Tesla’s trouble moving the Cybertruck in any meaningful quantity on US soil is by now thoroughly documented. Before the electric pickup ever reached a showroom, Elon Musk boasted that Tesla could move as many as 500,000 a year. The reality has been less kind. In 2025, American buyers took home just over 20,000 of them.

While it seems the Cybertruck has lost a lot of its initial luster in the US, it is slowly being introduced in other markets. One of them is Kazakhstan, where a handful are being used by government departments, proving that the car’s controversial design does have its perks.

Read: Unplugged’s $18K Cybertruck Package Adds What Tesla Left Out

In mid-May, a matte black Cybertruck served the State Security Service during the Summit of the Organization for Turkic States, held in Kazakhstan’s Turkistan region. Fitted with flashing blue and red lights, the Tesla was reportedly donated to the authorities by a local entrepreneur.

It started out as a mobile command center, and from here it will take on a central role at major security events across the country, handling field coordination between units and providing communications support.

A Second Cybertruck

This isn’t the only Cybertruck roaming the roads of Kazakhstan. The Ministry of Emergency Situations has folded one into its fleet too, this one wrapped in matte white with orange and blue graphics. According to vice minister Yerbolat Sadyrbayev, the truck has proven itself capable of tackling the treacherous terrain of the country’s mountainous Almaty Region.

🇰🇿 The future has arrived in #Kazakhstan’s spiritual capital – #Turkistan#Cyber-police are patrolling the Turkic States Summit @Turkic_States #Cybertruck @Tes @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/ofKCXROnli

— Consulat général du Kazakhstan à Strasbourg (@KazStrasbourg) May 14, 2026

“Our ministry deals with situations where assistance must be provided as quickly as possible and every minute counts,” Sadyrbayev told Kazinform. “The Cybertruck has proven to be highly effective in responding to various emergency situations. We are talking about saving people’s lives.” The minister added that the government plans to add more Cybertrucks to its fleet, although he didn’t specify how many.

At this stage, it seems Tesla will take any Cybertruck order it can get. With US sales sliding from 39,965 in 2024 to just 20,237 in 2025, the company has been eager to sell the truck wherever there’s an appetite for one, even if it’s just for show. Earlier this year, it even started selling the electric pickup in the Middle East.

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A Waymo robotaxi can be fooled into rolling straight into a flooded street, but it turns out the same self-driving cars have no trouble pulling getaway duty for a crime. They are, it seems, alarmingly good at helping criminals disappear.

Earlier this year, an unidentified suspect walked into a Hot 8 Yoga studio in San Francisco and left in a hurry with an armful of pricey activewear. He had arrived by Waymo and used the same car to escape, dumping the loot into the trunk of the autonomous I-Pace before riding off.

Watch: Dozens Of Empty Waymo Robotaxis Keep Circling An Atlanta Cul-De-Sac For Hours

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, local authorities took their time looking into the theft. A search warrant landed on Waymo in April, ordering the company to hand over everything it knew about the account behind the ride, along with video from inside and outside the car to help identify the thief.

However, by the time the search warrant was filed in April, Waymo had already wiped the cabin footage. The company doesn’t publicly say how long it keeps video, and on top of that, its exterior cameras always blur faces for privacy reasons. So despite each robotaxi packing a small arsenal of high-definition cameras, none of them helped track down the thief.

That’s a tough pill to swallow when you consider the hardware involved. According to Waymo’s website, its latest Jaguars feature 29 cameras that provide a full 360-degree view of their surroundings. The user’s account information didn’t lead police to a suspect either, perhaps because whoever booked the ride used stolen credentials or a burner phone.

All For Some Men’s Shorts

The studio manager of Hot 8 Yoga says footage from outside the location shows the Waymo dropping off the individual and waiting for him to return with the stolen loot. Although he only made off with a bunch of men’s shorts, it’s certainly possible this case might encourage other criminals to escape in robotaxis.

Los Angeles saw a version of this last year, when someone bolted from a grocery store theft in a Waymo. That one ended differently. Police caught up with the robotaxi, forced it to the side of the road, and arrested the suspect.

A federal judge heard from attorneys Monday about the treatment of Salah Sarsour, the Palestinian president of Milwaukee’s Islamic Society and a legal U.S. permanent resident who is being held in an Indiana immigration detention facility.

Sarsour’s lawyers say that since arriving at the Clay County Detention Center in Brazil, Indiana, following his arrest by federal immigration agents in March Sarsour has lost 30 pounds, is not receiving appropriate care for his type 2 diabetes, and has been denied the ability to practice his religion. Separate from Sarsour’s immigration proceedings, Sarsour’s attorneys pushed in federal court for his release, arguing that his treatment at the detention center amounted to a First Amendment violation. 

Luna Droubi, an attorney who represents Sarsour, said that the judge listened closely and asked questions about the 53-year-old business owner, activist and grandfather’s experiences. The judge “addressed and directed the facility to take a look at Salah Sarsour’s medical guidance, and I do think he has real concerns about his treatment,” said Droubi, adding that Sarsour “really has been tormented for exercising his religious beliefs.” 

Initially, Droubi explained, “he wasn’t able to pray five times a day; they would disrupt his prayers at certain hours and tell him to stop doing it.” Sarsour’s requests for Halal meals, foods which are considered permissible in Islam, have been denied, and obtaining a makeshift prayer towel proved challenging as well. When he asked for food that would help him maintain balanced blood sugar levels because of his diabetes, Sarsour was offered pork rinds by detention facility staff according to his attorneys, in violation of his religious dietary requirements.

“It’s been a very difficult time for him,” Droubi told the Examiner. “He’s the president of the largest Islamic Center in Milwaukee. … He is a type 2 diabetic and he has very clear medical instructions that he requires daily glucose testing. At today’s hearing, they represented that they had started daily glucose testing and then somebody at the facility was instructed that they only need to do it once a month.” That goes directly against medical guidance, she added, since glucose levels can drop and rise on a daily basis, “and that can be incredibly dangerous.” 

At one point, Droubi said, Sarsour experienced severe abdominal pain and then was told “there’s nothing we can do for it. There’s no medical professional here. You’re going to have to wait until morning.” She stressed that “he couldn’t even stand up, and it’s only been two months. So he’s really, really struggled.”

Since Jan. 1 of this year, there have been 18 deaths of people detained in immigration detention facilities nationwide. This has outpaced the deaths reported last year –  the highest in two decades. This comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that it will stop reporting the deaths of people who’ve been recently released by detention, the AP reported.

Sarsour’s attorneys argued that there are numerous reasons why Sarsour needs to be immediately released, and that it’s within the federal court’s authority to do so. Droubi said that Sarsour is being held “because of his speech and associations,” and that the arrest was purely punitive for that speech.

Sarsour grew up in the West Bank and became an outspoken critic of the Israeli government and a supporter of Palestinian rights and freedoms as an adult. That activism continued after the militant arm of Hamas attacked Israel in late 2023, killing 1,200 people, followed by a large-scale Israeli assault on Palestinians living in Gaza which has killed at least 75,000 people while displacing thousands more. 

The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly called Sarsour a “terrorist” who was convicted of throwing Molotov cocktails into the homes of Israeli forces.

“This was an Israeli military kangaroo court,” Othman Atta, executive director of Milwaukee’s Islamic Society, said of Sarsour’s conviction during a community gathering and press conference held in early April after Sarsour’s arrest. “Human rights groups will tell you that these claims are coerced under torture, under interrogation. So absolutely, that’s not true.” At the gathering Atta also said that Sarsour spent two years in Israeli detention as a teenager. “He would talk to us many times how for 80 straight days, he was interrogated, and brutalized, and tortured while he was in Israeli military custody.”

These experiences are widely reported by detained Palestinians. In 2024, United Nations experts found that due process rights for Palestinians in the West Bank, where Sarsour grew up and was detained, had been violated by Israeli authorities for the past 60 years. 

“He is also an illegal alien that lied on his green card application to fraudulently gain legal status in the U.S. under the Clinton Administration,” a DHS spokesperson said in an emailed statement to the Examiner. “Any accusation of discrimination by ICE agents is FALSE. All illegal aliens in ICE custody receive three meals a day and proper medical treatment. Sarsour is a criminal and a terrorist and will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”

Droubi said that the federal judge is considering the argument for Sarsour’s release. Attorneys representing the government say that the federal court has no jurisdiction over a claim of unlawful detention. 

“He should be home with his family,” Droubi told the Examiner. “He really should.”

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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will allow states to access federal citizenship data by June 30 and plans to monitor the flow of mail ballots for signs of voter fraud, according to a court document.

Amid a series of lawsuits, President Donald Trump’s administration is now moving to carry out a March 31 executive order restricting voting by mail ahead of the November midterm elections.

Democrats and voting rights advocates oppose the directive as unconstitutional election meddling by Trump and have sued to stop him. The president, who has long attacked mail ballots but votes by mail himself, says the additional rules will fight noncitizen voting, a rare phenomenon.

“No president has the authority to unilaterally rewrite election rules or dictate how states administer their elections,” Marcia Johnson, chief of activation and justice at the League of Women Voters, said in a statement last week. The League of Women Voters filed one of at least five lawsuits challenging the order.

Potential disruptions

The order could carry major consequences for the midterm elections. Any new restrictions on mail ballots would risk disrupting how tens of millions of voters cast their ballots. About 30% of voters cast mail ballots in 2024, according to data gathered by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

But despite several legal challenges, the order remains in effect. 

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., in late May ruled against a request by Democratic groups to pause the order, finding that it was too soon to weigh in because federal officials hadn’t taken enough action yet. A second judge in Massachusetts held a hearing last week, but didn’t immediately issue a decision.

“The Trump Administration will continue fighting for the safety and security of American elections,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement shortly after the D.C. judge’s decision.

One portion of the order demands the postmaster general enact new restrictions on mailed ballots and not transmit ballots from states that refuse to provide the names of absentee voters. The U.S. Postal Service, despite its status as an independent corporation, has put forward a proposal in line with the order to require states to submit lists of voters before mailing ballots.

Now, Homeland Security is responding to another part of the order that requires the creation of lists of voting-age citizens in every state, which the Trump administration calls “state citizenship lists.” State election officials would receive the lists, which they could compare to their voter rolls in a search for noncitizen voters.

Homeland Security’s plans for the citizenship lists came into focus on June 5, when the U.S. Department of Justice filed a notice in federal court that briefly outlines the administration’s plans. The notice describes a two-part effort by Homeland Security and its subsidiary agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, to comply with the order.

First, Homeland Security will implement a “State Voter Roll Verification” that allows state election officials to submit their voter rolls to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system. 

SAVE is a powerful computer program that checks names against citizenship information held in a variety of government databases. It can flag registered voters as possible noncitizens, but faces criticism for incorrect identifications.

