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Protesters burst into a Thursday news conference about the police shooting of a homeless man in Madison, taking the microphone from the police chief and arguing with some attendees who said they wanted to hear more about the investigation.

The group of roughly 20 protesters burst into the room at the Madison police station, shortly after Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and Common Council President Sabrina Madison identified the man killed by police as Corey Durell Ruiz, a homeless resident.

Ruiz, 38, was shot and killed Wednesday after police said he resisted arrest and injured an officer with a knife.

Police Chief John Patterson stepped away from the microphone when the protesters were shouting, and one man in the group took his spot at the podium. The event quickly devolved into a shouting match.

@wisconsinwatch

A vigil for Corey Ruiz was held Thursday at the intersection of Williamson Street and South Baldwin Street in Madison, where Ruiz was fatally shot by a Madison police officer. We spoke to several Madison residents about the fatal shooting. Madison Police Department’s police chief, John Patterson, said Ruiz’s death will be investigated as a homicide during a press conference shortly before the vigil. The Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating the shooting. #wisconsinwatch #coreyruiz #mpd #madisonshooting #madison

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One protester held a sign saying “Corrupt cops deserve to die too!!!”

Moments earlier, the mayor said the shooting will be “rigorously investigated.”

“It does not matter who you are or what your past is, you should not lose your life as a result of an encounter with law enforcement,” Satya Rhodes-Conway said.

Madison, for her part, said “Corey could have been my brother because my brother is homeless and he often rides a bike.”

Court records show Ruiz had been in and out of jail over the past decade on charges including failing to pay child support, driving a vehicle without consent, jumping bail, threatening authorities, taking a vehicle without consent, possessing drug paraphernalia, resisting an officer and retail theft.

“He’s a human being. He had a family. He has parents who loved him who brought him home, who cared for him,” Madison said, adding that she’s struggling to understand what she’s seen in videos of the shooting that have circulated on social media.

“My first thought is, when the officer’s walking away, why isn’t he walking away in cuffs,” Madison said. “I’m angry, there’s no way around it.”

Once the protesters quieted down, the chief resumed his presentation, promising his department’s full cooperation with the state investigation.

Police have released few details

The shooting has roiled Wisconsin’s capital city, with Gov. Tony Evers calling for “transparency and accountability” and Madison community members gathering Thursday at a growing memorial.

None of the four officers who were detaining the man wore body cameras, but passersby recorded the confrontation on video, and accused the officers of overreacting.

“I thought, ‘Holy cow — what could have warranted that?’ It looked to me like they had him under control,” David Ortiz-Whittingham, who saw officers swarming and heard the gunshots, said Thursday. “Even now, knowing about the knife, did he have to die for it? Could this have been de-escalated without him losing his life?”

The police chief released few details Thursday, saying the investigation into the officer-involved shooting must run its course.

Earlier Thursday, Madison’s independent police monitor, Aeiramique Glass, said police have not yet shared evidence or the officer’s identity with her office, which will review the case and can recommend to the district attorney that charges be filed if warranted. She said the department and city are “obstructing what the community and the public” want.

“Let me do my job,” she said.

Patterson said the police were committed to cooperating with Glass as the independent monitor’s investigation is carried out, at the same time as the state’s probe.

The chief urged people not to draw conclusions

Patterson has urged caution in reading too much from the cellphone videos. He said none show the perspective of the officers, and additional video that hasn’t been released is being reviewed.

The officer who fired his weapon is a veteran of the force, the chief said. He and the three other responding officers will be placed on administrative leave pending an independent investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation, as required under state law.

Patterson said police were responding to calls that someone was attempting to enter parked vehicles, and the suspect fled on a bike before the officers surrounded him. One deployed a taser, but Patterson said he didn’t know if the taser worked. Those efforts failed to control the man, Patterson said.

In the videos circulating online, the man can be seen standing before he’s brought to his knees as the officers struggle to force him into a prone position. Then he falls quickly to the pavement after what sounds like three gunshots and seems motionless as the officers handcuff him behind his back. Arriving officers then escort one of the officers a short distance away.

Patterson said he did not know the extent of the injuries sustained by the officer who was injured by the knife.

“This situation was clearly dangerous,” Patterson said. He later continued, “I am incredibly saddened by the loss of life.”

A neighborhood now accustomed to police shootings

The shooting happened in the middle of an intersection in the popular Marquette neighborhood, which is lined with restaurants, bars, shops and homes less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from the state Capitol. The bystander videos show numerous cars at the scene, with people watching and commenting as it unfolded.

“I saw everything! I saw everything! You did not need to kill him! … We watched it all!” a woman yelled in the video recorded by Ortiz-Whittingham. Three loud shots could be heard among the sirens, followed by screams.

Residents who dealt with two other police killings within the same few blocks expressed their frustration on Thursday.

In 2015, a white police officer shot and killed Tony Robinson, who was biracial, on the same street. Large protests followed, but the district attorney filed no charges, determining the officer was justified. In 2012, Paul Heenan, a white musician, was fatally shot after he had been drinking and mistakenly entered his neighbor’s house. That officer was exonerated as well.

The chief acknowledged that the neighborhood “has experienced a lot of trauma” and urged people to support one another.

“I want transparency, I want accountability,” Patterson said.

Questions about race and technology emerge

The race of the officer who fired his gun on Wednesday and that of the man he killed were not released by police.

But Black advocacy groups, protesters and politicians spoke out against the crime and said they believe the man was Black.

The shooting also focused attention on the Madison Police Department’s lack of body-worn cameras. The force of around 500 is among the largest in the Midwest that doesn’t use the devices.

Common Council President Sabrina Madison said Thursday that she expects a police request for $400,000 to be approved, enabling the cameras to be phased in over the next three years. Others lamented that cameras aren’t already being used.

“Nobody can agree on anything,” said Katey Nelson, a member of the police civilian oversight board and operations director at YWCA Madison, a racial justice group. “Now we’re here, looking at another police shooting where we don’t have what we need to make sure the officers are held accountable.”

The mayor said her budget, which has not yet been released, will include funding for body-worn cameras. Rhodes-Conway said the city needs to put together a policy for the use of the cameras, and said that will be completed before the budget takes effect in January.

And now it’s a talking point in the governor’s race

Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin, has a long history of organized protest dating back to the 1960s. More than 100,000 people marched on the state Capitol in 2011 in favor of union rights. There were large demonstrations that turned violent after the death of George Floyd in 2020.

And so the shooting quickly infused itself into the race to succeed Evers as governor, with voting already underway in the Aug. 11 primary.

“This state sanctioned violence was an execution,” posted Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist candidate who appeared with a bullhorn at the scene just a few blocks from her campaign office. She has called for defunding the police.

Another Democrat in the race, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, said while the details must become public, “these reports are painfully reminiscent of the tragedies we have witnessed in Kenosha, Minneapolis, and far too many communities across our country.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany called on his rivals to let the state investigation “establish the facts without politicians rushing to judgment or stoking division” in a statement that also said he would “work to end revolving-door criminal justice policies.”

Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit and Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: The Associated Press erroneously reported George Floyd was shot and killed by police. An officer in Minneapolis murdered Floyd by pinning him to the pavement and putting a knee to his neck. This story has been updated to reflect the correction.

Madison officials identify Corey Ruiz as man police shot and killed 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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A Madison police officer shot and killed a man after that man produced a knife, Madison Police Chief John Patterson said.

The same officer who fired the shots was injured by the man’s knife, according to Patterson.

The incident happened at about 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, according to an incident report posted by the Madison Police Department that afternoon. Multiple streets in the area were blocked off Wednesday afternoon — and crowds gathered in protest.

Patterson said officials had notified the deceased man’s family about his death. However, Patterson declined to disclose the man’s race or name during a news conference just before 5 p.m. Wednesday. He said the man was in his 30s.

Patterson said one officer fired shots, although a total of four officers were involved in the incident and have been placed on leave. The Division of Criminal Investigation at Wisconsin’s Department of Justice is investigating the incident.

Patterson said police initially responded to a call about a man who was checking cars in Madison’s Marquette neighborhood. When officers arrived, Patterson said the man fled on his bike.

The chief said the man produced a knife while officers were trying to arrest him.

“This is not a small folding knife,” Patterson told reporters. “It’s a large fixed blade knife that was there and present.”

During the incident, Patterson said, police used a stun weapon on the man.

“A less lethal device, a Taser, was deployed,” Patterson said. “Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful.”

During the incident, Patterson said a second officer was injured, but police do not believe that officer was injured by the man’s knife.

“It’s not clear how that occurred,” Patterson said.

