors failed to keep accurate Brady lists. The council also publishes best practices for such disclosure.
Still, ABC15’s follow-up reporting has found continuing transparency gaps in the state.
Milwaukee County Supervisor Justin Bielinski said a statewide Brady standard and database could help the county manage liability in hiring. As Milwaukee County police departments aggressively recruit officers from other jurisdictions, those with a history of questionable policing may slip under the radar, he said. The problem of “wandering officers” is well documented.
“A state law change that would centralize this kind of record keeping or at least standardize the process for how the locals go about doing it could be helpful,” Bielinski said, adding that the county board lacks power to craft such standards for the sheriff’s department.
But Bielinski, who also serves as the communications director for state Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, doubts legislation to create Brady list standards would advance in a Legislature controlled by Republicans who more often back police groups and “tough on crime” platforms.
Larson has a different view, saying that legislation for consistency standards across law enforcement agencies and a statewide database housed at the Wisconsin Department of Justice could garner bipartisan support.
“Even Republicans would want to have consistency with their law enforcement so that they’re held to the highest standards,” Larson said.
Asked if he supports statewide Brady standards, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said district attorneys should retain their discretion, which depends on a range of factors and the circumstances of the cases.
“It’s not as simple as whether somebody is on a list or not,” the Democrat told the Journal Sentinel. “There’s more analysis that needs to go into it.”
Still, Kaul said any Brady lists should be accessible and include “as much consistency as possible.”
Ashley Luthern of the Journal Sentinel and Ben Jordan of TMJ4 News contributed reporting.
This story is part of Duty to Disclose, an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 News and Wisconsin Watch. The Fund for Investigative Journalism provided financial support for this project.
How Wisconsin could better track police officer dishonesty is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
The Bear River flows out of Flambeau Lake. Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner
Tuesday afternoon, April 8, T.J. Bill, chief of police for the Lac du Flambeau (LDF) Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, said his department and other agencies had spent over 1,000 hours in the search for Melissa Beson, 37, a tribal member who has been missing since March 17.
As the snow melts under rising temperatures, the plan for Saturday, April 12, is to continue an organized ground, air and water search in and around the surrounding vast forest, thousands of acres where one could quickly become lost.
Beson was last seen between 4:30 and 5 p.m. on March 17 on the outskirts of the Town of Lac du Flambeau, by Indian Village Road and Chequamegon Forest Trail, near the Bear River. Early in the search, the LDF Tribal Police Department flew a drone over the river’s open water and sent a submersible drone under the ice.
A search of the area forest, which covers most of Vilas County, was impeded by snow cover.
After Beson was last seen on March 17, there was a heavy snowfall of over 6 inches, and then after her family reported her missing on March 23, another 3-inch snowfall covered the area. Some of the snow has melted with rising temperatures, but deeper in the woods snow is still covering downed logs and branches, making it difficult to detect what could be on the forest floor.
“We still have 6 inches of snow in the woods,” said Bill on April 8.
However, Bill anticipated that much of that snow would be melted by Saturday. Once the snow is totally off the ground, he plans to request that the Wisconsin State Patrol search the area by airplane.
On the previous Saturday, April 5, 25 people went out looking for Beson, including those from canine units and others operating drones in the water and air. However, it was difficult with the snow still on the ground.
On Tuesday, Bill was driving on a side road when he came across LDF Emergency Manager Kat Milton, who was out collecting the GIS coordinates to help organize the Saturday, April 12, search in one of the large sections of woods near where Beson was last seen.
Bill’s concern about covering a large forest is volunteers getting lost while searching for Beson.
On Saturday, he also anticipates needing the drones to look over bogs and swamps scattered around the forest.
“We can’t walk into a bog unless we throw boards down that we can walk over,” he said.
Bill said he has to consider that Beson could have gotten lost in the large forest.
Since joining the department in 2013, he has participated in three searches for lost persons who were found deceased. The missing person is not always found deep in the woods.
“The Newbold Search and Rescue found one individual a half-mile from his residence,” he said.
After Benson went missing, the LDF Police Department reviewed recordings from over 360 surveillance cameras located around the reservation but didn’t turn up any footage of Beson.
“We didn’t have any surveillance cameras where Mellisa was last seen,” said Bill.
But the police department has other cameras that record the license plates of vehicles on the roads on March 17.
“We recorded the license plates of hundreds of vehicles,” he said.
As Bill’s office prepares for the weekend ground search, it is also coordinating with law enforcement in other areas of the state on leads that Beson might be living with friends off the reservation in larger communities.
“We are following up all the information we have, but we are also searching locally to eliminate the possibility that she might have walked off into the woods and gotten lost,” he said.
Beson’s mother, Winifred Ann Beson, “Winnie,” said her daughter might be with friends, but she also said she is afraid Melissa might have been taken by human trafficking. Native American populations have been targeted by human traffickers who prey on vulnerable populations where there is poverty and high drug use.
Winnie said her daughter likes to travel to other states, but she has always stayed in communication.
“Usually, she calls me if she needs money or is in trouble, but she hasn’t called me,” she said.
The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women/Relatives MMIW/R movement has been raising awareness of the plight of Indigenous women who have a much higher rate of being victims of violence.
The MMIW/R issue has touched the LDF band. On the edge of the Town of Lac du Flambeau, there is a new billboard asking for information on the death of Susan Poupart, a tribal woman who was murdered on May 20, 1990, and her case remains unsolved.