For the past year, states have already had the option to upload their voter rolls into SAVE. Some Republican-led states, such as Indiana, Texas and Wyoming, have used the system, while Democratic states have declined. It’s unclear how the State Voter Roll Verification would be different, if at all, from states’ current SAVE access. 

Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services didn’t respond to questions from States Newsroom.

Second, the Justice Department notice says Homeland Security will set up a registry for state election officials to securely access “citizenship-related data” from USCIS, the Social Security Administration and the State Department.

According to the notice, the “underlying data would remain in each agency’s respective system.” No other details were provided.

The notice also outlines Homeland Security’s intention to use the lists of voters that states provide to the Postal Service for investigations. It says DHS wants to “integrate” data on those voters “to monitor mail-in and absentee ballot flows, identify anomalies that may suggest voter fraud or misuse, and generate authorized investigative leads.”

California elections

The notice comes as Trump renews his attacks on mail-in voting. Last week he alleged, without evidence, voter fraud in California, which held primary elections last week. California relies heavily on mail ballots and often counts votes at a slow pace — meaning final results sometimes don’t match election night vote totals.

“Do you know why they’re doing that? Because they’re cheating on the election,” Trump said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

While the executive order already faces a slew of lawsuits, the NAACP on June 3 filed a motion in federal court seeking to specifically block the Postal Service’s proposed regulations of mail ballots. The NAACP alleges the regulations violate a 2021 settlement agreement that requires timely delivery of election mail to all voters. 

The Postal Service has until Thursday to respond.

The American Postal Workers Union in a statement on June 5 denounced the executive order, saying the Postal Service serves all Americans. It is “not a tool for politicians” to pick which Americans receive which benefits, the union said.

“The Executive Order is an unconstitutional attack on the millions of Americans who vote by mail,” the union said, “and another front in an ongoing assault on voting rights in the United States of America.”

When her son was a teenager, Connecticut mom Amy Wadsworth said, he was the type of kid parents rarely worry about.

He played sports, cared about his health and stayed away from drugs. In 2018, when he left West Hartford to start his freshman year at American University in Washington, D.C., she expected his biggest challenge would be adjusting to college life.

Instead, she said, he began using cannabis to cope with social anxiety and as a sleep aid.

Within months, Wadsworth’s son was calling home in the middle of the night, terrified and disoriented.

Over the next several years, his behavior became increasingly erratic, he had psychotic episodes and he was eventually diagnosed with severe cannabis use disorder. That’s when a person’s marijuana use becomes difficult to control and begins interfering with daily life.

Now 25, Wadsworth’s son has spent much of the past several years cycling through hospitals and treatment programs across the country.

“It’s definitely changed the trajectory of his life,” Wadsworth said. “It did nothing but harm him, literally harm every facet of his life — every facet, physical, mental, everything.”

States have spent the past several decades debating whether to legalize cannabis. Now, they are debating how intoxicating legal products should be.

A growing body of research suggests that frequent use of high-THC cannabis increases the risk of cannabis use disorder, psychosis and other mental health problems for users, particularly adolescents and young adults. In response, lawmakers in some states this year have moved to impose stricter potency caps, while others have scaled back or rejected such measures amid industry opposition and uncertainty over research findings.

While cannabis flower once commonly contained THC levels in the single digits, many products sold legally today contain 15% to 20% THC or more. Concentrates — such as waxes, oils and shatter — can exceed 80%.

About 15% of Americans ages 12 and older reported using marijuana in the past month in 2024, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. And about 3 in 10 people who use cannabis have cannabis use disorder, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some public health researchers and addiction specialists argue that public perceptions of marijuana have not kept pace with the growing availability of high potency products. They say broader legalization efforts — including the federal government’s recent move to reclassify medical marijuana as a less restrictive drug under the Controlled Substances Act — may reinforce the belief that cannabis is harmless.

“Moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III doesn’t help me save lives by decreasing the perception of that risk,” said Dr. Alta DeRoo, the chief medical officer of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, one of the largest nonprofit treatment providers for addiction and mental health. DeRoo also is a board-certified addiction medicine physician and OB-GYN.

Some state efforts to impose potency limits have been stalled by resistance from the cannabis industry and questions about how far governments should go in regulating a legal product.

In Connecticut, lawmakers this year reinstated a 35% THC cap on flower just weeks after voting to eliminate it. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle said they were concerned about the potential public health effects of increasingly potent marijuana products.

At the same time, the legislation moved forward with other cannabis market expansions. Lawmakers removed a 70% THC cap on concentrates, increased the amount of THC allowed in certain cannabis-infused beverages and expanded the market to include products such as topicals, tablets and capsules.

Proposals to cap THC potency have surfaced in statehouses across the country for years. This year, lawmakers in California, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Oregon and South Dakota introduced similar measures, though most did not advance.

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law in May that removes the state’s previous 5% THC potency cap starting July 1. The new law will also add a 12,000 mg possession limit for registered medical cannabis patients and allow patients over 21 to vaporize medical marijuana.

‘A perennial debate’

Lawmakers across the country have proposed a range of measures aimed at limiting the potency of cannabis products.

In Washington state, Democratic state Rep. Lauren Davis has spent years trying to place guardrails on high-potency cannabis products. Since 2020, she has introduced at least five bills that would have capped THC levels in concentrates or imposed safeguards, including age restrictions, warning labels and a higher tax rate on products with elevated THC levels.

Most of those measures were thwarted by opposition from the cannabis industry, Davis told Stateline.

Industry groups and cannabis businesses argued that Washington’s existing regulations already protected consumers and kept cannabis away from minors. Opponents also warned that limiting high-THC products would drive consumers to the illicit market, hurting legal businesses and exposing users to unregulated, possibly contaminated products.

“(The industry) then went on to basically rain down all fire and brimstone and crush every bill that I’ve ever attempted in this area,” Davis said.

The only proposal to become law was a 2024 measure that requires retailers to warn customers about the association between high-potency THC products and psychotic disorders.

Washington state does not currently impose THC caps on flower or concentrates, but it does set limits on edibles and beverages.

Nearly all states have some form of medical-only or hybrid medical and recreational cannabis program, but just eight states, Connecticut, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, have potency caps on some products, including flower, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Potency limits on edibles are far more common.

“This is a perennial debate that comes up in Vermont and elsewhere around higher potency products,” said James Pepper, who chairs the Vermont Cannabis Control Board, the agency that regulates the state’s market.

“I feel like the concerns are certainly real,” he added.

In Oklahoma, a recent incident in which a 4-year-old boy was hospitalized and remained unconscious for more than a day after his parents said he ingested a 1,000 mg edible found at a playground has added to growing debate over high-potency cannabis products in the state.

“We know that some of our medical patients truly do need higher potency products, but do we really need a 2,000 milligram gummy available for anyone with a patient license to purchase in an Oklahoma dispensary?” said Adria Berry, the executive director of the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, which oversees the state’s medical market.

Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt also signed a measure into law last month that will take effect in November, adding stricter packaging and labeling requirements, including restrictions intended to prevent products from resembling candy or appealing to children.

While some industry experts acknowledge the potential harms, they say the focus should be on consumer education and clear information about potency and effects, rather than new restrictions.

An official with Trulieve, a cannabis company that operates dispensaries in eight states, told Stateline that its products are independently tested and that potency information is available for customers to review and ask questions about, including a product’s effects.

“We believe that that piece of information is critical for a consumer to make an educated decision on what type and what potency of product they are looking to consume,” said Lauren Niehaus, Trulieve’s executive director of government relations.

Some advocacy and trade groups, such as the National Cannabis Industry Association and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), argue that policymakers should steer consumers into tightly regulated legal markets rather than imposing blanket THC caps that could push some users back to illicit sellers. They say that accurate labeling, child-resistant packaging and public education campaigns are the best strategies to protect public health and prevent youth access.

“It’s undoubtedly safer and better for public health outcomes to regulate these products,” said Adam Rosenberg, who chairs the board of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

Paul Armentano, NORML’s deputy director, said potency caps oversimplify the risks of cannabis products and fail to account for how consumers actually use them. Consumers view ultra-potent products as a novelty, he said, and ultimately gravitate toward lower-potency options.

“When you look at state-tracked sales in legal states, cannabis flower or botanical cannabis still outsells every other product, and I would dare say it’s because that is the most moderate to low potency product available on the shelf, and that’s what most people want,” Armentano said.

Armentano also argued that some of the strongest calls for THC limits come from opponents of legalization, who see potency restrictions as a way to gradually roll back access to legal cannabis.

What the research says

A study published earlier this year in JAMA Health Forum found that adolescents who use cannabis, including products with higher potencies, had a significantly increased risk of developing psychotic and bipolar disorders, along with higher risks of depression and anxiety. The research followed about 463,000 adolescents in Northern California between ages 13 and 17 and tracked outcomes into early adulthood. The study did not, however examine whether the use of higher-potency products is more likely to cause psychotic and bipolar disorders.

But other research has linked frequent use of high-potency cannabis to a greater risk of psychosis and psychotic disorders, particularly among heavy users. Several studies have found a dose-response relationship, meaning the risk tends to rise as THC concentration and frequency of use increase. Experts caution, however, that many studies cannot definitively prove that cannabis causes psychosis and that individual risk varies widely.

Other research suggests the risk of developing psychosis may be higher for adolescents and young adults, whose brains are still developing, as well as people with existing mental health conditions or a family history of psychotic disorders.

“I’ve seen patients come through our facilities where they haven’t done any other drugs other than just high-potency marijuana, and their psychosis is remarkable,” said DeRoo, of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. “They don’t have a grasp of reality. They come in seeing things, they come in believing things, alternate realities.”

John Puls, a psychotherapist and addiction specialist in Florida, has seen similar patterns in his practice at Full Life Comprehensive Care, particularly among adolescents and young adults using high-potency products.

He said families often don’t believe cannabis alone could be driving such dramatic changes. Beyond psychosis, he added, cannabis can chip away at more ordinary parts of life: Motivation drops, executive functioning suffers, patients miss appointments or forget obligations, and short‑term memory and relationships start to fray.

Some medical and industry experts say that cannabis can provide meaningful relief for some people, including those undergoing cancer treatment or who have chronic pain. But there is very little consensus on appropriate medical uses, dosing and long-term effects, particularly as products vary widely in potency.

“If there’s no standardized testing of products, or if there’s no enforcement of potency limits, then we might be putting people at more risk,” said Dr. Smita Das, an adult addiction psychiatrist and a clinical professor at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Inside a classroom at Milwaukee Marshall High School, the sound of Lego bricks clicking together filled the room as children leaned over tables covered with colorful pieces and half-finished builds.

As they pieced together their creations, Nealita Nelson, the instructor behind the popular Milwaukee Recreation Lego classes, moved from desk to desk encouraging students to keep building. 