A video posted to social media on Wednesday shows police cruisers arriving at an intersection with sirens on. A person can be seen riding into the intersection and then falling off a bike onto the pavement, before multiple officers are on top of the person. The video shows the person trying to get away. Then, an officer appears to fire multiple shots at the person.

The video was posted by Richard Hegwood, who lives at the intersection and witnessed the shooting. He told a reporter he began recording when he saw police chasing a man on a bike.

“They catch the dude, they have him on the ground. He’s struggling, he’s struggling to get up, and that’s when they shot him. They shot him three times,” Hegwood said. “I never saw a weapon. He never brandished a weapon.”

Hegwood said three officers had been struggling with the person before the shots were fired.

A second video from a closer vantage point was taken by resident Michael Doubek, who said he saw an officer knock the man from a bike.

“He was on the ground, he had nearly been handcuffed, he had already been tased,” Doubek said. “One of the officers says he has a knife, after which one of the officers pulls a taser, yells, ‘Taser taser taser,’ tases him. Then all three, all of them sort of all fall on the ground together, after which one of the cops stands up kind of on one knee and shoots him three times in the head point blank while he is on the ground.”

Doubek said he does not know the details of what led to the confrontation. “But from where I was standing 10 feet away, that looked an awful lot like an execution to me,” he said.

After the shooting, the area was closed off by police tape. The person’s bicycle remained on the ground.

Advocates for Madison’s Black community said the man killed was Black.

“Another Black man is dead on a Madison street, and our community watched him die before we even knew his name,” said Brandi Grayson, the head of the Madison-based Black community advocacy group Urban Triage. “That is the cruelty of state violence.”

Hundreds of protesters gathered near the scene Wednesday evening before marching together to the state Capitol where a Concerts on the Square event was underway.

Protesters chanted and held signs with slogans, including “no justice, no peace” and “Madison police executed a human today.” Some concertgoers showed support by clapping and raising fists.

The concert was eventually canceled by organizers.

During Wednesday’s news conference earlier in the afternoon, Patterson asked Madisonians to “please take a moment to to reflect and offer some support to one another.”

He referenced the man who died, and added, “I want to take a moment to honestly and sincerely offer my my heartfelt sympathies to his family for this loss.”

Wednesday’s shooting took place in the same neighborhood where a Madison police officer fatally shot Tony Robinson, a 19-year-old Black man, inside an apartment building in 2015.

Robinson was unarmed. The Dane County district attorney did not issue charges against that police officer, after determining the officer had reason to fear for his life after concluding that Robinson had physically assaulted the officer at the top of the stairs within the building. 

“I want to start with an acknowledgement that today involves a very traumatic incident,” Patterson said, referencing the Robinson shooting during Wednesday’s news conference. “A traumatic incident that has occurred in a neighborhood that has experienced a lot of trauma in the past.”

In an update sent just before 2:45 p.m. Wednesday, District 6 Madison Ald. Davy Mayer said he was “aware of an officer-involved shooting on Williamson and Baldwin Street earlier this afternoon.”

“My priority is to make sure the community remains safe and that the public receives full details about what happened as soon as possible,” Mayer wrote in the blog post.

A version of this story was originally published by WPR. Information was added from the Associated Press.

Hundreds protest after police officer fatally shoots man on Madison’s east side 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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A scam operation targeting Spanish-speaking injured workers is laying traps in Wisconsinites’ email inboxes.

Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development issued an alert this week about a possible “multi-state fraud scheme” that lures targets into fake worker’s compensation hearings to collect fees under false pretenses.

DWD spokesperson Haley McCoy told Wisconsin Watch that 10 Wisconsin workers reported receiving emails instructing them to attend “online workers’ compensation hearing(s)” via video call. The emails’ senders generally use “.org” addresses and bill themselves as government agencies like the “Workers’ Compensation Board.”

Workers who joined the calls via Zoom, WhatsApp, Teams and other video conferencing platforms sat through elaborate staged hearings complete with judges, bailiffs and attorneys, ending in a verdict in the workers’ favor. The fraudsters then told the injured workers that they could collect their compensation payout only after paying a fee to “finalize” the case. In some cases, victims also shared their Social Security numbers.

At least four Wisconsin workers have lost money to the scam since January, McCoy said, paying a combined $30,000 in sham legal fees.

McCoy also emphasized that attorneys involved in Wisconsin worker’s compensation cases must be licensed to practice law in the state. “Any ‘attorney’ not licensed in Wisconsin may be a fraudster,” she wrote in an email on Monday.

The DWD exclusively communicates with injured workers, employers and insurance carriers via mail, and telephone numbers on DWD correspondence will have Wisconsin area codes. 

A June alert from the nonprofit National Insurance Crime Bureau cited other examples of the same fraud scheme targeting injured workers — primarily Spanish speakers — in Illinois, Indiana and Oregon.

Neither the bureau nor Wisconsin’s DWD has determined how the scam’s organizers obtained the email addresses of injured workers. 

People who believe they’ve been victims of identity theft should contact the agency’s Consumer Protection Hotline at 800-422-7128 or DATCPHotline@wisconsin.gov, the agency said.

Scammers target injured Wisconsin workers with fake worker’s compensation hearings 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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Progress is possible, and Milwaukee’s decline in violent crime in recent years suggest it’s happening. 

Advocates and violence prevention workers say keeping crime trending down depends on investment in the trusted relationships that make violence less likely. 

Examples of investments that can create tangible alternatives to violence, they said, are mentorship instead of isolation, employment instead of boredom and community instead of retaliation.

At the center of it all is trust, said Reggie Moore, director of community safety, policy and engagement for the Comprehensive Injury Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin. 

“Trust is universal,” Moore said. “Trust is the door opener.”

City and county leaders highlighted declines in violent crime on July 7 as they presented data for the first half of 2026.

Compared with the first half of 2025, homicides fell 30%, nonfatal shootings fell 27%, and carjackings fell 34%.

“Milwaukee is a safer community,” Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said. “This continues a multiyear trend that is very positive news.”

Karin Tyler, director of the city Department of Community Wellness and Safety, said the progress reflects years of collaboration among law enforcement, violence prevention organizations, community groups and residents.

“Milwaukee is making progress, and that progress belongs to all of us,” Tyler said.

Aziz Abdullah, co-founder of INPOWER Solutions, said he doesn’t want to gloss over the progress or take it for granted.  

INPOWER is one of several organizations participating in the Destined for Greater initiative, a collaborative effort to reduce violence in Milwaukee County. 

“Lives are being protected, and that should not be overlooked,” Abdullah said. 

Moore pointed to reductions in retaliatory shootings, group-based gun violence and youth-related gun violence as signs of progress. 

He said programs such as 414LIFE intentionally focus on the people and neighborhoods at highest risk of gun violence.

‘We don’t shoot up stuff’

Vaun Mayes, a community organizer and violence interrupter with the city’s Department of Community Wellness and Safety, said he sees these interventions firsthand every day. 

“We also get to see the changes in some of the key players who are even doing a bit of self-control and self-policing,” Mayes said. 

He described one instance at a block party where two groups were in conflict and one group was armed.

Mayes said he heard one of the young men say, “Aye, we don’t shoot up stuff where it’s kids at.” 

Community violence intervention workers de-escalated the conflict, and the result, Mayes said, was that no one was shot.

“That’s one of maybe over a dozen incidents in the past two months I can give you,” he said.

Looking forward

Violence prevention workers and local leaders said the local efforts are by no means complete.

“We still have work to do,” Tyler said.

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman pointed to violence on the Fourth of July weekend as an example.

Moore said what’s needed is more employment and educational opportunities and helping people develop the skills to resolve conflicts without violence.

Bridget Whitaker, executive director of Safe & Sound, said residents continue to express concerns about reckless driving, youth conflicts, neighborhood safety and other quality-of-life issues.

“Ultimately, the goal isn’t simply fewer crimes on a dashboard,” Whitaker said in an email. “It’s creating neighborhoods where people feel comfortable sitting on their front porch, children can safely walk to the park, businesses can thrive and neighbors know and look out for one another.”

Homicides, shootings and carjackings fall as Milwaukee violence prevention efforts show progress 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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Former Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan was spared from prison Wednesday for ushering a Mexican defendant out of her courtroom to evade U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. A federal judge fined her $5,000 and cited her otherwise law-abiding life in issuing the sentence.

“I think this is a situation where an otherwise good person, upset by immigration policies in this country, made a bad decision in the moment,” U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman said.

Dugan, 67, was convicted of felony obstruction in December. Her lawyers argued during her trial that President Donald Trump’s administration sought to “crush” Dugan in an effort to ensure judicial compliance with the ICE strategy of targeting immigrants as they showed up for court hearings.