Winnie, who suffers from lung cancer, said it is difficult for her emotionally to not know where her daughter is or if she is safe.
“It’s hard,” Winnie said of her missing daughter. “She is big-hearted, loveable, funny. She is right by me all the time. Me and her are close.”
Melissa Beson is 5’7” with a medium build, brown hair, and brown eyes. She has numerous tattoos, including on her neck, arms and legs.
Anyone with information on Beson’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Police Department at (715) 558-7717 or the Vilas County Sheriff’s Office at (715) 479-4441.
Anyone with information on the Susan Poupart case is asked to call Deputy Cody Remick at (715) 479-4441 or (800) 479-4441 or the Wisconsin Department of Justice at (608) 266-1221.
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The Milwaukee County Courthouse. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office of Milwaukee released new information Tuesday regarding the arrests of two undocumented immigrants at the county courthouse.
A spokesperson wrote in an email statement that Edwin Bustamante-Sierre, 27, and Marco Cruz-Garcia, 24, were arrested by ICE at the courthouse. The statement said that Bustamante-Sierre, a citizen of Nicaragua, was arrested on April 3, and convicted in Fond du Lac County for reckless driving on Dec. 5, 2024. He is currently charged with endangering safety, reckless use of a firearm, use of a dangerous weapon and cocaine possession in Milwaukee County, the email statement read.
Mexican citizen Cruz-Garcia, the spokesperson wrote, was detained by ICE on March 20. The agency’s statement accuses Cruz-Garcia of being a known member of the “Sureños transnational criminal street gang” and states that he’d been arrested for “multiple criminal charges including breaking and entering, car theft, and assault.” The spokesperson wrote that an immigration judge ordered Cruz-Garcia to be deported to Mexico on Feb. 5, 2020.
Wisconsin Examiner was unable to locate an online court record related to Bustamante-Sierre. For Cruz-Garcia, online court records show a case filed on Jan. 18 involving one count of misdemeanor battery with a domestic abuse modifier. The court record shows that on March 9, Cruz-Garcia was in custody and appeared in court via video, where it was noted that he was indigent. Cruz-Garcia’s case was assigned to another judge and he was turned over for supervison to Justice Point, a non-profit organization which provides a variety of evidence-based criminal justice programs.
All Cruz-Garcia’s prior court orders, including a no-contact order and no possession of firearms, remained in place, as he was required to attend all future court proceedings. On March 20, the day he was detained by ICE, Cruz-Garcia appeared in family court where a domestic violence restraining order was dismissed.
Days later in early April, there was a courtroom discussion about Cruz-Garcia having been deported to Mexico. Rather than dismissing the case, as defense attorneys asked, Circuit Court Judge Marshall Murray (serving as a reserve for Judge Rebecca Kiefer) granted a prosecutor’s request for a warrant to be issued, according to online court records. An order to review the dismissal of the case against Cruz-Garcia 60 days from April 2 was also issued.
Courthouses are not immune from the Trump administration’s deportation efforts. On Jan. 21, ICE was directed to conduct “civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses when they have credible information that leads them to believe the targeted alien(s) is or will be present at a specific location, and where such action is not precluded by laws imposed by the jurisdiction in which the civil immigration enforcement action will take place.”
Agents are instructed to conduct enforcement actions “in non-public areas of the courthouse” in collaboration with court security staff, and to use “non-public entrances and exits.” Wherever possible, ICE agents should operate “discreetly to minimize their impact on court proceedings,” the directive states. The order also says ICE agents and officers should avoid actions in or near non-criminal courthouses, such as family or small claims court.
Last week, the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) said in a press statement that it did not participate in the arrests. Although MCSO was aware of the first arrest, the office was not given advance notice of the second arrest. The press release did not name the people who were arrested, and noted that it’s “not uncommon” for law enforcement agencies to search available databases for upcoming court hearings to find targeted individuals.
The courthouse arrests were widely condemned by community members. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said “an attack on this safe, community-serving space undermines public trust, breeds fear among citizens and staff and disrupts the due process essential to our courts.” Senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin Tim Muth echoed concerns that the arrests would create an atmosphere of fear around the courthouse. “Research by the ACLU has shown that when ICE is known to be active in courthouses, members of the immigrant community are less likely to report crimes, less likely to cooperate with police and prosecutors and less likely to make their court appearances,” said Muth. “Our communities become less safe as a consequence.”
Activists from the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression also expressed concerns about database sharing between local and federal law enforcement, and called for the courthouse to be a safe space for people to come for legal support, services and to seek justice. Over the weekend, at a rally protesting policies by the Trump administration and Elon Musk, local immigration activists raised those same concerns. “People will be afraid to come to the courthouse if that is not a protected zone,” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera during the protest. “And we know that these local fights are our frontline battles.”
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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivers remarks to staff at the department's Washington, D.C., headquarters on Jan. 28, 2025. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The IRS and Department of Homeland Security reached an agreement Monday to share tax information of immigrants who have final orders of removal to help immigration agents find and deport the immigrants, according to documents filed in court.
No information between the two agencies has been shared yet, according to the filings in federal court in the District of Columbia, but the partnership would impact more than 1 million immigrants with final removal orders, as the Trump administration carries out mass deportations of immigrants without permanent legal status.