Nelson, a Milwaukee native known online as “Builds by Nene,” began teaching Lego-building classes through MKE Rec after appearing on Season 4 of Fox’s “LEGO Masters” in 2023 alongside her brother, Paul Wellington.

Jeff McAvoy, whose 7-year-old son has been attending Nelson’s classes since they began two years ago, expressed his admiration for her teaching style. 

“It comes down to a simple shared interest in Lego and building, but she approaches it with such care and interest in what each of the kids are doing,” McAvoy said.

Nelson’s classes are typically divided by age groups, welcoming everyone from young children to adult builders:

• LEGO Open Build (Designed for ages 3+): Focuses on beginner basics, open building zones and simple challenges.
• LEGO Adventures: Encourages participants to step outside their comfort zones with complex, guided builds.
• Learning LEGO (Designed for ages 13 to adults): Covers the history of Lego, advanced building techniques and creative design.

For Nelson, Lego-building classes are about much more than play or building toys.

“I see the need for help, and I see the need to get these kids out from in front of screens,” Nelson said. “I feel like it was my duty to give back to my community that helped me when I was younger.”

Raised on Milwaukee’s North Side, Nelson and Wellington spent a lot of their childhood building together, before their almost 10-year age gap inevitably drew them apart.

Their close relationship became an advantage on “LEGO Masters,” where the siblings advanced in the competition, becoming third-place finalists.

“We’re both very different people. It helps bring out our best qualities and we’re able to work together well,” said Wellington, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee alum. “I’m very timid. She pushed me to believe in myself and that led us to succeed.”

The siblings competed again, this time internationally, on “LEGO Masters: Grand Masters of the Galaxy” in Australia in 2025. They also were the first all-Black team in the U.S. version of “LEGO Masters” to win a challenge.

Nelson said they intentionally incorporated a few references to the city and state into their builds throughout the competitions.

“When we were doing the TV shows, we tried to incorporate something from Milwaukee or something that symbolizes Wisconsin as a whole,” Nelson said. “In the first episode, we did the dairy boat.”

While Nelson currently works in health care, she continues to build her public identity through her social media presence and Lego-building classes with MKE Rec.

“I felt like this was my calling, this is my passion. I love Lego,” Nelson said.

Registration for Nelson’s summer Lego-building sessions are open now until the first week of classes on June 22. You can register here.

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Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Nealita Nelson is building community one Lego brick at a time 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.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

One Milwaukee organization is working to remove barriers that keep Black children and adults, especially beginners, from experiencing golf. 

We Black We Golf was created after one of its founders was stared down by a white guy and responded with, “Yes, we Black and we golf!”

“Golf is not just a game of exclusivity,” said Richard Badger, director and golf mentor of We Black We Golf, a social organization that introduces Black individuals to golfing through clinics, community outings and mentorship without competition.

“We are open to everyone, but we’re intentional about serving our primary demographic.”

Experiencing a typical session

During its clinics, We Black We Golf invites individuals to a golf course and provides them with equipment to learn the basics, like how to hold and swing a golf club before introducing the ball.

After people determine if it’s a sport they would enjoy and like to continue with, We Black We Golf helps them find their first set of affordable golf clubs. 

“Most clubs aren’t made the same, and most beginners buy the wrong ones from the wrong places,” Badger said.

Changing the perception of golf

According to Badger, the organization consists mainly of individuals who are 45 and up, but for the past two years, the organization has tried to attract younger people to the game. 

“We need to tap into the 20 to 35 age range, and Black women are the fastest-growing demographic coming into the game of recreational golf,” he said. 

Badger said fewer young people golf because of common misconceptions like it being a slow sport or too expensive and made for wealthy white men. 

He said he notices more celebrities participating in golf and is concerned about that misleading young people by making the sport look more expensive and inaccessible than it really is. 

“Many of the celebrities are being endorsed by companies,” he said. “DJ Khaled has a golf bag over $30k, which is not realistic for somebody in your demographic and does a disservice to the game.”

However, Badger is glad to see that younger people in Milwaukee are being drawn to local places like Luxe Golf Bays and Topgolf Swing Suite. 

Another thing that hinders new golfers and keeps them from travel opportunities, he said, is that they feel they’re not competent enough for the game. 

Badger wants individuals to know that golf is all about celebrating your victories.

“In other sports, like basketball, you talk about the errors and shots you missed, but in golf you talk about your makes,” he said.

Creating exposure for younger generations

Among the participants of We Black We Golf is Ti-mara Minefee-Tribble, a 53208 resident who got involved by attending a clinic with her husband in 2021.

“I’m not very athletically inclined and I didn’t want something where I had to run or join a league,” she said. “When golfing, we got to sit, play music, enjoy drinks and have a dope experience.” 

Eventually, Minefee-Tribble got her son Chandler Tribble, 21, involved with the organization. 

“He took to the game like a fish to water,” Badger said.

Minefee-Tribble said her son enjoyed golf so much he bought his own clubs with allowance money.

“He was so interested in the sport that he joined the golf team at his school, too,” she said. 

Chandler Tribble did additional things like take golf trips with his friends, assist Badger with mentoring and was a caddy driver. 

“My son has done the traditional things like football, basketball and playing the cello in orchestra, but to see him encounter something new and be comfortable with it touches my heart,” Minefee-Tribble said. 

She said parents should take more time and opportunities to expose their children to other things, including golf. 

Badger said he would love to see more Black children play golf, particularly Black girls because of opportunities for scholarships.

“About $50 million in scholarships are returned in the golf space because they don’t have enough minority girls to reward those scholarships to,” he said. 

Badger believes many Black children don’t play golf because they’re not exposed to it enough. 

“Many of their parents and grandparents don’t watch or play golf, so the child isn’t introduced to it,” he said. 

Others might try but not continue if they struggle at first.  He wants them to keep trying.

More than just a sport

Badger emphasizes that golfing is a good networking space to build relationships and gain opportunities that would be harder to achieve in traditional settings like offices. 

“Golfing is not just a leisure activity, it can be a professional skill and become your extended office,” he said. “People get country club memberships to host staff meetings there, too.”

A year ago, We Black We Golf partnered with Kwabena Antoine Nixon, an author and community activist, to host a business networking event called “The Build Up.”

Residents gathered for the event at Garfield’s 502, a restaurant and tavern in the Halyard Park neighborhood, to enjoy golf games, live music, food and more. 

Nixon said although he isn’t an avid golfer, the conversations held around him during the event stood out the most. 

“In a golf setting you can make deals with people and talk about things that elevate you as a person within that group,” he said. 

Nixon said he appreciated how We Black We Golf created a safe space for the Black community in the sport while preserving Black culture. 

“I love when Black folks get into something and we turn it into something,” he said. “That event became a gathering congregation spot where people were golfing but building, too.”

With over 20 years of golf experience, Badger has always kept his confidence and hopes that other generations will do the same. 

“I own every room I walk in when it comes to golf,” Badger said. 

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For more information

We Black We Golf hosts various clinics throughout the year.

The children’s golf clinic is free and consists of learning basic techniques.

It’s generally held at Noyes Park Golf Course, 8235 Good Hope Road, in late July, and equipment is provided.  

Sunday Fundays are free monthly golf clinics held at 9 a.m. at Lincoln Park Golf Course, 1000 W. Hampton Ave., for all skill levels. 

The next clinic is scheduled for June 14. Click here to view dates for other upcoming clinics. 

During winter, We Black We Golf hosts an eight-week clinic that includes 16 hours of instruction and three virtual classes.

The cost for this clinic is $450 but can be paid in installments. 

If you are interested in becoming a part of We Black We Golf, click here to fill out an application.

Milwaukee’s We Black We Golf is changing who feels welcome on the course 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.

Wisconsin's Department of Corrections will pay out $3.75 million as part of an agreement with the family of Donald Maier.

The post Attorney announces settlement in dehydration death of Waupun inmate appeared first on WPR.

A group of retired judges asked the state's highest court to consider changing rules that govern when judges should step down from a case because of conflicts of interest.

The post When should judges step away from a case? Wisconsin to study changing rules. appeared first on WPR.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer, to fill the top role at the Department of Justice on a permanent basis, he said Wednesday night.

Trump revealed Blanche as his choice at an outdoor event at the White House, saying “we are going to make him permanent attorney general” and adding that he expects Blanche’s nomination process to “go very quickly.”

Blanche has been leading the department in an acting capacity since former Attorney General Pam Bondi exited the administration in early April.

Blanche, of Florida, will almost certainly have that state’s two Republican senators, Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, supporting his nomination.

The GOP-led Senate confirmed Blanche as deputy attorney general in early March 2025 on a party-line vote.

Blanche represented Trump in 2023 and 2024 during a New York state hush money case. A jury convicted Trump two years ago on 34 first-degree felony counts of falsifying business records.

The close tie between the president and his pick for attorney general is a major reason Democrats will oppose the nomination, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday.

“Trump picked Blanche because he’s loyal to the president alone – not the Constitution, not the rule of law, and certainly not the American people, and not to the values that this country has had for 250 years,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “For years, Blanche has been Trump’s personal lawyer and attack dog, and that didn’t stop when Blanche joined the department.”

Anti-weaponization fund

Blanche has taken heat in recent weeks, including from Republicans, for the department’s settlement in Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against his own IRS.

Trump dropped the suit in exchange for the department establishing a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for persons Blanche described on May 18 as “victims of lawfare.” The settlement revealed that the fund would be governed by five commissioners hand-chosen by Blanche, with only one involving consultation from congressional leadership.

Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle quickly objected to the proposal, noting the possibility that people convicted — then pardoned by Trump — of assaulting police during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol could receive reparations from the fund.

When pressed at a May 27 Senate hearing on whether violent Jan. 6 defendants who were pardoned could reap taxpayer dollars from the fund, Blanche replied, “Anybody can apply.

“The commission will set rules, I’m sure,” he continued. “That’s not for me to set, that’s for the commissioners, and whether an individual, an Oath Keeper, as you just mentioned, applies for compensation, anybody in this country can apply.”

Several lawsuits quickly challenged the legality of the fund, including one from former police officers who deployed to the Capitol on Jan.6, and another from legal advocates who argued the fund would be illegally shielded from transparency laws.

After intense pressure, Blanche testified to a House Appropriations subcommittee Tuesday that the administration was “not moving forward with the fund, period.”

The concession cleared the way for reluctant Senate Republicans to support a roughly $70 billion immigration enforcement package. Senate Democrats plan to stall the bill on the floor Thursday with a marathon of amendments, including proposals to curtail or outright ban such funds going forward.

The administration is still facing questions from lawmakers about a provision in Trump’s IRS settlement that absolves him, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization, from tax audits. 