Dugan resigned the Milwaukee County circuit judgeship she had held for nine years in January amid threats of impeachment from Republican state lawmakers who labeled her an activist judge. In her resignation letter, she said her prosecution threatened “the independence of our judiciary.” Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a fierce Trump loyalist running for Wisconsin governor, urged authorities to “lock her up” in a social media post following her conviction.

Two Marquette University law professors spoke on her behalf, including a former state Supreme Court justice and a Jesuit priest who read a statement describing Dugan as a defender of oppressed people and saying he didn’t believe there was a need for punishment. “Hannah models what it means to be a Christian,” Gregory O’Meara said.

Dugan says she was just trying to do her job

Dugan then addressed the court, saying she tried to do her best as a judge and that her actions that day in April 2025 were not done maliciously but rather to maintain the “decorum and safety of the courtroom.”

“I have been cast as both a scofflaw and a hero. I am neither. I am a public servant who’s just trying to do my job,” Dugan said, adding that she has had to retire from public life due to threats against her and her family.

Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Frohling acknowledged that “she has experienced collateral damage because of her conduct,” but said “judges can’t choose to disregard the law.”

The judge then said he doesn’t believe prison is necessary, noting that Dugan lost her job, now has a felony conviction and experienced threats that forced her to move and stop attending community events. He also noted that Dugan’s actions didn’t stop the ICE agents from arresting the defendant outside the courthouse.

“This is a few minutes of conduct for someone who has dedicated her life to public service,” Adelman said. “It’s a marked deviation from an otherwise law-abiding life.”

Prosecutors pushed for a ‘serious sentence’

Prosecutors had argued in a sentencing memo that Dugan violated her oath as a judge and put both law enforcement and the public at risk.

“Judges are entrusted with tremendous discretion, but there is a line they cannot cross,” Frohling wrote. “The defendant crossed that line.”

Dugan’s attorneys argued she has been “punished enough” and should not be sentenced to any jail time beyond the hours she spent in federal custody.

Federal sentencing guidelines called for 15 to 21 months behind bars, but the judge, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1997, wasn’t bound by them. Prosecutors did not recommend a sentence, but Frohling wrote that “this was a serious offense, and it warrants a correspondingly serious sentence.”

Attorney Jason Luczak said after the sentencing that they would still appeal Dugan’s felony obstruction conviction. Jurors acquitted her at trial of concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor.

What happened in the courthouse that day

On April 18, 2025, immigration officers went to the Milwaukee County courthouse after learning Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 31, had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

Dugan confronted agents outside her courtroom and directed them to the chief judge’s office, saying their administrative warrant wasn’t sufficient to arrest Flores-Ruiz. Her attorneys said she was following protocols that called for court employees to report any immigration agents to their supervisors.

After the agents left, she led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. A week later, FBI agents arrested Dugan in the courthouse, leading her outside in handcuffs.

Flores-Ruiz was deported in November.

Associated Press contributors include Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa. Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Former Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan spared prison for obstructing ICE arrest 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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Researchers from Children’s Wisconsin and the Medical College of Wisconsin found an association between motor vehicle crash injuries and firearm injuries among children and adolescents.

The findings could help inform violence prevention efforts, said Dr. Mike Levas, one of the authors of the study and a professor of pediatric emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children’s Wisconsin. 

“I think that car crashes, especially in our teens and young kids, can be a marker for that increased escalation and risky behaviors or risky situations,” said Levas, who is also medical director of Project Ujima. 

Project Ujima is a violence intervention program at Children’s Wisconsin. The program works to end the cycle of violence by providing crisis intervention and other support to youths and adults who are victims of violence.

Findings of the study

Nearly one in four patients treated for a firearm injury had multiple emergency department visits for firearm, non-firearm violence or motor vehicle crash injuries during a four-year period, according to the study.

The study examined 2,614 emergency department visits for violent injuries or motor vehicle crashes involving children and adolescents ages 0 to 17 from 2018 to 2022.

Researchers found a significant association between prior motor vehicle crash injuries and later firearm injuries.

In other words, motor vehicle crash injuries can serve as a marker for increased risk of a firearm injury later on.

Interpretation of findings

Traumatic events often do not occur in isolation, said Dr. Deanna Behrens, a pediatric critical care physician and American Academy of Pediatrics spokesperson.

“We know that there are clusters of activity, like risk-taking behavior, exposure to violence and traumatic injuries, that can happen in adolescence and early adulthood,” she said.

In addition to social and environmental factors, Levas said adolescents are still developing the parts of the brain responsible for decision-making.

“Most people, as they grow, don’t make great choices all the time,” Levas said. 

These developmental realities place some responsibility on society to help young people avoid risk, he said.

“If we don’t have guardrails for them, then I think from a public health standpoint, then we’re not helping the situation, we’re not helping to prevent injury,” he said.

Levas said Children’s Wisconsin is considering whether the findings could help identify opportunities to intervene earlier.

One possibility is expanding Project Ujima. 

Currently, the program serves youths who have been shot, stabbed or physically assaulted and provides case management, mental health services, mentorship and family support.

“One of the things that we’re looking at is: Do we expand our inclusion criteria to include victims of a motor vehicle crash so that we can prevent the firearm injury from happening altogether?” Levas said.

Important to note is that the program doesn’t just serve the direct victim of violence.

“We wrap our arms around the entire family, so not just the immediate victim, but we also support the entire household,” said Brooke Cheaton, manager of Project Ujima. “Those conversations are centered very much around concerns, whether it be for safety, for physical health, for mental well-being, emotional well-being, social supports.”

These types of support are necessary because violence can profoundly change the lives of victims, families and communities, Cheaton said.

“We are always talking about prevention, and early intervention is key to reducing injury and mortality,” said Maria Beyer, one of the authors of the study and a community health evaluation manager at Children’s Wisconsin. 

Collecting information early through interventions, she said, can help them learn of those shared risk factors that might be leading to both reckless driving and also gun violence. 

She said that mentoring and youth development programs are among the resources that could help communities intervene earlier.

What can parents do?

As Children’s Wisconsin explores ways to use the study findings to prevent future injuries, Levas said parents and caregivers can take steps of their own.

On a basic level, he said, parents can start by opening lines of communication with their children and helping them connect with trusted adults.

“Seeking mentorship for your child across multiple sectors is very helpful,” he said. “The more that the youth can get engaged with adults that are guiding them to make better choices, or learn how to stay out of risky situations, the better.”

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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.

Researchers say car crashes could help identify youth at risk of gun violence  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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Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault.

Throughout high school, Amanda Watzka and David Heisel would go on long drives across Oconto County.

Heisel would stroke Watzka’s hand and talk about his family’s wealth. He would let her know he could protect her once they were finally together.

But Watzka and Heisel were not teenage sweethearts — Watzka was a 15-year-old technical education student at Oconto Falls High School, and Heisel was her teacher.

Watzka considered Heisel a mentor, a friend and, in some ways, her boyfriend.

But now that she’s in her 30s and has a daughter of her own, Watzka believes she was groomed by Heisel for years.

When Watzka talks about how the relationship went from grooming to an alleged sexual assault her junior year of high school, her reaction is physical.

According to a federal complaint and police reports, in 2012 Heisel sexually assaulted Watzka during a Skills USA competition at Chula Visa Resort in Wisconsin Dells.

“It’s hard to talk about. It’s hard,” Watzka says, rocking back and forth and patting her left arm. “I don’t know that I’ve fully processed that yet. I know what has happened. It is that he did not stop.”

In March 2026, Watzka and two other former students filed a federal complaint against the Oconto Falls School District alleging school officials ignored ongoing grooming and sexual abuse.

The complaint has since grown to include more than a dozen former students, teachers and parents connected to the Oconto Falls School District who allege that for 35 years educators and school board members were aware of sexual misconduct in all forms — whether perpetrated by teachers against students, by students against other students, or by staff against staff — but practiced “deliberate indifference.”  

WPR reached out to several attorneys, school officials and members of law enforcement related to the case. But with the exception of the attorney representing the plaintiffs, none would comment.

The complaint is one of the largest cases dealing with student sexual assault in Wisconsin, said Chicago attorney Cass Casper, who is representing the former students.

Since the filing in March, the complaint has been amended three times. It now includes seven plaintiffs and 19 sworn affidavits to support their allegations. 

The complaint names 12 staff members as alleged perpetrators going back to the early 1990s. So far, two have been criminally charged.

According to the complaint: 

• A student reported a classmate’s sexual assault to a principal and athletic director and was told the school could do nothing and she “had more healing to do.” 
• A teacher at school was aware the assistant volleyball coach was sharing a bed with a student. When the athletic director learned about the relationship, he talked to the coach about “boundaries.” 
• A student was sexually assaulted by a basketball coach; two fellow coaches knew and privately told them to stop without ever reporting it. One of those coaches was simultaneously having an illegal sexual relationship with another 16-year-old student. 