According to a memorandum of understanding signed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and submitted to the court, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials can ask the IRS to provide information about immigrants with orders of removal or immigrants involved in criminal investigations.
Some of that tax information includes sensitive details such as current addresses and information about child tax dependents.
It would be the first time the IRS shared sensitive tax information to carry out immigration enforcement.
In 2023, immigrants in the country without legal authority paid more than $89 billion in taxes, according to the left-leaning think tank the American Immigration Council.
In order to file taxes without a social security number, someone who is not a U.S. citizen would use an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or an ITIN. As of 2022, there were more than 5.8 million active ITINs, according to a report by the Treasury Department Inspect General.
The government filed the document in a case brought by immigration rights groups the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos and Immigrant Solidarity DuPage. The groups are trying to block the IRS from sharing tax records with DHS for immigration enforcement, arguing that such sharing violates IRS disclosure laws.
The Trump administration moved Monday to dismiss the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that “providing information to assist criminal investigations—is lawful.”
A hearing on a preliminary injunction to block such information sharing between IRS and DHS is set for April 16 before federal Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, whom President Donald Trump appointed in 2017.
Friedrich ruled against the groups last month, when they asked for a temporary restraining order following a story by The Washington Post that the agencies were considering sharing information in order to find immigrants to deport.
“A single news report about future cooperation between the IRS and DHS does not establish that the plaintiffs’ members are facing imminent injury,” according to the March 19 order.
Pro-Trump protesters gather on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol Police chief testified Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon people convicted of assaulting police officers on Jan. 6, 2021, had negative repercussions on morale within the department and for police across the country.
“I think there was an impact, not only to the Capitol Police, but an impact nationwide when you see folks that are pardoned — and I’m really referring to the ones that were convicted of assaulting police officers,” J. Thomas Manger said during a hearing on the department’s budget request.
“I think that’s what bothered most cops and it did certainly have an impact on the USCP,” Manger added. “We’ve got so much change that officers are experiencing over the last four years, so I’m trying to keep them focused on moving forward. But it certainly did have a negative impact. For cops all over this country, you wonder when you put your life on the line every day, and does it matter?”
On Trump’s first day in office, he pardoned nearly 1,500 people who were convicted of crimes related to attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while members of Congress moved through the process to certify President Joe Biden’s win of the Electoral College vote.
Many of those people went to the Capitol after attending a rally near the White House where Trump repeated false claims about winning the 2020 presidential election, despite numerous failed court cases and no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Manger testified during the House Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee hearing that the department has made numerous improvements since the attacks, but that its nearly $1 billion budget request is necessary to hire more officers and continue updating equipment.
“I recognize that there are other police departments of a similar size whose budget is not as large as ours. But we’re not an ordinary law enforcement agency,” Manger said. “The USCP is unlike any traditional police department. In fact, our mission incorporates elements similar to the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and the federal protective service.”
Manger said that in the four years since the Jan. 6 attack, USCP has made substantial changes to how it operates and that many of its “mission requirements simply did not exist four years ago.”
Just a few years ago, the idea of someone targeting a Tesla charging station in a bombing attack would’ve seemed unthinkable. Today, it’s just the latest sign of growing anger aimed directly at Elon Musk. Authorities in Washington State believe an explosive device might have been planted at a Supercharger station, destroying part of the site and taking the entire location offline. Now, Tesla, the FBI, and local law enforcement are all trying to figure out what happened.
According to Lacey Police, a call came in around 1:30 a.m. reporting a “loud noise in the Sleater Kinney area.” When officers showed up at the local Target on 655 Sleater Kinney Rd, they found a severely damaged Supercharger station. Photos from the scene show one of the main cabinets of the charging station in several pieces. A Supercharger stall also has a piece missing.
More: Vandals Attack 5 Cybertrucks At Shopping Mall Triggering Police Hunt
The Lacey Police Department is calling the incident “malicious mischief” and said that it’s working with the FBI to sort out exactly what happened. In response to news of the event, Tesla itself responded on X to say that it’s working with the LPD and FBI to provide security camera footage. “Don’t mess with critical infrastructure,” it concluded.
Restoring Power—and a Bit of Normalcy
Notably, Tesla says it’s also working with Puget Sound Energy to get the Supercharger station back to full functionality so hopefully, those who rely on it won’t be without power for too long. This is, sadly, far from the first example of this sort of damage in recent months.
Protests span across not just the USA, but the world at this point. While most have been peaceful, a growing handful of incidents in the States and abroad are violent and or dangerous. Elon Musk has blamed the surge in Tesla-related vandalism on backlash to his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has become a lightning rod thanks to deep federal budget cuts and significant government job losses. He has also claimed that criticism from Democratic leaders has fueled hostility toward Tesla and its supporters.
It’s becoming clear that some protesters see Tesla as a proxy for Elon Musk himself—an easy, visible target to vent frustration. Unfortunately, that means owners, many of whom have no connection to Musk’s politics or public persona, are getting caught in the crossfire. In response to the uptick in vandalism, the FBI has launched a task force to investigate attacks on Tesla property. Even so, the broader wave of unrest shows no signs of slowing down.
We're on-site with @LaceyPolice and @FBI, and reviewing camera footage. Also coordinating with @PSETalk to get the Superchargers back online asap. Don't mess with critical infrastructure.