Epstein files

Blanche has also come under scrutiny for the DOJ’s handling of the release of files related to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The botched release last year, when Bondi headed the department, initially exposed names of sexual abuse victims.

Democrats claimed Bondi told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during a closed-door interview last week that Blanche oversaw the legally mandated release of the files and made the decision to not investigate any possible leads.

Bondi refuted the claim on social media following the interview.

The family of Donald Maier settled a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Department of Corrections for $3.75 million, the plaintiffs’ lawyer announced Thursday.

In 2024, Maier died at the troubled Waupun Correctional Institution of malnutrition and dehydration. Former Waupun warden Randall Hepp and six members of his staff were charged in Maier’s death. Maier had been in the restrictive housing unit, also referred to as solitary confinement. His death was ruled a homicide. 

“It wasn’t just Don Maier’s death that was a horrific tragedy,” Jeff Scott Olson, attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a press release emailed to the Wisconsin Examiner. “It was the last few days of his life, when his grip on reality drained away to the point that he was unable to communicate his needs, and his life became a living hell.”

Review of camera footage and medical records showed that security staff told a nurse of a concern about Maier not eating food for a couple of days, drinking sewage water and playing in the toilet, and she did not follow the procedure of a hunger strike, according to a criminal complaint filed in 2024. 

“Over the course of those days, dozens of people whose job it was to care for Don Maier walked by his cell, and not one of them so much as opened the door to his cell to check on him as he was lying unresponsive on the floor,” Olson said.

The nurse, Jessica Hosfelt, was charged with neglecting an incarcerated person and could receive up to three and a half years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000. A telephone scheduling conference in her case is scheduled for July 2. 

Charges in the case against two Waupun employees were dropped, and three others pleaded no contest to lesser charges. Hepp, the former warden, also pleaded no contest and was fined $500. 

According to the criminal complaint, Maier’s inability to speak coherently to articulate his medical needs was likely a factor in why he didn’t get needed medical and psychological intervention. 

He either “refused or was not provided medication for any of his known medical and psychological issues” during his time in solitary confinement — except for one instance when, the complaint states, it’s not known whether he actually took the medication he was given. 

Olson blames Act 10 for staffing problems

The Maier family carried out “extensive investigation” through their lawyers, said Olson, who cast blame on Act 10, passed in 2011 under then-Gov. Scott Walker. The law removed most collective bargaining and union rights from most Wisconsin public employees, including correctional employees. 

Olson said investigation into what went wrong at the prison showed that  problems of understaffing and low staff morale in the Wisconsin prison system were directly linked to the changes implemented by Act 10.

 Olson blamed inaction by the state Legislature in the 15 years since the law took effect for the deterioration of the correctional system’s physical facilities and working conditions. A “very predictable effect” has been that even as more people are hired to work in the prisons, it’s been impossible to attract enough applicants, he said.

“This has hurt both prison inmates and prison employees, and without serious reform at the legislative level to take the pressure off, tragedies like the death of Don Maier will continue to be inevitable,” Olson said. 

Across the department’s adult prisons, the DOC’s most recent report shows a vacancy rate of 14.1% for correctional officers and sergeants. That rate is much higher in some facilities — for example, it’s 26.5% at the Waupun prison and 40.8% at Green Bay Correctional Institution — despite pay raises that took effect in October 2023.

Department of Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy told WBAY last month that while the department tries to avoid forced overtime, it hasn’t eliminated the practice entirely. 

“We have a lot of protections in place for folks so they’re not ordered [to work overtime] too much, and we try to observe those as much as we can, we try to observe seniority and things like that,” Hoy said. “But yeah, there is forced overtime that will happen.”

Olson calls for reform 

Olson called the death “completely preventable” and said it highlights “the urgent need for prison reform, a focus on humane and respectful treatment for all residents of Wisconsin’s correctional facilities, and accountability within the corrections system.” 

The release said the family hopes the case will lead to better treatment of people in prison “so that obvious signs of distress are no longer ignored and that ongoing reforms will be put into place by the State of Wisconsin.”  

In February, a judge stayed proceedings in the family’s lawsuit at the request of the family and the DOC while they engaged in mediation, court records show. That mediation ultimately led to the settlement announced Thursday. 

Under the settlement agreement that Olson furnished, the state will pay $3.75 million, $2 million of that by June 30 and the remaining $1.75 million by July 31. All claims in the case will be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be reopened.

The Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

In Olson’s press release, Maier’s family expressed appreciation to the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office for an “extremely thorough and detailed” investigation into the causes of his death. Asked for comment on the release, Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt responded over email. 

 “I think I will decline [a] statement and let their statement about us stand as is, given this was civil litigation and I’m not sure if there are still other pending litigations,” Schmidt said.

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Marshall Jones is a good test case for your opinion about the state’s revived commutation process. 

In April, Gov. Tony Evers announced he was restarting the commutation process – a form of clemency that allows governors to change prison sentences for incarcerated people. 

In a statement, Evers said he was trying to move Wisconsin’s “justice system into the 21st Century by reforming our criminal justice and corrections systems to improve public safety, reduce the likelihood that individuals will reoffend when they enter our communities and save taxpayer dollars in the long run.”

Some supporters of Evers’ decision say people can change after decades in prison and that remaining there no longer serves any beneficial purpose. 

However, critics question whether people convicted of serious violent crimes should ever be released early.

Jones sits at the center of these views.

He was sentenced in 2004 to two consecutive terms of life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to two counts of first-degree intentional homicide. 

He said he fully acknowledges his crimes, which occurred during an armed tavern robbery in Racine, and continues to have remorse over them. 

“No amount of right I have done would ever erase the wrong I have done to my victims and their families, and I understand that perfectly,” Jones said. “I also know that I am a transformed man, and I am rehabilitated.”

Applying for commutation

Jones said he decided to apply for a commutation the moment his wife, Jessica Jones, told him about Evers’ announcement.

There are two commutation tracks: a general commutation process for people convicted as adults and a separate process for some sentenced as juveniles.

Jones, who was 22 when he was sentenced to life and is now 44, qualifies for the first track. 

Applicants qualify for this track if they are: incarcerated on a Wisconsin conviction, have more than one year left on their sentence, have served at least half their incarceration term or at least 20 years of a life sentence. 

They also cannot be serving sentences for sex offenses, have unresolved criminal charges or warrants, or have committed violent misconduct in prison within the past five years.

Individuals who apply must provide information about the crimes for which they are seeking commutation, prior interactions with law enforcement, prison disciplinary history, rehabilitation efforts, and reentry plans. 

Applications also require certified court records as well as letters of support. 

“Emotionally, a person has to remain calm,” Jones said. “There is a sense of urgency that will be overwhelming at times.”

He said coming up with a clear plan has been vital to overcoming his panic.

 “One box at a time. One task at a time,” he said.

For and against

Nationally, many politicians associated with “tough-on-crime” policies have opposed sentence reductions for people convicted of violent crimes, arguing rehabilitation cannot outweigh the harm caused.

In Wisconsin, it has become a hotbed issue in the race for governor. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany’s gubernatorial campaign told NNS that he would rescind the executive orders that allow murderers, including those serving life sentences, to be released back into the community after 20 years. 

“He is making a commitment as governor that he will not release violent criminals early and will ensure victims and their families receive the full measure of justice,” said the Tiffany campaign.

Diego Rodriguez, coalition coordinator for Justice Forward Wisconsin, an advocacy coalition focused on criminal justice reform, said he understands the concerns people have but believes they are based on misunderstandings of the process. 

Commutation is far from automatic, he said. The approval process includes multiple reviews, eligibility restrictions and detailed reentry planning requirements. 

“These are pretty thorough applications,” Rodriguez said. “If somebody still poses a threat to the community, they’re not going to let them out.”

Shannon Ross, a criminal justice advocate who works with Justice Forward to support the commutation application process, said people in prison who have genuinely transformed often have clear ways of showing that to be the case.

“If you’ve been doing the work, if you’ve been spending your time constructively, this is your moment,” Ross said.

Impact of victims

The impact of a commutation on victims and survivors will be part of how applications are evaluated, according to Executive Order #287.  Also evaluated will be the potential impact on public safety, applicants’ prison conduct and their personal growth and development since conviction. 

“What commutations allow is for the governor to come in and to step in and to identify people who have made changes,” Rodriguez said.

If someone is truly remorseful, has accepted responsibility and demonstrated long-term change, prison no longer serves any meaningful rehabilitative purpose, he said.

Rodriguez also said that commutations could improve public safety by helping reduce overcrowding inside Wisconsin prisons.

Wisconsin prisons have long faced overcrowding and staffing shortages.

“Far more people are incarcerated than we even have space for,” Rodriguez said. 

Under these conditions, Rodriguez said, prisons become less safe and less effective at rehabilitation.

“It makes our community less safe when we have overcrowded prisons because they’re not getting the same quality of treatment,” Rodriguez said.

Accountability

During a commutation application webinar organized by Justice Forward Wisconsin, former Wisconsin Parole Commission Chair John Tate II said accountability is central to the process.

“The thing that I would emphasize the most when we’re talking about a discretionary mechanism within the criminal legal system is accountability, accountability, accountability,” Tate said. 

“Any minimization of what their role in that (crime) was is often seen as a lack of accountability,” he added.

Jones said his accountability starts with fully acknowledging the harm he caused and what kind of person he once was.

“I was a horrible person, and I took lives without mercy,” Jones said.

But Jones said decades in prison changed him.

His wife, Jessica, who met him while working at the New Lisbon Correctional Institution in Juneau County, said her views on rehabilitation have changed by getting to know people who are incarcerated. 

“Most of the general public believes that all people in prison are horrible people, incorrigible and worthless,” she said. “I used to be one of those people. I believed everyone in prison could be nothing more than their worst day. Then, I worked in the prison and learned how wrong I was.”  

She said she met many men in prison who shouldn’t be there anymore. She believes her husband is one of them. 

“He does more good than many free people I know,” she said. “He does not let his sentence or crime define him even though it’s a daily reality.”

Open questions

Major questions about the process still remain, including how quickly applications will be processed and how many people could ultimately receive commutations. 

There is also uncertainty surrounding the future of the process itself. NNS reached out to the governor’s office to ask whether the commutation process could change under new leadership but did not receive a response. 

“This is a governor’s last term,” Rodriguez said. “When it comes to executive orders, those can be changed in an instant.”

Gov. Tony Evers’ commutation process draws support, criticism as applicants seek release 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.

Controversy over Flock license plate reading cameras has rippled across Wisconsin, causing people to fill public hearings as some regions remove the cameras, and others overhaul auditing and oversight. Activists, elected officials and police departments are navigating disagreements over privacy, safety, freedom and the facts about the surveillance network.  