“I’ve never seen facts like this, ever, in my practice,” Casper said. “There are all of these people, staff members, students reporting it. The scope of this suit, and the number of witnesses who have come forward, reflects a severe problem in how the district responds to these situations.”

West Bend attorney Ron Stadler is representing the school district. Stadler did not return requests from WPR for comment. 

“Teachers who engage in sexual misconduct should face consequences — the loss of their employment, criminal prosecution and civil liability for the damages they cause,” Sadler’s motion to dismiss says. “In the context of sexual misconduct, a school district is not liable for the bad actor’s conduct.”

Under state law, all school employees are mandated reporters who are legally required to report suspected child abuse or neglect, including sexual abuse.

According to state guidelines, school staff must “learn to recognize manipulation and grooming by adults and peers and to communicate those concerns to appropriate authorities such as school leadership per school policies. In plain language, grooming is a process where a maltreater gains trust, builds rapport and compliance, and ensures secrecy of a child with the intent to be sexually abusive.”

School staff and other mandated reporters who knowingly fail to report abuse can face criminal charges and the loss of professional licenses.

Victims say abuse happened over years

Watzka graduated from Oconto Falls High School in January 2013. But she returned in May 2013 to walk with her class and receive her diploma.

Watzka said she left school early to get away from Heisel, who was in his mid-30s at the time.

Her teacher and alleged sexual abuser was many things to Watzka, who excelled in his class.

Throughout high school, Heisel invited Watzka on weekly drives to his job sites, restaurants, his house and his grandmother’s house.

During these trips, Heisel discussed what life would be like with Watzka, who was a teenager. He asked her about her sexual experience, while discussing his marriage and complaining his wife had cheated on him, according to the federal complaint. 

Heisel told Watzka he could marry her and take care of all her problems. He sang to her and made romantic comments. He also engraved his initials after Watzka’s name on her tools.

Then in spring 2012, when Heisel took students to the Dells for the annual Skills Competition, he allegedly escalated his behavior. 

According to the complaint, Heisel went into Watzka’s hotel room. She felt threatened and went into the hallway. He followed her into the hotel stairway, where he allegedly accused her of being a tease, partially undressed and forcibly kissed and fondled her.

“Amanda always remembered the facts of what occurred between her and Heisel,” the complaint says. “However, due to her youth, Heisel’s manipulation, and the grooming process, she did not understand until March and April 2025 that Heisel’s conduct was predatory, criminal, and constituted actionable civil wrongs.” 

Watzka said she continued to confide in Heisel even after the assault because she felt like he had always been there for her.

Child sexual grooming is a complex and deceptive process that masquerades as trust-building or mentorship, according to the National Children’s Alliance. It is estimated that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys have experienced child sexual abuse.

“The way I look at it is I’ve lived a very hard life,” Watzka said. “From what I’ve experienced and what I’ve reflected on, I don’t think that victims can come forward until they’re safe enough to do so.”

That safety came last year, once Watzka was married to her second husband and had three children.

In March 2025, Watzka, now 31, sent Heisel a text that was different from any type of contact they had previously had.

“I didn’t realize how incredibly messed up it was until I had my own daughter,” Watzka wrote. “Now that I’ve accepted it for what it is, I’m ready to share it openly so that I can move forward with my life and in hopes to prevent you from doing it to anyone else.”

According to a police report filed in April 2025, Heisel showed his co-workers at Oconto Falls High School the text messages and asked them what he should do.

They told him to get a lawyer.

Heisel did not respond to phone calls and text messages from Wisconsin Public Radio. His attorney, Clarence Duchac III, did not return multiple requests for comment from WPR.

Heisel has never been criminally charged.

The Oconto Falls district did not respond to requests for information on the status of Heisel’s employment.

However, Heisel surrendered his teacher’s license to the Department of Public Instruction on March 31, 20 days after being named in the civil rights complaint against the Oconto Falls School Board.

2 former teachers face criminal legal consequences  

While Heisel has never faced criminal charges for Watzka’s allegations, two other educators in Oconto Falls have been charged with sexually assaulting multiple students.

Brooke LaCount and Grace Williams, who are now adults, say they were both groomed and sexually assaulted by Brynn Larsen, a former substitute teacher and volleyball coach. 

According to court documents, LaCount was 15 when Brynn Larsen began a sexual relationship with her in 2013. Larsen, who was approximately 24 at the time, started sending LaCount pornographic photographs and then escalated the relationship to sleepovers at her house.

“I did not know what sex between women was and was not interested in sexual activity with women, but I felt obligated to comply because of the power differential between me and Brynn Marie Larsen and because of my youth and inexperience,” LaCount said in court documents. 

Brynn’s mother, Dawn Larsen, was a health education teacher at Oconto Falls High School and the head varsity coach for volleyball and softball. 

Allegations that Larsen was having an inappropriate relationship with a student were first reported to police in 2014.

In June of that year, Oconto Falls police officer Jamie Kuhn, who also served as a school resource officer, spoke to LaCount after someone reported Larsen appeared to be having inappropriate contact with the girl.

According to the federal complaint, the officer questioned her about her relationship with Larsen and told the 15-year-old LaCount she needed to decide whether she would cooperate or they “needed to put her in handcuffs.” 

“I was 15 years old. I was terrified,” LaCount said, saying she lied to police to shield Larsen because she was afraid.

Despite police investigating Larsen for child sexual assault in 2014, she continued to be employed at the district.

Grace Williams alleges she was abused by Brynn Larsen four years later. 

“An outcome made possible entirely by the Board’s failure to discipline, flag, or report Larsen after she victimized Brooke,” according to the complaint. 

As an adult LaCount realized while in therapy the predatory nature of her relationship with Larsen. She went back to the police in 2019. 

In 2021, Larsen pleaded no contest to third-degree sexual assault of a student for the assault of LaCount and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Kuhn and Oconto Falls Police Chief Brad Olsen referred all questions to attorney Craig Kubiak, who responded, “The city of Oconto Falls has no comment.”

Another former Oconto Falls teacher, Gayle Gander, was charged with 11 felonies in January including sexual misconduct and child enticement.

Plaintiff Jesse Kasal said he was groomed and sexually abused by Gander beginning in the second semester of his junior year and continuing through his senior year.

Kasal said Gander would remove him from study hall on manufactured pretexts, isolate him in private, lockable spaces within the school, and subject him to escalating sexual misconduct.

Gander is currently out on bond awaiting trial. 

Nine other Oconto Falls School District staff members named in the complaint have not been charged, including a physical education teacher who at least four people accuse of sexual misconduct in the civil suit. 

Oconto Falls School Board wants complaint dismissed

Oconto Falls is about 35 miles north of Green Bay. The city’s 3,000 residents live in an area that’s just under 3 square miles.

The school district serves about 1,600 students from the city and nine surrounding towns with one high school, one middle school and two elementary schools.

The district’s office is located across the street from a church, overlooking the high school football field.

Brianne Carriveau moved to Oconto Falls in 2020 and now runs the Facebook group “Parents of Oconto Falls Schools.”

She said her daughter, a sophomore in the district, has been harassed and inappropriately touched by teachers since middle school. But she said complaints have never been taken seriously by school administrators. 

“They silenced the kids. They silence teachers. They basically made it almost impossible for anybody to come forward,” Carriveau said.

Carriveau joined the complaint on behalf of her daughter.

“Part of the issue of why this has been going on for so long is the community itself,” Carriveau said. “It’s all interconnected. The police are connected to the school district. And you’ve got wives and spouses and grandchildren and generations all working together. How are we supposed to fight?”

On May 11, the Oconto Falls Board of Education filed a motion to dismiss the suit “not to argue that sexual misconduct is acceptable or ever tolerated,” the motion states. “But because as a matter of law it cannot be financially liable for the acts of reprehensible teachers.”

During an interview in March with WPR, Oconto Falls Superintendent Stuart Russ said the plaintiffs had been making “substantial monetary demands” on the school district since August 2025. 

Russ referred all questions for this story to the school district’s attorney, who has not responded to requests for comment.

According to a 2024 report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, sexual misconduct in schools is a prevalent problem that is often ignored.

Researchers found 10% to 17% of students experience some form of educator sexual misconduct, but only 6% of those students officially report the abuse to authorities.

In Wisconsin, lawmakers are trying to address the issue.

In March, Gov. Tony Evers signed two Republican-sponsored bills related to grooming.

The first establishes a criminal definition of child grooming and imposes strict felony penalties on predators who target minors.

The second requires all schools in Wisconsin to establish clear policies and training governing appropriate communication between staff and students.