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) April 8, 2025
A school bus aid in Howard County, Maryland, was accused of sexual assault against students, reported WBAL TV 11.
According to the news report, 80-year-old Albert Rice, Jr. was charged with sexual assault and a fourth-degree sex offense after he was accused of hurting two students.
Police said detectives received reports that Rice allegedly hit a non-verbal student on a school bus. Surveillance video was pulled and police found evidence of Rice hitting a 13-year-old non-verbal student and inappropriately touching another 13-year-old student.
According to charging documents obtained by local news reporters, video of the incident showed the teen first struck Rice, who responded by hitting the teen in the face while she was secured in a seatbelt. The charging documents also state that Rice admitted to investigators that he was frustrated with the victim when he hit her.
Detectives stated via the article that Rice is an aide for a school bus that transports students to to the Linwood Center, a non-public special education program in Ellicott City. He is reportedly not employed by the school but by transportation company Bowen Bus Services. Rice has been an aide for two and a half years. The school declined to comment further.
It is unclear when the incident occurred. However, back in February, Rice was reportedly suspended over an unspecified incident. Police say via the article there are no indications of other victims but anyone with information can contact the department. The investigation is ongoing.
Related: Wisconsin School Bus Driver Arrested
Related: Louisiana School Bus Driver Arrested Amid Sexual Assault Charges
Related: Virginia School Bus Aide Arrested for Alleged Assault
Related: 3-Year Prison Sentence for School Bus Aide Convicted in Choking Death
The post Maryland School Bus Aid Charged with Sexual Assault appeared first on School Transportation News.
As both a survivor and advocate on the issue, Natalie Hayden knows how guns can turn a domestic violence situation from dangerous to deadly.
“Having that weapon just really elevates things and makes it more lethal for both parties involved,” said Hayden, co-founder of ExPOSED Inc., a nonprofit that works to empower youths and foster healthy relationships.
They’re the type of tragedies, ones that involve guns in the hands of domestic abusers, that lawmakers hope to help prevent in the future. The plan is to reintroduce legislation this year to keep individuals convicted of domestic violence offenses from possessing firearms in Wisconsin.
State Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, who co-authored similar legislation that failed to pass last year, said the goal is to align Wisconsin law with a federal law that keeps guns out of the hands of convicted domestic offenders.
If passed this go-round, the legislation would change the state’s disorderly conduct statute to separate violent conduct from other types of disorderly conduct.
It also would alter the statute defining domestic abuse so that court records indicate the exact nature of the relationship between those involved. Together, they would close the loophole that allows domestic violence offenders in Wisconsin from possessing guns.
Jenna Gormal, public policy director for End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin, said that women are five times more likely to be killed when an abuser has access to a gun and that domestic violence assaults involving a gun are 12 times more likely to result in death.
Firearms were used in 66 of 85 domestic violence homicides in Wisconsin in 2023, Gormal said.
The highest number, 28, occurred in Milwaukee County, according to the End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin Homicide Report 2023.
Domestic-violence-related charges are often present before a domestic violence homicide occurs, Gormal said.
“That tells us that people that are convicted of domestic violence offenses are more likely to commit homicide,” she said.
Hayden said guns create a high-risk situation for everyone involved in a domestic violence situation. Sometimes, she said, victims will purchase their own firearm to protect themselves from an abuser who also has one.
Guns also create a situation that is harder for a victim to escape from, she said.
“There is a weapon involved and I don’t feel safe, but maybe I have to stick around for the safety of my kids,” Hayden said.
Having a firearm present also can result in an abuser making a fatal decision once his partner decides to leave, she said.
“People can resort to extreme violence once they feel like they’ve lost that control,” Hayden said.
Gov. Tony Evers said keeping firearms from domestic abusers was a priority of his administration during his State of the State address in January. The city of Milwaukee passed a resolution in late 2023 in support of a change in state law that prevents domestic abusers from possessing guns.
Gormal said that legislation preventing domestic abusers from possessing firearms is a common sense, not a partisan, issue.
Roys said it’s an issue that everyone should care about but blames the gun lobby and Republican leaders for prioritizing politics over the safety of victims.
“The public overwhelmingly wants gun safety laws much broader than we have right now,” she said. “My hope is that they will finally start to prioritize women and kids who are being victimized.”
NNS reached out to Rep. Bob Donovan, a former Milwaukee alderman who now represents Greenfield in the state Assembly, and Rep. Jessie Rodriguez, both Republicans, for comment on the legislation. Neither responded.
Corey Graff, executive director of Wisconsin Gun Owners Inc., a gun rights organization, said the type of legislation Roys and others are pushing for would only impact law-abiding gun owners.
“Someone who is interested in committing an assault and potential murder against the victim is not going to follow any firearms laws,” Graff said. “Across the board, this is a homogenous attack on liberty and doesn’t address the crime of domestic violence.”
Graff said the legislation would also create a false sense of security for victims.
“They might assume that their attacker will follow the law, but that’s a false premise,” he said.
All situations are different, Hayden said, and women ultimately must decide for themselves what is best for them and their family. But there are some strategic things they can do to help them be safer, she said.
“Let people know of your whereabouts. Bring people into the fold that you trust,” Hayden said.
Sometimes, she said, victims are not ready or even able to leave because of certain circumstances, but they can start thinking of a plan while they wait.