Communities including Dane County, Verona, Monona, Fitchburg, Appleton, Oshkosh and Sturgeon Bay are dropping contracts with the multi-billion company Flock Safety because of heightened awareness and public anxiety over surveillance. 

Officers and deputies from three different agencies and three separate counties stand accused of misusing Flock cameras, which compile images of vehicles and their license plates into a database which can be searched by police. When the Examiner reviewed five months of Flock data last year, it contained many thousands of searches conducted by 221 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies.

All three officers are accused of tracking their romantic partners, with officers Josue Ayala of Milwaukee and Cristian Morales of Menasha facing charges for which they have upcoming court appearances. Ayala is scheduled for sentencing in June and Morales has a jury trial in July. Kenosha County Deputy Frank McGrath was not charged for misconduct over his use of Flock to track another deputy he was dating and a John Doe petition seeking charges in the case has been sealed by a judge, according to court records.

“It’s powerful technology,” Heba Mohammad, an organizer with Milwaukee4Palestine — one of the local groups pushing against Flock cameras — told the Examiner.  

Milwaukee4Palestine has focused on police surveillance as cameras, automatic license plate readers like Flock, and facial recognition technology and drones came to Milwaukee. “As Palestinians, we know what that is a signal of,” said Mohammad, pointing out that similar surveillance tested on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has been adopted by U.S. law enforcement agencies. “The road to fascism is paved with well-intentioned surveillance technology.”

Milwaukee4Palestine organized to oppose facial recognition technology and then Flock. “We know this is what is next,” said Mohammad. “We’ve seen how surveillance can be used to oppress people.”

Although MPD stands by its use of Flock, the department has also been forced to revamp its auditing procedures. Over the last couple of months, the department has limited the number of officers who have access to Flock. James Lewis, risk manager for MPD, told the Wisconsin Examiner that access was restricted to an “as needed basis,” and that requests need to go through the chain of command, creating more of a paper trail when Flock is used. 

While some units or bureaus investigating serious crimes had clearer needs for Flock, “in patrol, we wanted to make sure that the officers who had it really had the need to have this software,” said Lewis. MPD is also using audit data to flag “outlier” data that indicate questionable Flock uses, such as an officer searching the same vehicle multiple times over a short period, or not attaching case numbers to searches. MPD shares its Flock network with state partners, but not with federal agencies. 

Nevertheless, community members have expressed a lack of confidence and trust in MPD surveillance, especially after the passage of Act 12, which stripped some of the Fire and Police Commission’s oversight powers in exchange for allowing Milwaukee to adopt a sales tax. 

“We are of the position that the risks far outweigh the benefits of this technology and again, particularly with a police force like the Milwaukee Police Department that has been granted a lot of impunity through Act 12 [and has] basically no accountability,” said Mohammad. “And they are demonstrating time and time again that they don’t care what the community thinks.”

Lewis said that the department is trying to nail down exactly how Flock affects the community. “I think a lot of what we’ve seen through public comment, through the commissioners’ comments, through news media coverage for this is, ‘Hey this is this big data surveillance network and it’s got a lot of these pitfalls in it,” said Lewis. “But I think the other piece of it that we’re really trying to get our hands on is how is this making police work more efficient? Is it driving public safety outcomes? Are we getting what we want out of it and through audit, we’re trying to tell those stories as well.” 

Lewis said MPD is working on answering some of those questions, especially the question of whether there is a return on investment in terms of public safety. “If there is outlier data generated, I want to know not just compliance or not, but also what did the city get out of this? Is it a safer place because of this?” Lewis said that MPD has chosen to overhaul its auditing practices on its own in a tailor-made fashion, rather than waiting on Flock Safety to develop a fix. 

The department highlighted 24 different situations where Flock was used, including felony firearms investigations, parole violations, narcotics trafficking, homicide, material witnesses needed at criminal trials, stolen vehicles, overdose death investigations, sexual assault, shootings and armed robberies. In one of the examples involving theft, MPD specified in an email that “Flock was used to develop patterns of movement in the suspect vehicle” to determine whether it was related to other thefts. 

Balancing tracking, privacy, and public safety

The extent to which Flock can track and surveil people has been a source of tension at public meetings. In December, Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball and Chief Deputy Brain Barkow said that calling Flock a form of tracking is a misrepresentation. They argued that although Flock alerts officers that a vehicle has been sighted, they would still need to go to the area of the alert and search for the vehicle. In other words, Flock doesn’t see everything.

But the technology appears to have greater surveillance capabilities than some departments and even Flock itself have described.

The Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department has also said that Flock is “not used for general surveillance, traffic enforcement, or monitoring individuals not connected to an investigation.” However, the agency’s Flock data shows that officers entered “surveillance” and “traffic offense” as reasons for searching the camera network. 

Oshkosh officials voted to continue a Flock contract only to reverse course the next day, saying that they’d been misled by Flock representatives over the camera’s ability to produce heat maps visualizing where a vehicle has been. At a meeting in April, Oshkosh Police Chief Dean Smith told local elected officials that because of that “misrepresentation” he could “I can no longer recommend Flock.”

“I think it depends on how it’s used,” Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis told the Examiner. “I think if it’s misused, you can misuse this technology in a way that would allow you to track someone.” Yet, Davis feels that Flock can be an asset when used for legitimate criminal investigations. “I think people sometimes misunderstand how the technology works.” 

Davis concedes of Flock use that in some ways, “yeah, that’s kind of tracking someone. But I have a legitimate criminal predicate for doing so.” At the same time, he condemns the use of Flock for personal reasons, like spying on ex-wives or partners. “The government doesn’t get to do that,” said Davis. “That’s unlawful overreach into someone’s life because there’s no legitimate public safety reason for getting access to that data.”

Davis was hired at Green Bay in late 2021, when the city was experiencing a rise in gun violence. After deciding not to adopt gunshot detection tech, the city pivoted to automatic license plate readers. 

“At the time Flock was one of very few, if not the only company that had stationary license plate reader technology,” said Davis. “With gun crimes, the faster you can develop a suspect and make an arrest, the better, because there’s a retaliatory cycle that happens.” The department has been able to locate homicide suspects who fled to other states, hit-and-run suspects, and stolen vehicles using Flock. 

Davis said that “license plate reader technology has been a game changer for all of us. On the other hand, you still have to take people’s privacy concerns seriously.” He stressed that “anytime you’re collecting that much data about people as they just go about their daily business, you have to be really careful with how that’s used.” 

How Flock can be layered with other surveillance technologies also worry community members. In May, officers in Wauwatosa used Flock surveillance and a drone to track a robbery suspect.

The debate reminds Davis of the words of a mentor, that being a police chief is “the great balancing act of municipal government.” He added that, “I think it would be a mistake for us to not take people’s privacy concerns seriously in this conversation.”

As cases of misuse have popped up, the Green Bay Police Department has also tightened its use of Flock. They used their own audit to look for suspicious searches, and didn’t detect any instances of misuse. “We didn’t find any of that in our audit that we did, but it doesn’t hurt to ratchet it down as much as we can,” said Davis. “Because again, I understand, like you’re talking about people’s sensitive information. We have to be responsible with how we use that, and there have to be safeguards in place.” 

The department has also restricted which outside agencies can access its Flock network. While there was an initial belief that “the bigger the network, the more valuable the tool,” Davis said that Green Bay PD has “re-thought that over the last few weeks.” Now only agencies in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, eastern Wisconsin from Green Bay to Milwaukee, and the Chicagoland area (including Racine, Kenosha, and Cook counties along with some Chicago suburbs and a small portion of Indiana around the city of Gary) can search within Green Bay’s network. 

“We figure that makes more sense to have more of a rationale for why we share data,” said Davis. “Because I don’t have control over how those other agencies manage their employees. It’s not that I don’t trust them, but if they want that information then they can call us and they can explain what they’re working on, and we’ll see if we can help them.”

Green Bay PD is also utilizing a drop down menu with pre-designated options for using Flock, rather than allowing officers to type whatever they want. When the Examiner conducted its first analysis of Flock last year, there were several departments which used vague search terms, even just putting a dot or “.” as the reason for searching Flock. When the Examiner brought it to the Waukesha Police Department’s attention, the department said an officer was re-trained and counseled. 

Captain Dan Baumann of the Waukesha PD said in an email statement that since then, the department has “strengthened its oversight of Flock Safety by increasing formal audits from twice per year to monthly.” There are also random audits in addition to the mandatory audit, as well as an AI-powered Flock audit assistance tool to flag suspicious searches. The department’s standard operating procedure has also been adjusted. No further instances of vague labeling have arisen, and no discipline has been issued in connection to use of Flock. 

Baumann said Flock has assisted investigations such as in a vehicle break-in where leads were limited, and using Flock allowed investigators to identify a suspect’s vehicle and connect it to cases in Dane County. Flock was also used to locate someone involved in a shooting, and who pointed a gun during a road rage incident, Baumann said.

Communities waking up to surveillance risks

While it may be encouraging that departments are changing procedures and upping auditing, advocates still have  questions about whether it will  be enough. Jon McCray Jones, policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, hopes that people “don’t miss the forest for the trees” by focusing solely on Flock, when other companies sell similar technology. 

“I don’t believe that law enforcement are just acting out of good faith with a lot of these regulatory changes and auditing changes to Flock,” McCray Jones told the Examiner. “I believe that it comes from sustained pressure started at the most local level from people understanding and realizing the dangers associated with all these cameras and automated license plate readers, and specifically Flock, who is the worst company out of all of them so far.” 

It all also ties back to a growing mistrust and fear over the federal government. Under President Donald Trump, federal immigration agents have flooded Democratic-led cities across the country, resulting in multiple shootings and deaths in Minnesota earlier this year. The Trump administration has also directed federal agencies to begin investigating left-wing groups it has accused of domestic terrorism. 

Mohammad said that the ICE surges really brought surveillance to the forefront when people began to see “ICE agents scanning people’s faces in different cities, and telling them that we have a database and we can recognize your name. Or pulling people’s license plates and figuring out what their names were so that they could harass them directly by name.” She added, “I think this political moment is also a moral and ethical one.” 

McCray Jones also said the issue of police surveillance has new urgency as communities are “being targeted and their neighbors being disappeared by the federal government.” ICE and other federal agencies have access to Flock either directly, or through assistance from local and state agencies which have contracts with the company. Public officials, under pressure from voters, are “jumping on board,” McCray Jones said, “and they’re feeling courageous and empowered to take on these surveillance systems.”

Public meetings about surveillance technology in Milwaukee are energized, Mohammad said. “I don’t want to say exciting because I think that really betrays the seriousness of the moment,” she said. “But there is that buzz that often happens when that room is full, or there was a time when they had to open the overflow room.” It’s shown Mohammad that “people care about this stuff and that’s why I think that it’s really incredible that even though the FPC doesn’t really have any teeth to its accountability anymore, we as residents are using as many avenues as are open to us to make our voices heard.” 