‘Not only did they not do something about it, they defended the ones doing the damage’

Over the last several decades, there have been teachers and other adults in Oconto Falls who have tried to call attention to alleged sexual abuse and bullying behavior in the school district.

Tanya Jersey was a special education teacher at the district’s Washington Middle School from 2004 until she resigned in 2015.

Jersey said a male teacher bullied and sexually harassed female teachers, but after she reported him to administrators and the school board, he was promoted.

“What I experienced was people being treated unprofessionally, at the very least. And those who had the power and had the authority and responsibility to do something about it, didn’t,” Jersey said. “Not only did they not do something about it, they defended the ones doing the damage.”

But Jersey’s experience goes beyond what happened at work. 

She grew up in Oconto Falls.

Now, 10 years after leaving the school district and moving away from the city, Jersey is seeing her own high school experience differently. 

“When I was in high school, the two basketball coaches were sleeping with two players that were my friends,” Jersey says. “That was tough to go back to. I had put that away. I had compartmentalized that.”

Those two friends, and the coaches, are named in the civil complaint. 

Now, like Amanda Watzka, Jersey is a mom. And she can see more clearly what happened. 

“I mean we were kids — we were riding our bikes,” Jersey said. “That’s what really puts it in perspective for me. It’s just such a representation of when you’re that young and unassuming and inexperienced. For an adult male to take advantage of that is one of the cruelest things that could ever be done.”

Watzka says people knew Heisel had an inappropriate relationship with her, but said she believes it’s hard for teachers and administrators to speak up because it jeopardizes their own careers.

“If you’re going to blow the whistle on this, you’re going to lose quite a bit of teachers, and you’re also going to draw a lot of negative attention to the school district,” Watzka said. “That’s impossible, right?”

Watzka filed a report with the Oconto Falls Police Department in April 2025, alleging that Heisel began grooming her when she was a sophomore. 

She told police he assaulted her in Wisconsin Dells.

At the time she filed the report, Heisel, 46, was at a Skills USA competition in Madison with his current Tech Ed class.

Oconto Falls Police went to the competition and removed Heisel from the event, according to police reports.

Heisel was questioned and retained Duchac as an attorney but was not charged.

According to Oconto Falls police, Adams County has jurisdiction.

Adams County has declined to prosecute the case, citing a statute of limitations; however, Wisconsin law for sexual assault of a student by a school staff member gives victims until the age of 45 to file charges.

During a recent meeting in Oconto Falls, Watzka was wearing a black sweatshirt with an Oconto Falls High School Construction Crew logo. On her left arm, her maiden name is sewn on the sleeve.

She says she only started wearing the sweatshirt again since she came forward with her story about her relationship with Heisel.

“I love houses, I love design, I love remodeling and I love drafting,” Watzka said. “Why should one individual who used me and abused me take away what I really do love?”

If you or someone you know is experiencing sexual assault, you can dial 1-800-656-HOPE or text HOPE to 64673. Resources are also available online.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Accusers in Oconto Falls case say school had ‘deliberate indifference’ to abuse for decades 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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• An undocumented construction worker was paralyzed after falling through a roof in Madison in 2023 while working for contractors that lacked Wisconsin worker’s compensation insurance. He waited for months in a hospital while attorneys and state investigators determined who would be held responsible — a common consequence of informal employment arrangements.
• Wisconsin’s Uninsured Employers Fund ultimately covered the worker’s nearly $1 million claim, including medical care, disability compensation and transportation back to Nicaragua. The fund exists for crises like his, but it does not solve the underlying problem.
• Construction companies account for a disproportionate share of uninsured employer cases, and many businesses dissolve or disappear before regulators can recover costs. Undocumented workers paid in cash often struggle to prove they were employed, making it difficult to access benefits after serious injuries.
• The worker’s injury was never investigated by OSHA. State worker’s compensation systems and federal workplace safety investigators rarely coordinate. Advocates say limited reporting requirements, staffing shortages and poor coordination allow many serious workplace injuries to escape regulatory scrutiny.

Juan can no longer walk. A fall through a Madison auto repair shop roof in 2023 paralyzed him from the neck down.

Juan spent two lonely years in Wisconsin health care facilities while his attorneys and state regulators worked out how to cover his medical bills and compensate him for the abrupt end of his working life.

Like many undocumented immigrants working in construction, Juan found the job repairing a sheet-metal roof in Madison through a blurry relationship between a labor recruiter and a general contractor. Neither had the worker’s compensation insurance state law requires.

The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) investigates thousands of employers each year for potentially violating those requirements. In 2024 alone, investigators issued more than 4,400 penalties totaling $8.7 million against employers for operating without insurance. The penalties flow into Wisconsin’s Uninsured Employers Fund, which compensates injured workers while the state attempts to recoup costs from their employer. 

But even identifying his employer after his injury proved difficult, Juan said. Wisconsin Watch is using only part of his name to protect his identity. 

While he eventually received compensation, Juan considers his lengthy hospitalization a cautionary tale both for regulators and for fellow immigrants afraid to ask who cuts their checks for fear of losing work. “Sometimes people just work and work without asking questions,” he said, “and that’s what happened to me.” 

Meanwhile, disconnects between worker’s compensation systems and federal workplace safety investigators can shield dangerous conditions from scrutiny, leaving more workers at risk of life-altering injuries.

A job with no clear employer

Juan, 40, was one of hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans who immigrated to the U.S. between 2020 and 2025.

Many fled after police responded violently to widespread protests against President Daniel Ortega’s totalitarian regime. Juan said he headed north to support his family back home. 

He waded across the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass, Texas, on an early morning in December 2022. 

After a brief encounter with U.S. Border Patrol officers, Juan joined a nephew in Florida. Eager to work and constrained by his lack of work authorization, Juan fit the target demographic for labor recruiters connecting employers in agriculture, construction and food processing with Florida’s then-booming population of newly arrived undocumented immigrants. 

A recruiter named Angel connected Juan with his first gig: renovating his nephew’s apartment complex. One job led to another, and he soon found himself crisscrossing the Midwest as an itinerant construction worker. 

“One week we’d go to one place in Wisconsin; the next week we’d be in another,” he said. 

The work itself was a blur. “Sometimes we’d work up to 13 hours,” he recalled — usually at an unrelenting pace. Wary of asking questions that could cost him a job, Juan said he never fully knew who called the shots. “That’s the problem,” he said. “You start working and you don’t investigate who owns the company…. Sometimes they don’t think it’s good to investigate.”

Juan still didn’t know his employer’s identity when he climbed onto the auto repair shop’s roof on a cloudy Friday in August. The site supervisor hadn’t provided him with a safety harness, he added, so nothing broke his fall when he accidentally stepped through a sheet of insulation.

He fractured his spine upon impact with the concrete floor below.

Juan struggled to remain conscious as the site supervisor debated whether to call an ambulance. “It seemed like he was scared,” he recalled. “Afraid they would cause trouble for him because I had fallen. I kept telling him, ‘Call someone! Call someone! I’m dying!’” 

Who pays when a worker is hurt?

Confined to a trauma unit bed at University Hospital in Madison, Juan was in a bind.

Among other looming questions, “there was some doubt about who was going to cover the medical bills,” said Gabriel Manzano, an attorney who represented Juan. 

Aaron Halstead, also on Juan’s legal team, estimates that roughly three-quarters of Uninsured Employers Fund claims he pursued over his three-decade career involved undocumented workers. Spanish-speaking worker’s compensation attorneys are few and far between in Wisconsin, and undocumented workers are overrepresented in injury-prone trades.

The types of opaque employment arrangements that left Juan in limbo are especially common among undocumented immigrants, Halstead said.

“They get paid in cash by some guy they may or may not know,” he added, and when disaster strikes, they’re left without an easy way to prove the identity of their employer. 

The state denies a claim if a worker or attorneys cannot gather sufficient evidence to identify an employer, said Jim O’Malley, who directs the legal services for DWD’s worker’s compensation division.

“They need to be able to give us something that establishes a relationship (with an employer),” added Aaron Galarowicz, chief of DWD’s uninsured employers fund unit. “Pay stubs are easy,” he said, “but when they’re paid in cash… that’s a little bit more difficult.”

Tracking down the responsible employer requires a degree of “amateur detective” work, he added. Text messages, worksite photos and cellphone location history can all help solve the mystery, Halstead said — or at least create a clear enough picture to bring a claim to DWD. 

Leads in Juan’s case pointed to two possible employers: Luis Villafuerte, the subcontractor who brought Juan to Madison, and RestoreMasters, a then-Florida-based contractor in charge of the roof repair. 

Neither had worker’s compensation insurance in Wisconsin. Employers sometimes forgo insurance to cut costs, Halstead said. “Some percentage of them end up with injured workers,” he added, “and they hope that no one’s going to do anything about it.”