“You can look for a shelter, and if something happens, you can file the necessary paperwork,” she said. “It’s always good to document what happens if you get to the other side and it gets to the courts.”
Overall, she said, the system needs to improve if we are going to protect people from being victimized by domestic violence.
“We need the nets to be there to catch us when we are ready. We need to bring awareness to our young people so that they can be safe, and we need to keep guns from people who could use them to bring harm,” Hayden said.
Latest push begins to prevent domestic abusers in Wisconsin from possessing firearms is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Michael Gableman, the former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who led a failed investigation into the 2020 election results, should lose his license for three years, according to a recommendation from the Office of Lawyer Regulation.
The post Gableman might temporarily lose law license after deal with Wisconsin regulation board appeared first on WPR.
'The incompetence and lack of qualifications of some MPS staff put our children in harm’s way, and this is the result of decades of intentional neglect from state policymakers who starve public schools of the resources needed to keep them safe and functional.' | Getty Images
I am a proud parent of a first grader in Milwaukee Public Schools. We are an open enrollment family, meaning that even though we don’t live in the district, we choose to send our kids to MPS because we love our public school’s mission, curriculum, and teachers. But right now, my daughter’s school is closed. Not because of a snowstorm or a spring break, but because the building is so contaminated with lead that it is undergoing emergency remediation.
As we work to unravel how deep the lead problem goes and how we’re going to fix it, we know that two things are true: 1) the incompetence and lack of qualifications of some MPS staff has put our children in harm’s way, and 2) this is the result of decades of intentional neglect from state policymakers who starve public schools of the resources needed to keep them safe and functional. While there’s blame to go around within the school system, it extends far beyond Milwaukee—all the way to the statehouse.
But let’s take a step back for a moment: imagine a thriving community garden. Lush with fruits and veggies, it’s a vibrant hub of cooperation. Gardeners, volunteers, and neighbors work side by side, cultivating a space that nourishes the entire community.
And now, imagine a group of lawmakers find out about this garden and see it not for what it provides to the community, but as an opportunity for political favors. They want it. But they can’t take it outright—not yet. So instead they sabotage it, slowly and methodically.
First, they put limits on water usage. Next, they dilute the fertilizer. Then, they restrict access to tools, making it harder for the gardeners to do their work. As the plants begin to wither, the weeds take over. The once-thriving garden now appears neglected and struggling, despite the community doing their best with what they’ve been given.
Then, the lawmakers point the finger at the very people who have been desperately trying to keep the garden alive. “You’re failing.” they say.
And with that, they present their “solution.” “This garden can’t be saved,” they declare. “It’s time to give this land to someone who can do something with it.”
So they sell the land to a private company—one that rips out the plants and paves over the garden to install a private- pay parking lot. The community is locked out, the public loses, and the private company profits. “It’s better for everyone this way,” the lawmakers insist, knowing full well who really benefits.
But they aren’t done yet. In return for their part in the heist, they collect their rewards— campaign donations, future job offers. A shared community resource is gone, transformed into private gain.
This is what’s happening to Milwaukee Public Schools.
Most MPS parents love and appreciate so much about our own public schools for the vibrant, nurturing communities they are—and for all they could be with the right support. But for years, some lawmakers in Madison have been quietly undermining our public education system — capping resources, limiting access and restricting funding. They’ve been misrepresenting outdated formulas to intentionally starve our public schools, making it harder for teachers and administrators to provide the quality education our kids deserve. Milwaukee voters recently passed a big referendum because people in the community want to support our schools. The news about poor financial reporting that followed that successful referendum drive was extremely discouraging. But problems with school administration pale in comparison to the impossible conditions the state has created for our schools. When they inevitably struggle under those conditions (frustrating every singe one of us) the same lawmakers who have been withholding funds shake their heads and blame the administrators and educators who have been forced to do more with less.
What happens next? They argue that public schools have failed and insist that privatization is the only answer. They push to divert public funds into private hands — voucher schools, for-profit education corporations and other institutions that lack the transparency and accountability of public education, but promise big profits for those in power.
They spout platitudes about how much they care about improving education, but they have had every chance to help us nourish our gardens and have resisted at every turn. We cannot let them gaslight us into dismantling a public good for private enrichment and turning our children’s future into a business model that benefits the few at the expense of the many.
Because here’s the truth: Our public schools are not failing. They are being sabotaged. There are some powerful Madison lawmakers who are forcing our school administrators to choose between things like fixing peeling paint in classrooms or hiring a new teacher, all so they can have someone to blame– when in reality, they themselves are the ones who have failed to provide enough for our kids to thrive in all the ways they deserve. They’ve been playing us for a long con, but we’re onto them.
We must demand true nourishment and resources for our public schools. We must reject the false narrative of “failure” that is being used to justify their destruction. And we must hold lawmakers accountable for the choices they make—because our children’s education should never be for sale.
This year, Madison lawmakers will decide how resources are allocated to our schools through the state budget process. The State Joint Finance Committee is currently holding public listening sessions on the budget. They need to hear from all of us what our kids need and deserve. We must work together to ensure our public schools– where so much of our kids’ childhoods happen– are deeply nourished for the good of us all.
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After two days of testimony about a traffic stop that ended in a drug arrest, a Milwaukee County judge had heard enough.