McCray Jones suggests that people care about Flock because “at its core, it’s one of the easiest surveillance technologies for people to understand.” He believes that people understand that “anyone who drives is impacted by this technology in a way that other surveillance technologies, say like ShotSpotters or Stingray…I think people have a harder time one: knowing how these technologies work but two: viewing themselves as potential victims.” 

He added that in several cases, including in Milwaukee, officers who misused the technology were caught by people using websites like HaveIBeenFlocked, not by the department. “So we don’t know how much these systems are being abused,” he said. “And I think elected officials should use these moments of high, intense scrutiny from the community and in the media, and having anecdotal stories of officers doing this right now, to really be courageous and take the lead to fight for more accountability measures before the public forgets about this story, and forgets about the danger that they are under due to law enforcement’s ability to track where you are at all times.”

Mohammad said that she and her allies are not quitting anytime soon. “We understand our position, we understand the risks here,” she told the Examiner. “And so we’re not going to back down. We do not want our communities to be surveilled. And we believe that public safety comes from investments in other areas, not in police surveillance.”

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Attorneys squared off in federal court again Wednesday over the fate of former Milwaukee judge Hannah Dugan, who was convicted of obstructing immigration agents when they went to her courtroom to arrest a man last year. What was initially set to be a sentencing hearing for Dugan was postponed, replaced by oral arguments on a motion from Dugan’s attorneys to overturn her conviction.

A  jury found Dugan had obstructed a “proceeding” when she allowed a man living in the U.S. without legal documentation and his attorney to exit out of the courtroom into a non-public hallway. Prosecutors argued her action was to avoid immigration agents who waited in the hallway. 

Dugan’s attorneys argued that a recent appeals court ruling held that federal immigration enforcement actions are not “pending proceedings.” As a result, the attorneys argued Wednesday, improper instructions were given to the jury by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman during the high-profile trial in December. 

Prosecutors countered that the jury instructions were correct, and that the case Dugan’s lawyers cited does not apply to Dugan. 

Adelman now must consider whether to rely on the original guilty verdict, or to overturn the jury’s decision. Adelman denied the defense’s request for a new trial or for Dugan to be acquitted in April, WPR reported. 

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A school bus driver contracted to transport students for the Rantoul City School District in Illinois has been arrested on allegations of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, reported WCIA News.

According to the news report, 35-year-old Illinois school bus driver Johnnie C. McClendon Jr. was taken into custody May 28 following an investigation conducted by the Rantoul Police Department. Police said McClendon was arrested without incident.

McClendon is employed by First Student Inc., the transportation company contracted to provide bus services for the district, said police via the article.

“At this time, investigators have received no allegations of misconduct related to his employment, and the investigation appears to involve matters unrelated to his position with the company,” the police department said in a statement to local news reporters.

Police reportedly declined to release additional details, citing the need to protect the integrity of the investigation and the privacy of those involved. Court records had not been updated as of Friday to reflect formal charges filed by the Champaign County State’s Attorney’s Office. McClendon remained in custody following his initial court appearance.

Rantoul City Schools Superintendent Scott Woods said district officials were notified by police of the arrest and immediately contacted First Student regarding the driver’s status.

“We have confirmed with First Student that the individual will not be driving for our school district in future,” Woods said in a letter sent to families.

Woods said district officials have been informed that the allegations are not related to McClendon’s conduct while driving a school bus. However, he noted the district has not received information indicating whether the alleged conduct involved a student enrolled in the district.

“We take all matters involving the safety and well-being of children extremely seriously and are monitoring the situation closely,” Woods wrote. “Student safety remains our highest priority.”

The district said it will continue cooperating with law enforcement and communicating with First Student as appropriate.

Police encouraged anyone who may have experienced inappropriate conduct, whether related to the case or otherwise, to contact the Rantoul Police Department. The investigation remains ongoing.

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Related: Former School Bus Driver Sentenced to 16 Years for Sexual Assault
Related: Child Sexual Assault Charge for Colorado School Bus Driver
Related: Connecticut School Bus Driver Charged After Alleged Failure to Stop Assaults
Related: Sexual Assault on School Transportation Vehicles: A Call for Action

The post Illinois School Bus Driver Arrested Following Child Sexual Assault Allegation appeared first on School Transportation News.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has scrapped plans to use nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars to pay people who believe they were wrongly prosecuted by the Justice Department — a proposal that halted work on legislation to fund immigration and deportation activities. 

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified Tuesday before a House committee the DOJ will no longer move forward with those plans shortly after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said the administration had reversed course. 

That decision could clear the way for the Senate to debate a roughly $70 billion package meant to fund immigration and deportation for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term. 

“I think his statements are going to be very definitive, very clear and create the certainty that I hope all of our members, and House members need as well, in order for us to proceed on the reconciliation bill,” Thune said, referring to Blanche. “But I’m not guaranteeing that happens yet.” 

Blanche confirmed Thune’s statements when he testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee in the afternoon.

“We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche said when pressed by the subcommittee’s top Democrat, Rep. Grace Meng of New York.

“You and Associate Attorney General Woodward signed earlier documents regarding the settlement and this fund, would both of you now sign and release documents reversing the DOJ position on the fund?” Meng asked.

“We’re not moving forward with the fund. I’m not sure what that means to sign documents reversing. There’s nothing to reverse,” Blanche replied.

The DOJ posted on social media this week that it plans to abide by a temporary court ruling that blocked distribution of the funds, but Republican lawmakers said that wasn’t enough to end the impasse it created.

The Justice Department announced the creation of the fund last month as part of a legal settlement between Trump and the IRS over leaked copies of his returns during Trump’s first term. The settlement included provisions that precluded future IRS investigations into Trump and his family.

Senate Republicans weigh in

Thune said GOP senators had a “quite robust conversation” during a closed-door lunch about the DOJ fund and whether to move forward with their immigration and deportation package. 

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven said after that meeting it’s up to GOP leaders to determine whether there are enough votes to move forward with the immigration package. 

“I think the next step is for our whip team to find out where everybody’s at based on the administration’s indication that they’re not going to move forward with the fund,” Hoeven said. 

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said there is a “chance” that Republicans could begin a marathon amendment voting session on the immigration bill as soon as Wednesday, if Blanche’s testimony alleviates concerns created by the DOJ fund. 

Montana Sen. Steve Daines, however, said he believes it’s “unlikely” that process begins this week. 

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said earlier in the day, before the lunch, that he wouldn’t accept taxpayer dollars going toward people who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. 

“To provide restitution to somebody who assaulted a police officer and pled guilty to it. I mean, man, I’ve seen some crazy stuff before, but that’s right up there with crazy,” he said. 

Utah Republican Sen. John Curtis said he needs to know “if it’s dead or nearly dead.” 

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford said he wants clarification from the White House about the settlement fund in light of the court’s ruling. 

He added that Republicans are waiting to see if “the court case set aside both the settlement fund and the audits.”

“We need clarification for what it is and isn’t, because the White House already said ‘we agree, we don’t like it, but we agree with the courts,’” Lankford said. “What does that mean?”

Amendment to ban fund

Democrats have also criticized Trump and those in his administration over the fund, vowing to block it in law. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during an afternoon press conference that promises from Trump and administration officials are “worthless.” 

“Trump sued his own government, had his own Justice Department settle the case and is now trying to use taxpayer dollars to pay off his MAGA allies, billionaire buddies and cop-beating insurrectionists,” Schumer said. 

“And let’s be clear, Trump has not killed this slush fund,” he added. “He has not revoked the special tax immunity he gave himself and his family. He has not ended the corruption. He hit a temporary roadblock. That’s it.”

Schumer said the first amendment he would offer during debate on Republicans’ immigration and deportation bill would “ban Trump’s slush fund permanently and revoke his family’s free rein to commit tax fraud forever.”

Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

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Elvira Benitez Suarez stepped out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office in downtown Milwaukee on Monday to cheers from a crowd of supporters — her first time leaving the building without handcuffs.

The 51-year-old Sheboygan Falls woman left U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody last week on bond; her daughter picked her up outside the northern Kentucky detention facility where she had spent the previous two months. 

“I didn’t see daylight for 17 days, so I was very, very heartened and excited that I saw my family,” she said. 

The Monday morning check-in in Milwaukee was her first interaction with immigration authorities since returning to Wisconsin. She arrived with her family, attorney and two members of the Milwaukee Common Council in tow. 

Nearly a dozen other immigrants wove through the crowd to line up behind Benitez for their own check-ins; some picked up contact information from her attorney while they waited to enter the building. 

Benitez’s time in Kentucky was her second stint in ICE custody in the past year. Benitez, who emigrated from Mexico as a teenager and lived without legal status for over three decades, first landed in detention after a wrong turn on a family road trip took her across the Canadian border in July 2025. U.S. immigration authorities arrested her when she reentered the country. Benitez had no prior interactions with law enforcement or the federal immigration court system. 

In her absence, Benitez’s two adult daughters, both U.S.-born, took in their school-age siblings and helped manage their parents’ painting and cleaning business. 

A federal district court judge in Ohio ruled last fall that Benitez is eligible for a green card, citing — among other factors — the hardships her children experienced in her absence. After waiting a month for immigration authorities to complete her background check, Benitez returned to Wisconsin in December, only to be arrested again during a check-in at the Milwaukee DHS office in March while the agency appealed the judge’s ruling. 

“We checked in, everything went fine, and we were actually walking out the door when they stopped us,” recalled her attorney, Marc Christopher. 

After stops in Chicago and Indianapolis, Benitez landed in a cell at the Campbell County Detention Center, a northern Kentucky jail that contracts with ICE to hold immigrants facing deportation proceedings. Benitez recounted finding fellow Wisconsinites in her unit; nearly two dozen other immigrants detained in Wisconsin have passed through Campbell County within the last year.

But a recent decision by an Ohio-based federal appeals court opened a door for Benitez to again return to Wisconsin. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that a year-old Trump administration policy requiring detention for most immigrants in deportation proceedings amounts to a violation of due process rights, joining federal appellate courts in New York and Georgia. Appellate courts in Louisiana and Missouri have sided with the Trump administration, and the appellate court based in Chicago remains divided on the issue.

The 6th Circuit holds jurisdiction over Kentucky, and its ruling allowed Benitez to file a bond motion in immigration court — an option once available to most immigrant detainees that largely vanished after the Trump administration introduced its mandatory detention policy last year. An immigration court judge in Memphis granted her bond motion on May 21, setting her bond amount at the minimum allowed under court rules: $1,500.

As a condition of her bond, Benitez will continue checking in at the Milwaukee DHS office.