RestoreMasters, which did not respond to requests for comment, carried insurance elsewhere but failed to get a Wisconsin endorsement on its policy before taking the Madison job, Halstead said.

Not all states offer a fallback. Had he been injured while working for an uninsured contractor while living in Florida, for example, Juan’s only path to compensation would require filing a lawsuit against his employer.

In Wisconsin, however, DWD’s Uninsured Employers Fund could step into the gap as investigators sorted out which contractor to hold accountable.

A million-dollar claim

Passing interactions with fellow Spanish-speaking patients provided Juan moments of comfort during his initial hospital stay. Those connections dried up once he transferred to a medical rehabilitation facility. He had no family or close friends in the area. “I felt alone,” he recalled. “I felt devastated … to not be able to see anyone.”

State investigators reached a decision in February 2024. RestoreMasters was his employer at the time of his injury, DWD determined, so it bore responsibility for failing to secure a worker’s compensation insurance policy in Wisconsin. 

By the time the state secured an agreement with RestoreMasters to cover his ballooning medical bills, Juan had another request: a flight back to Nicaragua. With nobody in the U.S. to care for him, returning was his only viable option. 

The final payout, including all medical costs, compensation for Juan’s injuries and a chartered flight to Managua, reached nearly $1 million. Only one other uninsured employer — a now-dissolved trucking company in Oshkosh — paid a larger sum to the Uninsured Employers Fund in the past two decades. 

Construction dominates uninsured employer cases

Construction firms like RestoreMasters made up a disproportionate share of the uninsured employers that settled with DWD. Roughly one in four businesses that settled with the Uninsured Employers Fund between 2013 and 2023 offered construction or remodeling services. By comparison, the construction industry accounted for one in 14 worker’s compensation claims filed in Wisconsin during the same period, according to DWD data.

But RestoreMasters, a business with a portfolio spanning half the country, wasn’t a typical uninsured employer. “Employers with Uninsured Employers Fund claims tend to be less established than other businesses,” DWD spokesperson Haley McCoy wrote — and difficult to track. 

A quarter of the roughly 150 employers that faced Uninsured Employers Fund claims between 2020 and 2025 have since dissolved, Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions records show. Some may have reincorporated under a different name. State records list another 20% as “delinquent,” having failed to file required reports or pay state taxes.

Less than half of employers still incorporated in Wisconsin with names matching Uninsured Employers Fund records have obtained worker’s compensation policies since encountering DWD.

Of the more than two dozen businesses Wisconsin Watch contacted about their experiences navigating Uninsured Employers Fund claims, only one responded: a used car dealership on Milwaukee’s South Side owned by former Greenfield alderwoman Linda Lubotsky. 

Her business is among those that have not obtained insurance policies; Lubotsky told Wisconsin Watch that she now runs a one-person operation that isn’t subject to Wisconsin’s worker’s compensation insurance requirement. 

Lubotsky called her business’s run-in with DWD as a “witch hunt,” accusing the former employee who filed a worker’s compensation claim in 2024 of fraud and the agency of failing to act as a neutral arbiter. “I spent $15,000 on attorney fees,” she said, “and I’m currently in the appeal process.”

Employers and employees appealing Uninsured Employers Fund decisions first make their case to an administrative law judge. They can then appeal to Wisconsin’s Labor and Industry Review Commission before taking a case to court. 

When serious injury escapes OSHA scrutiny

Even as the state investigated and settled with RestoreMasters, the company faced no scrutiny from federal workplace safety regulators after Juan’s fall.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) serious injury records from 2023 contain no mention of the incident, and the agency’s enforcement data shows no penalties against RestoreMasters for workplace safety rule violations.

Federal rules require employers to report workplace accidents resulting in deaths, overnight hospitalizations or the loss of a body part, and employers that fail to report injuries can face financial penalties.

“OSHA can barely enforce those penalties,” said Debbie Berkowitz, a fellow at Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor and a former Obama administration senior policy adviser for OSHA. 

OSHA has six months to fine employers for failing to report serious workplace injuries, Berkowitz said. That deadline, coupled with overwhelming caseloads and a shrinking corps of investigators, allows many cases to fall through the cracks. 

Others aware of Juan’s fall could have reported the incident to OSHA. But Wisconsin DWD has “no established reporting process” for sharing information about Uninsured Employers Fund payouts with the federal agency, McCoy wrote.

That disconnect goes both ways. “OSHA doesn’t double-check worker’s (compensation) records,” said Eric Frumin, health and safety director for the Strategic Organizing Center, a coalition of national labor unions. The agency’s investigations aren’t primarily driven by workplace injuries, he added, so worker’s compensation data would be “a bit out of their wheelhouse.”

Even in states that enforce workplace safety laws through OSHA-approved programs, including Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota, regulators do not use worker’s compensation records, Frumin said. 

But properly reporting injuries to OSHA doesn’t guarantee follow-up investigations, Berkowitz noted. In 2021, for instance, OSHA compliance officers investigated less than 40% of reports of severe workplace injuries.

A long road back

Juan boarded a chartered flight to Managua last fall. The final leg of his return — an eight-hour drive from the capital to his rural hometown — sapped what remained of his energy.

“I arrived home in terrible shape,” he said. “But I made it back.” 

He’ll spend the rest of his life in a house he built with the payout from RestoreMasters. “Nothing fancy,” he said — but with a floor plan he can navigate in a wheelchair. 

A roofing accident left a new immigrant paralyzed. Tracking down his employer took ‘detective’ work. 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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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday that its agents arrested 39 people across Wisconsin over the final weekend in June — among the largest enforcement operations in the state since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025.

An ICE spokesperson claimed that “many” of those arrested had criminal records, including convictions for sexual abuse, driving under the influence and drug possession; Wisconsin Watch and NNS could not independently verify the agency’s count nor the number of detainees with prior convictions.

“All of the illegal aliens arrested have or will receive full due process. They will remain in ICE custody pending their removal or removal proceedings,” the spokesperson wrote.

The operation sent shock waves through the city’s immigrant neighborhoods as residents shared video and photos of alleged ICE enforcement actions in Milwaukee across social media. 

Immigrant rights advocacy group Voces de la Frontera told reporters at a Tuesday morning press conference that its network of volunteers has recorded more than two dozen arrests over the past week, primarily in and around Milwaukee. Executive Director Christine Neumann-Ortiz interrupted her remarks to share reports of an additional three arrests in Fitchburg, a Madison suburb. Neumann-Ortiz said her team is aware of Wisconsin detainees held as far away as Florida, though many remain in detention facilities in Wisconsin and Illinois.

Neumann-Ortiz, flanked by Milwaukee Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic and Milwaukee County supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez, also noted that ICE agents used the Milwaukee Police Department’s (MPD) District 2 station parking lot as a staging area for operations at least once during the weekend’s operation. MPD has since clarified that it did not give ICE officers permission to use the parking lot and, upon learning of the incident, asked the federal agency not to stage in the lot.

The Common Council voted unanimously in March to bar ICE officers from using city property as staging areas during enforcement operations. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson enacted a similar rule via executive order last fall as ICE mounted a much larger enforcement push in Illinois.

Milwaukee’s policy includes no clear enforcement mechanism, nor does Milwaukee County’s new requirement that immigration authorities secure permission before staging in county parks — a policy Martinez claims agents also violated over the weekend by gathering at Mitchell Park on Milwaukee’s South Side. “It’s not that (the city’s rule) is not working,” said Dimitrijevic. “It’s not being respected.” 

While both MPD and the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office do not conduct immigration arrests as a matter of policy, both agencies have raised questions about their roles in enforcing local laws intended to constrain ICE activity. “No one has given us an answer” as to the circumstances in which local law enforcement officers could arrest a federal counterpart, Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball said during a February town hall on Milwaukee’s South Side. 

“Given the legal questions that have been presented,” an MPD spokesperson wrote in an email on Tuesday afternoon, “the Department has requested a formal written legal opinion from the City Attorney’s Office regarding the ordinance’s applicability and enforceability.” The Milwaukee City Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Martinez suggested that local governments could sue the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — ICE’s parent agency — for violating city and county rules. “Right now, we’re just gathering as much information as we possibly can,” he said on Tuesday.

ICE’s ongoing operation in Wisconsin seems to mark a departure from the agency’s standard operations in the state over the past year. Agency records indicate most of the at least 1,700 immigration arrests in Wisconsin over the past year took place in prisons, jails, courts and the DHS field office in downtown Milwaukee. 

While roughly 80% of those arrested by ICE in Wisconsin between January 2025 and March 2026 had prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, most immigrants arrested during check-ins at the DHS office had no prior criminal history.