“You can stop,” Judge Paul R. Van Grunsven said last fall, interrupting the defense attorney who was still cross-examining a West Allis police officer.
The judge recounted inconsistencies in the officer’s testimony and body camera footage shown during an evidence suppression hearing.
“This witness has lost any credibility with this court,” Van Grunsven said. “I find none of his testimony to therefore be truthful.”
The officer, Michael Lazaris, left the stand.
He had been found untruthful by a judge, yet he does not appear on a list of officers with credibility concerns, findings of dishonesty or bias, or past criminal charges.
He’s not the only one.
The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office has strict criteria to place officers on the list and only does so if officers have a pending criminal charge, a past conviction or an internal investigation “that brings into question the officer’s integrity.”
Legal experts who reviewed the policy suggest it is improperly narrow, depriving defendants of crucial information for a fair trial.
The list omits officers whose testimony has been found not credible by judges and who have cost taxpayers millions in misconduct lawsuits, an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 News and Wisconsin Watch found.
Experts said any one of those officers could be included on a “Brady/Giglio” list, so named for two landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings. Such lists are maintained to help prosecutors fulfill their legal obligations to share information favorable to the defense.
In practice, the decision about who gets on — and taken off — the list often comes down to one person: Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern.
Lovern has maintained his office is fulfilling its legal obligations while striking “the appropriate balance” with adding officers to the list.
Lovern took office in January. Prior to that, he served for 16 years as the top deputy to his predecessor, John Chisholm, and was responsible for maintaining what is formally known as the “officer status list.”
“I respect that other jurisdictions may apply different parameters to their respective Brady lists,” Lovern said. “At the same time, we know many jurisdictions do not even maintain a list.”
It’s dishonesty, he said in an interview, that gets officers on the list. He has drawn a distinction between overt deception and credibility rulings, when a judge determines an officer’s testimony does not match the evidence.
Those rulings most often occur in suppression hearings with judges finding officers did not meet their legal burden for obtaining evidence, he said.
Veteran defense attorneys say judges can and do throw out evidence when an officer cannot articulate reasonable suspicion or probable cause, but that it is different — and rare — for a judge to plainly call an officer’s testimony not credible.
“It’s the reason the judge found them not credible: It’s testimony that didn’t line up with physical evidence or what the evidence was in the case,” said Jeremy Perri, deputy trial division director for the State Public Defender’s Office.
An officer’s placement on the Brady list does not guarantee his or her past will come up in court. It’s up to the prosecutor to disclose it, the defense attorney to raise it and a judge to find it relevant to a specific case.
At least two dozen people on Milwaukee County’s list remain employed in law enforcement, an investigation from the Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 News and Wisconsin Watch found.
“Brady is not designed to punish the officers,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former federal prosecutor.
“Brady is designed to ensure people get fair trials,” she said.
William Avery’s homicide conviction hinged on the word of other people.
Jailhouse informants and two Milwaukee police detectives said he had admitted to killing 39-year-old Maryetta Griffin.
Avery always maintained his innocence. In 2010, he was exonerated after DNA evidence linked Griffin’s homicide to serial killer Walter Ellis. Avery had served six years of a 40-year sentence and was one of three people charged in homicides later attributed to Ellis.
Avery filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and seven Milwaukee police detectives. This time, a jury believed Avery’s word and awarded him $1 million in damages.
Jurors considered reams of evidence, including a handwritten report from then-detective Gilbert Hernandez. Hernandez and Daniel Phillips, another detective, interviewed Avery soon after Griffin’s homicide in 1998.
Hernandez wrote that Avery admitted selling drugs to Griffin and later fighting with her after he woke up to her going through his pockets.
Hernandez asked Avery how he had killed Griffin.
“Subject states, ‘I’m responsible, I just don’t remember,’” according to the report, which Avery had refused to sign.
The next day, Hernandez filed another report that said during further questioning, Avery had denied killing Griffin.
Avery was not charged with homicide then but was convicted of a drug offense. Years later, after the jailhouse informants came forward, Avery was charged with Griffin’s homicide. At the criminal trial, Hernandez and Phillips testified that Avery implicated himself, and Hernandez’s report was admitted into evidence.
The federal civil jury not only found in Avery’s favor but concluded Hernandez and Phillips had falsified reports saying Avery admitted to the homicide. The jury found the other detectives named in the lawsuit had not engaged in improper conduct.
At the time of the federal verdict, Phillips was retired, but Hernandez was still working as an investigator at the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
Lovern, the district attorney, said the state agency never referred the well-publicized jury finding to his office for potential inclusion on the Brady list.
“Our office has determined not to add him to our database,” Lovern said in an email, responding to follow-up questions from the Journal Sentinel.
Avery’s Chicago-based civil attorney, Ben Elson of the People’s Law Office, was stunned to learn Hernandez and Phillips were not on the list.
“They sent an innocent man to prison based on a fabricated confession,” Elson said. “If they don’t belong on a Brady list, who does?”
The state Department of Justice said Hernandez resigned as a sworn special agent for the Division of Criminal Investigation in February 2016, after the civil jury finding. He continued working in a series of non-sworn office roles at the department until his retirement in December, an agency spokesman said.
The state would share any Brady/Giglio information about Hernandez with district attorneys or other law enforcement agencies “upon request,” Riley Vetterkind, the spokesman, said in an email.