Benitez’s Monday morning check-in was brief and straightforward. Like other immigrants granted bond, she was directed by immigration officers to download a tracking app that will prompt her to take a photograph of her face once a week to compare against booking photos.

DHS is still appealing last year’s ruling that set Benitez on track to secure legal permanent residency. That appeal, currently in the hands of the federal Board of Immigration Appeals, is still pending. 

“I would never put anything past the Board of Immigration Appeals,” Christopher said during a press conference on Monday, alluding to the board’s recent tendency to side with the Trump administration on immigration court rule changes. Nevertheless, Christopher added that he believes Benitez’s case is strong enough to defy the odds.

Benitez herself is still recovering. “I can’t sleep,” she said, recounting the grim details of her latest stint in custody — fellow detainees whose pregnancies ended in miscarriages, late-night bus trips with erratic drivers and no seat belts, and harassment from nonimmigrant inmates with whom she shared a cell in Kentucky. Benitez noted that she is in contact with the families of several fellow detainees who remain in Kentucky.

Her eldest daughter, Crystal Aguilar, also needs time to bounce back. In her mother’s absence, “my life was on hold,” she said. A return to normality still seems far away, she added.

Freed on bond, Sheboygan Falls woman returns to Milwaukee immigration office amid legal limbo 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.

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In 2024, a sheriff’s deputy working for the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department was forced out for being lousy at his job. But even though the deputy, Cristian Morales, was flagged in the state’s negative separation database, he ended up being hired a few months later by the Menasha Police Department. 

Earlier this year, Morales was arrested and accused of stalking an ex-girlfriend using the city’s Flock camera system. He’s now facing criminal charges.

While some folks are suited for the difficult work of being a law enforcement officer, many are not. It’s hardly a controversial statement to say that police, who can arrest people and use force when necessary, should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us.

And yet our reporting at The Badger Project has found that police chiefs and sheriffs in Wisconsin often give these “wandering officers” second or third chances, despite research saying that officers fired or forced out for misconduct are more likely than other cops to reoffend.

At our last count, more than 300 active officers in Wisconsin had been fired or forced out of previous law enforcement jobs. Many of these separations involved novices who couldn’t cut it in a tough job during their probationary period, when the bar for termination is low. But some, we’ve found, lost jobs for misconduct, including drunk driving, writing misleading reports and using sexist and racist language.

In Wisconsin, law enforcement agencies can report to the state DOJ when they fire or force out an officer, so we can track when that cop goes on to get hired by another policing agency. But we are currently unable to track these wandering officers who have been fired or forced out in other states and come to work here because we don’t have a list of all law enforcement officers here.

That’s why The Badger Project, along with our partners at the Invisible Institute, a Chicago-based nonprofit journalism organization, requested the full list of names and work histories from the Wisconsin Department of Justice and sued when it refused.

In April, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Rhonda Lanford ruled in our favor and ordered the DOJ to release the records. She cited a previous state appeals court ruling that said law enforcement officers “necessarily relinquish certain privacy and reputational rights by virtue of the amount of trust society places in them and must be subject to public scrutiny.”

Prominent members of Wisconsin’s law enforcement community have criticized the judge’s ruling, saying it goes too far. An appeal could be coming.

Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, wrote an op-ed saying the release of these records could put officers at “risk of harassment, doxxing and worse.” He said officers’ birthdates are part of the records whose release we are seeking. Not so: While our initial records request asked for birthdates or birth years (to distinguish between officers with the same name), our lawsuit only asked for birth years, not months and days.

The state DOJ raised another objection, saying release of the names would jeopardize undercover officers. But what cop uses his or her real name when working undercover? We did not request photos of the officers.

I salute and thank the men and women in law enforcement who are serving their communities. I don’t envy the chiefs and sheriffs who must staff their agencies at a time when finding good job applicants for law enforcement jobs is as hard as ever.

And you know what? We at The Badger Project are not against second chances for cops who screwed up. Perhaps an officer who made a fireable mistake has learned from it. Whether that officer should continue in law enforcement is not for us to decide. Our job, as journalists, is to shine a light on those in power and get facts to the public who are being policed by these folks.

If chiefs or sheriffs want to hire an officer with problems in the past, they should say so publicly and defend their decision. They just can’t make these decisions in secret.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Peter Cameron is managing editor of The Badger Project, a nonprofit news outlet.

Your Right to Know: Names of police should be public 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.

Currently, some disabled Wisconsinites have to rely on help from someone else when filling out an absentee ballot at home. Disability Rights Wisconsin says that violates the right to a secret ballot.

The post Is Wisconsin violating the rights of disabled voters? Court hears arguments appeared first on WPR.

A Winnebago County judge has sentenced a former prison guard to two years in prison for sexually assaulting an incarcerated man at a state prison in Oshkosh. 

Judge John Jorgensen sentenced Brandon Jeanpierre to two years of prison and five years of supervision in the community on April 9, as well as sex offender registration. 

The victim reported that Jeanpierre fondled him in his cell and performed oral sex on him in a laundry room at the prison, according to records obtained from the Winnebago County District Attorney’s office. 

According to police records, the victim, whom the Examiner is not naming because he is a victim of sexual assault, said that “although he did not verbally tell the CO to stop or physically push him off, this was not consensual and he simply went along with it because he did not know what else to do.” He said he was frozen and that “nothing like this has ever happened to him.”

Describing a conversation with a police officer, the victim told the Examiner that one of the officer’s first questions was, “Why didn’t you do anything to stop it?” That angered him, and he felt that she was shaming him. He spoke positively of his experience with a different officer, a detective who put him at ease. 

“When you’re incarcerated, what they say is law,” the victim said. “When they tell you to do something, you do it. If not, you take the risk of going to solitary confinement, or you never know.”

The victim said he doesn’t know what he could have done to prevent retaliation for not complying, such as Jeanpierre making an accusation against him. He also said he had his girlfriend call the police because he didn’t have the confidence that the Department of Corrections would do the right thing. 

In August, Assistant District Attorney Amanda Nash gave notice that the prosecution planned to introduce DNA evidence to the jury at trial. That didn’t happen, as Jeanpierre took a plea deal instead of going to trial. 

A police report says the laboratory report is confidential, but a summary of the report implies that DNA swabbed from Jeanpierre’s mouth was linked to DNA swabbed from the victim’s penis. It states that the finding in the lab report “provides a very strong support for inclusion” in the case.

By reviewing video surveillance, prison staff saw that the two men were in the laundry room together on three different occasions, according to a police report. The victim told the Examiner that the other two times in the laundry room involved Jeanpierre touching him. 

A member of the prison staff said that they were in the laundry room for a matter of seconds, with the longest period being about 30-40 seconds, according to the prosecution’s criminal complaint. The complaint says the video did not show what happened inside the room. 

The staff person who reported it “noted that it was very unusual” for an officer to go into a laundry room with the lights out for any amount of time with an incarcerated person. 

The Examiner got in touch with the victim, who was released from prison earlier this year, through his attorney, Lonnie Story. Story gave the Examiner a copy of a letter dated April 22, which he said he sent to the state. In it, Story says his client demands $5 million to settle the case without a lawsuit, and offers to negotiate, asking the state to respond within 30 days. Story told the Examiner on May 19 that he has not received a response. 

If the state does not respond “appropriately,” Story told the Examiner, he expects to bring federal civil rights claims based on the sexual abuse, as well as claims concerning the state’s response to his client’s report of sexual abuse.

Story is still in the process of gathering records, but said the case appears to involve both abuse and “substantial questions” about the response after the victim reported it.

Prosecutor asked for ‘strong message’

Jeanpierre wasn’t physically violent, but his ability to punish a prisoner who did not comply with his demands created a serious power imbalance, and  “loss of freedom can be a far more significant threat than physical force,” Nash said. 

She recommended he spend five years imprisoned and five years on supervision in the community, the maximum amount of time for a third-degree sexual assault. 

The victim thought Jeanpierre might be able to do something that would affect his release date, Nash said. She added that, although he was afraid, he came forward and made sure Jeanpierre couldn’t use his position to violate and harm others. 

“To take a position of trust granted to the defendant by the State and use it to sexually assault someone is simply unacceptable,” Nash said. “There needs to be a strong message against this type of conduct.” 

Nash noted that a more severe second-degree charge was read into the case. Jeanpierre wasn’t found guilty of that charge, but Jorgensen was able to consider it when sentencing him for the third-degree charge. 

In a notice to the court in December, Nash said Jeanpierre’s plea deal reflected his willingness to take responsibility for his actions and avoided the need for his victim to go through the stress of testifying at trial. 

Mentally and emotionally, the victim has suffered “immeasurable pain,” he  wrote in a statement to the court. 

“Being taken advantage [of] by someone who was supposed to protect me has caused me to regress to when I was taken advantage of as a child,” he wrote. “The sadness, anger, depression, [sleepless] nights and thoughts of self harm are something I worked years to fight through only to relive it all as a middle aged man. [It] is something that can never be healed.” 

Defense, DOC recommended 90 days in jail 

At the sentencing hearing, defense attorney Scott Ceman said he agreed with the Department of Corrections’ recommendation for Jeanpierre’s sentence. 

When Jeanpierre was found guilty in January, Jorgensen ordered a pre-sentence investigation to help him decide what Jeanpierre’s sentence should be. Jorgensen explained to Jeanpierre that a probation agent was going to prepare a report on him, including his background and the facts of the case. The investigation is confidential and so could not be reviewed by the Examiner.

However, Jorgensen referred to a DOC recommendation during the sentencing hearing, saying that he recognized “the Department of Corrections recommendation of straight probation, 90 days jail.” 

He said he did not think that addressed the seriousness of Jeanpierre’s offense. 

Ceman said he joined the department’s request and asked for “one to two years initial confinement, [and] three to four years extended supervision [in the community] imposed but stayed.” 

In a stayed sentence, a convicted person is placed on probation in the community. If Jorgensen had sided with Ceman, Jeanpierre wouldn’t have had to serve prison time unless he violated the conditions of his probation. 

Ceman asked for Jeanpierre to receive 90 days in jail and three to four years of supervision in the community, as long as he didn’t violate his probation. 

Jorgensen disagreed, saying that if Jeanpierre did not go to prison, “it could send the wrong message to other guards as well as other inmates that they are at the peril of the decisions of the guards, and there will be no ramifications or [no] serious ramifications if they are violated.”

Nash and Ceman also had different views on whether Jeanpierre regretted his actions. Ceman said that Jeanpierre regrets his conduct and has accepted responsibility for it. 

At one point in the sentencing hearing, Nash expressed concern about the pre-sentence investigation’s recommendation. 

According to Nash, the agent who conducted the investigation noted that Jeanpierre was “minimizing or refusing to accept responsibility” but recommended that he receive probation. Nash had concerns that Jeanpierre “views this as something that was OK or something that the victim was a part of.” 