Daylight arrests in full view of the public have been relatively rare, but relatives of those arrested over the weekend — and some detainees themselves — describe a shift in tactics. 

Galo Suárez, a Nicaraguan asylum seeker detained alongside his fiancee and her brother on Sunday, offered a vivid account of his arrest on Milwaukee’s South Side. An unmarked truck pulled in front of his car along S. 13th Street, and four more appeared to box him in. “An agent broke the window with his gun drawn,” he told reporters. “They didn’t ask for our identification, they didn’t ask for our names. They just took us down violently, and when my fiancee tried to ask why, one of them pushed her against the car (and) said she was provoking him.” 

He also alleged that an agent called his fiancee a “bitch” during the arrest.  

Asylum seekers like Suárez, his fiancee and her brother are eligible for work permits while awaiting rulings on their asylum applications. The agent who found his work permit while searching his wallet insisted it was forged, Suárez said. 

Agents released Suárez later that day, but his fiancee, 25-year-old Reyna Elizabeth Garcia, remains in custody in Kenosha County. He doesn’t know the whereabouts of his would-be brother-in-law, 37-year-old Teodoro Rafael Garcia. “They took the cuffs off and told me to not look back,” he said. Shaken by his run-in with immigration authorities, Suárez said he plans to leave Milwaukee for the time being. 

Friends and relatives of Estenderly Marte Polanco, an undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic, shared photographs of bruises, scrapes and cuts on Marte Polanco’s neck, arms and lip — all allegedly left by immigration officers who pulled her out of her car on Saturday morning during a traffic stop on Milwaukee’s South Side. Marte Polanco’s son watched the arrest from the car’s back seat. 

“Our kids are not doing well,” said Frankeli, the father of Marte Polanco’s children. Frankeli, who is undocumented, asked Wisconsin Watch to refer to him by his first name alone while he navigates the aftermath of Marte Polanco’s arrest. 

Wisconsin court records show no prior convictions or citations under Marte Polanco’s name, nor any prior convictions or citations tied to Suárez, his fiancee or her brother.

Olivia Villarreal, the wife and business partner of El Rey grocery store chain co-founder Ernesto Villarreal, said a manager of her store on West Burnham Street saw ICE agents follow a vehicle into the parking lot, arrest a man and leave quickly Monday. An onlooker caught the arrest on video. 

Villarreal’s message for the wary public: “Don’t be intimidated and try to live your normal life.  You have to live and feed your family, attend church and school.”

ICE announces 39 Wisconsin arrests in one of state’s largest immigration enforcement sweeps 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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Federal immigration authorities conducted a wave of arrests in greater Milwaukee over the final weekend in June as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched what it called a “targeted operation” in and around the city.

The operation — likely the largest in Milwaukee since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025 — sent shock waves through the city’s immigrant neighborhoods as residents shared video and photos of alleged ICE enforcement actions in Milwaukee across social media. 

Immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera tallied 18 arrests in the metro area within the last week, though Wisconsin Watch and NNS have not yet independently corroborated that total.

Details remain scarce, but an attorney representing several of the arrestees says none of his clients have prior convictions in Wisconsin or outstanding removal orders. 

Milwaukee immigration attorney Marc Christopher cited three examples from the past weekend: a woman from the Dominican Republic arrested in front of her 7-year-old son; twins from Mexico cornered in their driveway on Milwaukee’s South Side; and a Salvadoran man picked up outside the Waukesha County Courthouse after appearing for a traffic ticket. 

ICE activity

ICE officers surrounded Estenderly Marte Polanco near South 23rd and Greenfield streets on Milwaukee’s South Side Saturday morning. 

“There were four of them,” said Frankeli, the father of Marte Polanco’s children. Both Marte Polanco and Frankeli are undocumented; he asked NNS to refer to him by his first name alone out of fear that authorities could target him next.

The pair were running errands with their son when agents stopped their car, shattered a window and handcuffed Marte Polanco, he said. Wisconsin court records show no prior convictions or citations under Marte Polanco’s name. Frankeli said he heard the ICE agents shout that she had an arrest warrant as they took her away. 

“They didn’t give us anything (on paper),” he said. Marte Polanco was in custody at the Waukesha County jail as of Monday, according to Christopher — one of six county detention facilities in Wisconsin that hold ICE detainees. 

Christopher’s client from El Salvador was awaiting a hearing in his ongoing immigration court case at the time of his arrest in Waukesha on Saturday. “He hadn’t even missed a court date,” Christopher said. Federal immigration courts do not hear criminal cases, but the Trump administration broke with decades of precedent last year by requiring detention for any immigrant facing an active removal case.

Court records confirm the 32-year-old has no prior criminal convictions in Wisconsin. His traffic ticket — a May citation for driving without a license — is a common infraction for undocumented immigrants barred from obtaining driver’s licenses under Wisconsin law. Wisconsin Watch and NNS have not been able to reach the man to ask permission to use his name. An ICE detainee locator listed him in custody in Greene County, Missouri, as of Monday morning.

Federal authorities informed the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) that they planned to conduct “targeted enforcement for criminal activity in the area,” according to an MPD spokesperson. Both the police department and the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office referred questions about the operations to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE’s parent agency.

DHS did not respond to questions about the scope of the operation. Instead, a spokesperson offered details about a June 26 traffic stop in which officers “encountered three illegal aliens including some with criminal histories including misappropriating identification to obtain money.” 

The arrests prompted advocacy group Forward Latino to issue a community alert on June 27, and other immigrant rights organizations are still gathering details on the weekend’s events. 

“We know how ICE has arrested people for everything from parking tickets to — whatever — in the past,” said Milwaukee Turners Executive Director Emilio De Torre. “I have no confidence that they’re just seeking people that are under lawful deportation orders.”

Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant rights organization based on Milwaukee’s South Side, issued alerts on Friday and Monday of confirmed ICE sightings in the city and also Waukesha. The group has been canvassing the South Side sharing information with residents on what to do if they encounter ICE agents. 

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, also issued a video statement, urging residents to stay cautious and know their rights. 

“You are not obligated to answer any questions and should demand to speak to a lawyer before you respond or sign anything,” she said. 

Immigration enforcement records through March 2026 released by the nonprofit Deportation Data Project suggest ICE officers arrested at least 1,700 people in Wisconsin between January 2025 and March 2026. Roughly 20% of immigrants arrested in Wisconsin during that period had neither prior convictions nor pending criminal charges, including more than 100 people arrested during check-ins at the DHS field office in downtown Milwaukee. 

The tactics on display over the weekend — daylight traffic stops and multiple alleged uses of force — have been rare in Wisconsin up to this point. 

Devin Blake and Edgar Mendez of Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service contributed reporting.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correctly identify the gender of the child who witnessed Estenderly Marte Polanco’s arrest.

ICE ramps up operations in Milwaukee while advocates rush to catch up 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: 3 minutes

Aminat Bakare, who has grandsons ages 8 to 19, is looking for programs that could help them. 

“I have a lot of grandsons,” Bakare said. “I want to know what’s going on as far as different programs that can help them to stay on the right path.”

She was among residents on hand Wednesday for Milwaukee County’s launch of the Destined for Greater initiative, a collaborative effort to reduce violence.

Milwaukee County officials announced during the event, held at the Wisconsin Black Historical Society and Museum, they will use $1.5 million in state violence prevention funds to help connect residents in high-need neighborhoods with employment opportunities, housing assistance, mental health support and violence intervention services.

The initiative, overseen by the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services, brings together existing violence intervention programs, wellness services and projects funded through the $1.5 million in state funding. 

Bakare, who lives on the Northwest Side, said peer pressure is one of the biggest challenges facing her grandsons.

She said she was particularly hopeful the initiative will result in employment opportunities.

“Something that can spark their interest,” she said. 

Robert Fisher, 15, attended the event with a mentor from the city’s 414LIFE, a community and hospital-based violence intervention program, to learn about the same opportunities.

Fisher said jobs and opportunities to create things are also hard to come by.

‘This is about peace’

Violence prevention workers and community members say the increased state funding could expand services and strengthen partnerships to help improve public safety.

Among the most enthusiastic was Kenneth Burns, a Milwaukee Public Schools student who described the benefits of INPOWER Solutions’ Grow Rich Initiative, which teaches gardening, entrepreneurship and other job-readiness skills. INPOWER is one of several organizations participating in the initiative. 

“For me, this is about peace,” Burns said. “Being in the garden gives me a place to slow down, build on something positive.”

Other partners include Milwaukee Turners, Milwaukee Bucks Foundation, Bloom Art and Integrated Therapies, and Community Justice Council.

According to a county press release, the Destined for Greater initiative will reduce community violence by building on the success of existing programs. 