Hernandez declined to comment recently when reached by a Journal Sentinel reporter. In the federal civil trial, he denied any wrongdoing, as did Phillips.
Hernandez remains on a witness list for prosecutors, identified as a “DCI investigator,” in at least one pending homicide case: Maxwell Anderson, who is charged with killing and dismembering Sade Robinson.
Lewis Moore went to prison, accused of a crime never proven in court.
On March 2, 2019, Moore got pulled over while driving. A Milwaukee officer, Chad Boyack, told Moore he had been “flying” and asked him to step out of the car.
Moore, then 22, did so and raised his arms.
He was sure he had not been speeding. His license was valid. The car was not stolen or wanted. It was his girlfriend’s car, he told the other officer, Anthony Milone, as he sat in the back of the police squad.
She has her concealed-carry permit, he said, and her gun might be in the car.
Boyack did find a gun in the center console. Moore maintained he did not know it was there. He was on probation for a low-level felony and legally barred from having a gun.
Boyack and Milone arrested him. A prosecutor charged him with being a felon in possession of a firearm. As a result, Moore was revoked from probation and put behind bars — his first experience in prison.
“I don’t deserve this,” Moore said he remembered thinking at the time. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
His case got stuck in the court system during the COVID-19 pandemic. He even considered pleading guilty just to get it over with.
But his public defender, Caitlin Hazard Firer, had reviewed the reports and officers’ body camera footage. She believed the officers had conducted an illegal search. So she filed a motion to try to get the evidence from the search thrown out.
Moore finally had his day in court in 2021. Inconsistencies piled up from the officers.
Boyack and Milone gave different estimates of his speed that day, the highest being 60 mph. Video footage showed the officers turning on their squad’s lights and driving 32 mph to pull him over.
The officers said Moore took a while to stop, which factored into their decision to get him out of the car. Video showed Moore stopped within 30 seconds, spending much of that time navigating the busy intersection of North 27th Street and West Capitol Drive.
The officers differed on whether they smelled burnt marijuana from the car. Boyack testified that he did, though he did not mention the smell when he first spoke with Moore during the stop. Milone testified he did not smell it.
Boyack also testified he did not see marijuana until he searched the car, turning up the equivalent of a few grains of rice. Milone testified he did not see or smell it when he approached the car.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Glenn Yamahiro heard the testimony, reviewed the video footage and determined the evidence had been unlawfully seized. He also noted there was no independent evidence of speeding, like a radar gun.
“So bottom line here is I don’t find these officers credible in this case,” Yamahiro said, according to a transcript.
“I do not find the reasoning here for why he got put in the squad car legitimate,” the judge said later in the hearing, adding: “I do not find the actions of the officers here lawful.”
Moore’s attorney had been practicing law for decades. It was the first adverse credibility ruling against an officer in any of her cases.
“This is incredibly rare,” Firer said. “In my experience, judges will find another reason to suppress the evidence.”
“A judge has found them not credible, and that is Brady material,” she said.
Lovern, the district attorney, disagreed. He said the prosecutor on the case did not tell him about the judge’s finding and did not need to do so.
Lovern said the judge’s decision related to a specific set of circumstances at a suppression hearing and did not find the officers had been dishonest.
Chief Judge Carl Ashley echoed his comments, saying: “The judge didn’t say they were lying.”
Yamahiro declined to comment to the Journal Sentinel.
Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said he was unaware of the judicial ruling. The department did not investigate the circumstances of Moore’s arrest because no one made a complaint, he said.
Norman praised the two officers, saying they had earned many meritorious awards for their service. In a follow-up email, the department said the chief agreed with the district attorney and chief judge that the judge’s credibility finding was only for testimony at a suppression hearing, “which is different than the integrity or credibility of an individual.”
Boyack and Milone did not respond to interview requests from TMJ4 News. The Milwaukee Police Department declined to make them available for an interview.
Years later, Moore still finds it difficult to capture how that traffic stop upended his life.
“You guys took time away from me and my family and my business,” he said in an interview with TMJ4 News.
Prosecutors in other states do things differently.
The Cook County State’s Attorney Office in Chicago tracks judicial rulings on officer credibility. So do prosecutors in New York. When Brooklyn prosecutors first released a Brady list in 2019, local media reported it included 53 cases involving similar judicial findings.
These judicial rulings do not mean an officer purposefully lied or committed perjury.
Last year, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis expanded the type of conduct that may qualify as Brady material and created a new tracking system for judicial orders related to witness credibility.
In Milwaukee County, there is no comprehensive tracking of such decisions. Asked if such a system should exist, the county’s chief judge said, “there’s always a transcript of the proceedings.”
Attorneys cannot ask for a transcript if they do not know a ruling was made in the first place. Legal experts say such rulings should be disclosed and underscored that Brady protections help prevent wrongful convictions.
Official misconduct has played a significant role in about 54% of wrongful convictions, according to a 2020 study from the National Registry of Exonerations.
“It is a staggering number that runs the gamut of witness tampering, misconduct in interrogations, fabricating evidence, concealing exculpatory evidence and perjury at trial,” said Rachel Burg, director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project.
Most cases involving misdemeanors and lower felony offenses are rarely reviewed after conviction.
Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, has extensively studied Brady lists.
She reviewed Milwaukee County’s policy and said it appears to have an “improperly narrow reading of what types of misconduct could count as Brady evidence.”