“The victim had no say, he had no control over his own life, and he was sexually assaulted by someone who could take so much from him,” Nash said. 

According to court documents filed April 9, Jeanpierre is planning to seek post-conviction relief. It’s unclear what grounds he plans to use for that challenge. He declined to speak during the sentencing hearing, and did not respond when the Examiner reached out to him in prison through the messaging app GettingOut.

A search of online Wisconsin circuit court records turned up no prior criminal convictions for Jeanpierre. Online DOC records indicate he has been incarcerated at Dodge Correctional Institution since April 21. 

According to a notice from Nash to the court, the prosecution believed the victim was comfortable with the plea deal and the state’s recommendation for sentencing. 

The victim said he didn’t realize it would be “such a minimal sentence” and he wishes Jeanpierre had been given a longer sentence, but he’s trying to be able to move on from the situation. 

Defense arguments 

Jeanpierre’s attorney, Scott Ceman, appeared to question whether the victim had consented to the assault, arguing there wasn’t evidence of Jeanpierre threatening him.  He acknowledged that under the law, an incarcerated person cannot consent to sexual activity with a staff member.

Due to the authority staff members have over incarcerated people, incarcerated people can never truly consent to sexual activity with a staff member even if they agree, a Wisconsin Department of Corrections handbook states. It’s always illegal for a staff member to engage in  sexual activity with an incarcerated person. 

Ceman alleged at the sentencing hearing that as a prosecutor, he was a “strong advocate” for the position that the Department of Corrections does not adequately train its employees in the Prison Rape Elimination Act. (Ceman left the Winnebago County District Attorney’s Office in 2019 citing his dissatisfaction with the wages prosecutors receive). He claimed he asked Jeanpierre what PREA training he received and that it was “really nothing.” 

Ceman alleged this leads to “grooming-type behavior” by incarcerated people who then report they’ve been sexually assaulted and are moved to a better living area within the prison. Jeanpierre’s victim strongly disagrees with Ceman’s implication and told the Examiner that the attorney was engaging in victim blaming in front of the judge. 

He said he was previously incarcerated for 10 years and never accused anyone of sexual assault, and asked why he would do so when he was incarcerated a second time and serving a shorter sentence. The assault took place in October 2024, and he was released from prison earlier this year. Court records show none of his convictions were sexual in nature. 

The Department of Corrections did not respond to requests for comment from the Examiner. Its website states that the agency has zero tolerance for sexual abuse and sexual harassment. Department policy states that the DOC tracks such incidents, identifies core causes and takes corrective actions. 

The agency trains all employees, contractors and volunteers, and provides incarcerated people with a “comprehensive orientation” about their right to be free from sexual abuse, harassment and report-related retaliation, the policy states.

Employees receive training every two years and “refresher information” on non-training years, covering topics such as the dynamics of sexual abuse and sexual harassment behind bars, according to the policy. 

Victim describes multiple assaults 

The victim told the Examiner that prior to the events described in the prosecution’s criminal complaint, Jeanpierre initiated conversation with him, such as asking him about his family.

According to a police report, the victim believed that the first assault took place sometime after 8 p.m. in his cell. He only knew that people called the officer who assaulted him “Pierre.” 

He said that Jeanpierre said “let me see it” before reaching inside his cell from the doorway and grabbing his crotch. He believed Jeanpierre was drinking because his breath smelled like alcohol. 

Jeanpierre told him that Jeanpierre was going to be moving to a “Q unit,” he reported. He said Jeanpierre told him to make a request so he could also be moved there. 

He said he sent a piece of paper to get himself moved to Q unit through what the criminal complaint described as “some sort of inter-prison mail,” and Jeanpierre gave him a small piece of paper with a phone number on it. 

The victim said the piece of paper he had received from Jeanpierre had been thrown out, and that he had rewritten the number on another piece of paper, which he gave to another incarcerated man. A piece of paper found in that man’s room had the personal phone number that the prison had on file for Jeanpierre. 

The victim said he didn’t ask why the officer was asking him to move to that unit, and that, according to the report, he “minds his own business, that he wants to get out on time, doesn’t cause trouble and when a CO [correctional officer] asks him to do something, he just simply does it.” 

Some time between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., the victim said, Jeanpierre walked by him about two to three times and swiped the back of his hand near his crotch. 

He said that he was working on the janitorial staff that night, and around 10:30 or 11 p.m., Jeanpierre told him to come into the laundry room, where Jeanpierre pulled down the victim’s shorts and put his penis in his mouth without his consent, the victim said.  

He added that after he was assaulted in the laundry room, he went to his room and stayed there for the night. 

The Examiner reviewed records that give insight into the state’s investigation into the sexual assault, including the transcript of an interview on Nov. 22 with Eric Henslin, identified as an administrative captain at Oshkosh Correctional Institution. The victim said he obtained those records by requesting them from the Department of Corrections. 

A camera covers the area of the door that provides access to the laundry room, Henslin said. A window allows the camera to see inside, but the lights were off. After the allegation of sexual assault, a memo went out to direct staff that all lights would remain on in the laundry rooms, he said.

Chad Schepp, the interviewer and a corrections investigator for the DOC, asked Henslin about the victim’s allegation of smelling alcohol on Jeanpierre. Henslin said that if a supervisor doing roll call had any suspicion of Jeanpierre being under the influence of a mind-altering substance, it would be addressed. 

Incarcerated man tipped off Examiner

The Examiner learned about the prosecution of Jeanpierre from Jerry Wheeler, 60, who has spent the majority of his life since 2002 incarcerated and is currently at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution. 

The prosecution’s criminal complaint against Jeanpierre referenced an incarcerated man identified as “JLW.” Online court records from Wheeler’s past offenses state his name as “Jerry L. Wheeler.”  

The victim said he went to Wheeler for advice the morning after the assault, according to the prosecution’s criminal complaint. Wheeler said he didn’t really know the victim and had talked to him a couple of times since he’s been at the Oshkosh prison, the complaint states. 

Wheeler said the victim initially spoke hypothetically about how to report a sexual assault and what to do if he was afraid of retaliation, and that he later admitted he had been assaulted by a correctional officer the previous night, the complaint says. The victim told the Examiner that Wheeler convinced him to report the assault to the police. 

The DOC’s response so far 

Jeanpierre had been with the Department of Corrections for nine months before the incident, according to Ceman’s remarks at the sentencing hearing. A police report dated the day after the assault says that Jeanpierre was being placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. 

Jeanpierre resigned on Nov. 6, 2024, about a week after the assault, according to the records obtained by the victim. He did not respond to the DOC’s request to interview him.

A DOC report supplied by the victim states that the department did not interview the victim because of “the graphic nature of the incident,” concern about re-victimizing him and the fact that police already had a detailed statement. 

When the Examiner brought this up to the victim, he said he could sort of understand that but he wished someone from the DOC had asked him if he wanted to be interviewed. 

The victim said that after the assault, other incarcerated people started to hear about it, and not from him. Incarcerated people told him that correctional officers were talking about it. The victim said he went to security and reported concern for his safety. He was moved to a different institution. 

Henslin, the prison captain interviewed by the DOC, said that the victimwas moved from the Oshkosh prison to Redgranite Correctional Institution because of the allegation of sexual assault, according to records supplied by the victim. He was later transferred between multiple other prisons. 

The victim spoke positively of his experience with an advocate from a sexual assault services provider, but negatively of the DOC’s response to the assault. 

The victim said that “every time I went to a new institution, no one spoke to me… anytime I would ask about the investigation or ask about specific paperwork pertaining to the investigation, no one knew anything.” 

He said he was told staff would have to reach out to someone else and find out. Prison psychological services had to fact-check that he was telling the truth when he brought the assault up to them, he said. 

Department of Corrections policy states that the agency provides a coordinated victim-centered response to reports of sexual abuse and sexual harassment, including providing medical and mental health services to victims as appropriate while investigating all allegations. 

In the victim’s view, the DOC doesn’t have a great track record of being honest or caring for incarcerated people. 

“Victims cannot be silent,” he said. 

How frequently are sexual assaults reported in Wisconsin prisons? 

In 2024, Wisconsin’s adult prisons saw 27 substantiated claims of sexual abuse and 66 substantiated claims of sexual harassment, according to an annual report from the DOC. (2025 data is available on the department’s website, but not at the same level of detail as the 2024 report.)

Most of the substantiated allegations for 2024 involved an incarcerated person abusing or harassing another incarcerated person. Six substantiated allegations involved a staff member, contractor or volunteer abusing or harassing an incarcerated person.

Adult prisons saw 186 unsubstantiated claims of sexual abuse and 241 unsubstantiated claims of sexual harassment in 2024. Most involved incarcerated people allegedly abusing or harassing other incarcerated people. 

Ninety-eight claims were determined to be unfounded, and over a third of those claims were made against staff, contractors or volunteers. 

The report’s category for a staff member sexually abusing or harassing an incarcerated person is broader than the category for sexual abuse by an incarcerated person. For example, if an incarcerated person consents to sexual contact with a staff member, it is categorized as sexual abuse. That’s not the case for sexual contact between two willing incarcerated people. 

Jeanpierre’s conviction wasn’t the first of its kind in Wisconsin. In 2018, former correctional officer Alex Wouts was sentenced to 35 years in prison for sexually assaulting several incarcerated people, the Associated Press reported. Wouts threatened discipline and offered privileges to victims. 

The DOC’s 2024 report included a list of specific steps the department took in 2024 to safeguard against sexual abuse, which included making physical changes within facilities and holding various staff trainings. 

National PREA standards require audits for covered facilities at least once during each three-year cycle. In 2023, an auditor with the Colorado Department of Corrections audited the Oshkosh prison and reported it was in compliance with standards. 

As for Department of Corrections staff, public DOC data reports five incidents in 2025 in which staff experienced unwanted sexual contact from incarcerated people. 

Awaiting more records

On April 30, the Examiner made a public records request to the Department of Corrections for Jeanpierre’s disciplinary records. 

On May 1, the Examiner made a public records request to the Oshkosh Police Department for the final case report for the case that led to the prosecution of Jeanpierre. The department denied the request, citing an ongoing investigation. 

A few days after the Examiner took the matter to Winnebago County District Attorney Eric Sparr,  citing state public records law and the fact that Jeanpierre had already been convicted, Sparr said that he understood the matter to be resolved and that the department should be fulfilling the request. 

The Examiner has received at least some of the police reports in the case through a request to Sparr’s office, but has not yet received all records requested from the Oshkosh Police Department. 

On May 5, a police records clerk told the Examiner that she is unsure what was still being investigated, and that the report has been approved to be sent. Using language from state public records law, she said the Examiner would receive the report as soon as practicable and without delay. 

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