The district attorney’s Brady list included 191 officers, as of late February. Thousands of officers have worked in the county since the list was started 25 years ago.
“The fact that the list dates back so many years and has relatively few officers suggests that it is probably missing a lot of Brady material,” Moran said.
Levenson, the Loyola Law School professor, said when a system fails to track officers with credibility problems, patterns get missed.
“The real concern is it’s not an isolated mistake, it becomes part of the culture,” she said.
The 22-year-old man stopped by Lazaris, the West Allis police officer later scolded by a judge, faced a felony drug charge.
The man’s attorney, Justin Padway, looked at the body camera footage.
In the video, Padway saw his client being polite and cooperative with the officer who had pulled him over. Lazaris peppered the driver with questions, including if he had guns or marijuana in the car. The man said no and kept his hands visible during the encounter. Lazaris got him out of the car and frisked him anyway.
Padway believed the officer had unlawfully searched his client and extended the traffic stop. He filed a motion to suppress the seized evidence, which included cocaine.
At the suppression hearing, Lazaris contradicted himself and the body camera footage, according to a transcript.
In court, Lazaris said he pulled the man over for window tint. He said he believed he had thwarted a drug transaction and that the driver was involved in drug trafficking. In response to Padway’s questions, he admitted he saw no evidence of drug trafficking or a drug transaction.
Padway asked him to confirm his earlier testimony in the hearing, that he saw cocaine in the car. The officer said yes.
Padway played body camera footage in court. Lazaris could be heard telling another officer there may or may not be “shake” in the car. “Shake” typically refers to leftover, loose marijuana.
Lazaris, on the witness stand, said the term could be used for either marijuana or cocaine. Soon after, the judge, Van Grunsven, interrupted the questioning and said he was ready to rule.
“This guy testifies under oath he saw ‘shake’ in the vehicle,” the judge said. “That’s what he tells the K9 officer. That’s what’s truthful. That’s what’s honest. That’s what’s credible. The fact that he tries now to say that it was cocaine shake is incredible.”
The judge cited the other inconsistencies and ruled the search was unlawful, meaning the seized evidence could not be used. Prosecutors dismissed the charge against Padway’s client, who had no prior criminal convictions and has not been charged with any other offense.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel requested an interview with Lazaris or a West Allis Police Department official. In an email response, West Allis Deputy Chief Chris Marks defended the officer and said the department does not believe the judge’s finding should be considered Brady material.
“An officer losing a motion hearing can occur during the course of an officer’s career but is not indicative of deceit,” Marks said in an email. “The officer is a highly valued member of our department. We support the officer’s actions.”
Lovern, the district attorney, said the case illustrates why his office generally will not add officers to the Brady list for credibility determinations made in court hearings.
The judge’s finding stemmed from what he thought the term “shake” meant, Lovern said.
“In fact, the term ‘shake’ has long been used to refer to both particles of marijuana and cocaine, particularly by law enforcement investigators,” Lovern said in an email.
Lovern did not address other inconsistencies cited by the judge. The Journal Sentinel left several messages for the judge but did not hear back.
To Padway, placing such an officer on the Brady list is “essential for maintaining the integrity of the justice system.”
“It ensures that both defense attorneys and prosecutors have access to crucial information about an officer’s credibility, protecting the defendant’s right to a fair trial and upholding public trust in law enforcement,” he said.
This story is part of Duty to Disclose, an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 and Wisconsin Watch. The Fund for Investigative Journalism provided financial support for this project.
Falsifying reports. Found ‘not credible.’ Why aren’t they on Milwaukee’s list of police officers with integrity issues? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
One of the benefits of owning an electric vehicles is reduced maintenance compared to ICE-powered cars. That’s the theory, at least. In practice, one owner has found his Kia EV6 to be less of a technological marvel and more of a recurring electrical problem. His 2024 model has chewed through multiple 12-volt batteries in just a year, prompting him to file a lemon law claim.
While the EV6 has been broadly praised as being an excellent EV, it’s not without fault. Over the years, there are have been several reports of battery failures. We’re not talking about the expensive high-voltage battery pack that powers the motors, but rather the 12-volt battery. According to one Facebook group user, he has gone through three of four of these batteries and says he’s initiated a lemon law claim.
Read: First Look At 2025 Kia EV6 GT With Ioniq 5 N Power And Simulated Gearbox
Most Kia EV6s delivered in the United States come standard with traditional lead-acid 12-volt batteries, rather than AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) batteries, which are generally considered to be far more superior. AGM batteries use a fiberglass mat to hold the electrolyte, offering better cycling performance and longer lifespan.
The most recent battery installed in this particular EV6 appears to have been one of the lower-grade OEM lead-acid units, and it clearly failed well ahead of schedule.
A photo he shared on the EV6 owner’s Facebook page shows acid leaking from the failed battery and corroding the tray beneath it. According to the owner, his EV6 Wind RWD has only about 4,500 miles on the odometer after one year of ownership and yet it’s already gone through multiple 12-volt batteries.
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The general consensus among other EV6 owners appears to be that the original 12-volt batteries from Kia aren’t up to par, and it’s better to just install an AGM and move on. What’s puzzling is that the dealership handling this particular case hasn’t done so, especially since, according to users on the Kia EV Forums, the Korean carmaker began equipping EV6s with AGM batteries from the factory as of late 2024.
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