The release cited the Advance Peace Fellowship, created in 2024, and the Credible Messenger program, as examples.

The release said 95% of fellows reported no new gun injuries and that 76% of youths who participated in Credible Messenger recently had no referral or offense while in the program. 

Moving forward

Crowley told NNS the goal of the initiative is to create collaboration in which organizations understand each other’s roles and can connect residents to needed services, even when they cannot provide those services themselves.

Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern told NNS he supports the effort.

“This is good news,” Lovern said. “It is important that this work is community-led.”

Both Bakare and Fisher said they, too, liked what they heard.

“I was very impressed,” Bakare said.

What’s next?

---

The county and its partners plan to provide regular updates on the implementation and progress of the initiative.

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

State funding strengthens collaboration among Milwaukee violence prevention organizations 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

Within 24 hours of Wisconsin Watch publishing a story Friday about a long-hidden suspect in the 1987 disappearance of a 23-year-old Price County pregnant woman, social media commenters brought up the name of a notorious murderer who — as far as we can tell — had nothing to do with Shelly Hansen’s disappearance.

Our investigation uncovered a 2008 search warrant application that identified Michael D. Raskie, Hansen’s supervisor at Marquip Corp., as law enforcement’s top suspect and the likely father of her unborn child.

The sworn statement revealed publicly for the first time that Raskie’s pickup truck was spotted at Hansen’s apartment in the early morning hours before her vehicle turned up at a tavern 10 miles away. Raskie’s brother rented a house a half-mile from the tavern, and Raskie stored some vehicles there, giving him a potential getaway if in fact he planted her vehicle at the tavern.

But in the last two years at least three true crime podcasts connected a different person — John R. Weber — to Hansen’s disappearance. Those accounts noted what is likely a coincidence: Hansen disappeared one year to the day after Weber killed his sister-in-law Carla Lenz. Weber was arrested in September 1988 after torturing his wife, Lenz’s sister.

Some speculated that Weber was a serial killer. One even suggested Weber was the father of Hansen’s unborn child, despite there being no evidence connecting them. Wisconsin Watch spent months developing sources in Price County, conducting dozens of interviews, scouring old newspapers at the Wisconsin Historical Society and reviewing public records. 

The disturbing truth we uncovered is that two men in picturesque Price County were suspected of murder in the 1980s and within two years brutally assaulted their wives.

Weber is still serving a life sentence for murdering Lenz and attacking his wife. Raskie was convicted of attacking his wife in February 1989. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and paroled in 1991, even though Raskie was investigators’ top suspect as early as 1989.

Raskie was never charged in Hansen’s disappearance before he died in 2015. Law enforcement officials told Wisconsin Watch they lacked enough evidence to charge him as of 1991 when he was released from prison.

A key breakthrough came in 2003 when a retired police officer shared the information about Raskie’s truck being at Hansen’s apartment the night she disappeared. Based on that and other evidence, investigators quietly convinced a court to let them obtain Raskie’s DNA in 2008. State and local officials have so far refused to provide test results showing whether Raskie’s DNA matched unknown male DNA found in Hansen’s vehicle.

Wisconsin Watch obtained the DNA search warrant doing what we do best — meticulous shoe-leather investigative reporting that is time-consuming, expensive and increasingly rare.

For months, I interviewed sources about the Hansen case, talking to former sheriffs, Hansen family members and witnesses who interacted with Hansen the last day she was seen alive. The Price County Sheriff’s Office refused to talk about the case because it remains an “ongoing criminal investigation.”

One thing that was surprising: Most people in Price County who I talked to don’t think it was Weber. And Raskie’s name being in the search warrant didn’t come as a major surprise.

Wisconsin Watch co-founder and longtime investigative reporter Dee J. Hall and I recently visited the Price County Courthouse to obtain records. Dee searched for Raskie’s name on the court’s public computer terminal, and the search warrant file showed up with both Raskie’s name and Hansen’s name. The record doesn’t show up if you search CCAP, the statewide online court records system, from anywhere except the courthouse in Phillips.

This was the first time I had seen any public document connecting Hansen and Raskie. For a case that was shrouded in mystery for almost 40 years, this was a huge scoop!

Another thing I found surprising: Investigators have never put Raskie’s name out to the public. They haven’t even told the public that they were investigating Hansen’s disappearance as a homicide. When Price County Sheriff Brian Schmidt gave an interview to WSAW in 2024, he provided no new information about the case, even though the search warrant affidavit with loads of new information had been sitting unsealed in the clerk’s office for seven years. 

We don’t know for certain why Raskie hasn’t been named previously, but former Sheriff Richard Heitkemper acknowledged that investigators had to be “very, very, extremely careful” because Raskie was well-connected to wealthy people in town. His wife’s brothers founded Phillips Plating, one of the county’s largest companies.

But if the Price County Sheriff’s Office is trying to find Hansen’s body, wouldn’t it help to release the name of the person they think may have disposed of her somewhere?

Why not give accurate, available information to WSAW, rather than allow the news outlet to speculate that Weber was a suspect?

There are still lots of unanswered questions about this case. Why did it take 16 years for a police officer to provide key evidence? Did Raskie’s DNA match the unknown male DNA on the steering wheel of Hansen’s car? If it didn’t, what other efforts were made to obtain more evidence?

We don’t know because officials have refused to answer those questions. They’ve also blocked the public from seeing the records that might help answer them.

We’ll keep seeking the records and asking those questions. And when we learn more, we’ll report the answers, how we found them and the evidence behind them.

How Wisconsin Watch uncovered a long-hidden suspect in a 1987 Northwoods disappearance 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: 11 minutes

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for a free newsletter to receive Sahan’s stories in your inbox.

Linda Yang was driving to work on a cold February morning when a large white van seemingly appeared out of nowhere and cut her off. Other vehicles suddenly rushed in, blocking her on all sides.  

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents jumped out and approached her. They asked if they could go to her home and pick up her husband, Zong.   

@sahanjournal

On Feb. 4, 2026, Immigration and Customs enforcement agents confronted Linda Yang with news to deport her husband Zong a day before he was due for one of his regular check-ins at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minnesota. But Linda refused to turn her husband over, demanding her and their children get one last day with Zong. Read more about their family’s deportation story at the link in bio. Video by Dymanh Chhoun #ice #immigration #deportation #hmong #twincities

♬ original sound – Sahan Journal – Sahan Journal

She refused. He was home with their youngest sons. She wouldn’t let things get messy in front of them. She wouldn’t let them take away the father of her five sons until they could say their goodbyes.

The agents told her they would come for Zong at 9 a.m. the next morning. Linda rushed to pick up her older sons from school. She called Zong. 

“‘ICE is coming to get you,” she said. “They’re going to come tomorrow morning.” 

Until recently, they had never thought Zong, 48, would be deported due to a felony burglary conviction from his 20s, which led to a final order of deportation. The couple felt safe from that possibility most of their marriage. But that sense of security shattered last year when local news outlets reported that Hmong residents from Minnesota and elsewhere were being deported to Laos. 

Federal immigration agents had been watching their South St. Paul home. They confronted Linda on Feb. 4, a day before Zong was due for one of his regular check-ins with the ICE office at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal building.

A few months after agents swarmed Linda’s car, Zong was deported to Laos, a country he had never stepped foot in before. Overnight, Linda, 41, was turned into a single mother of five sons —  King, 3; Titan, 7; Everest, 8; Kenji, 15; Yaay, 17. 

“I guess it was just kind of like, ‘It’s real. It’s happening,’ you know?” a teary-eyed Linda told Sahan Journal. “The day that we thought that would never happen, happened.” 

One last day 

Several relatives trickled through Linda and Zong’s house for hours the day Linda was stopped by ICE, crying and joking at times in an attempt to lighten the mood until 2 a.m. Some of their siblings, cousins and Zong’s son from a previous marriage gave Zong a pep talk, assuring him they would support his family while he was in Laos.

Linda and Zong received several calls from an unknown number throughout the morning after Linda’s encounter with ICE. She finally picked up the call around noon. A federal agent was on the other end. ICE agents would take Zong to his check-in the next morning so he could fill out paperwork, and then he would be “released,” she said the agent told her. They also said they planned to take Zong to a different location instead of the Whipple building because of ongoing protests. 

She let out a sigh of relief — Zong would return home, she thought. Still, questions lingered: Could she trust federal agents to tell the truth? ICE agents had never accompanied Zong to an appointment in the past.

Yaay, who family members refer to by his middle name, Aden, spent most of the day in his room like he would any other day, thinking his dad would return home after his immigration check-in the next day. 

Zong sensed that his three youngest sons felt the heavy atmosphere in their house. They didn’t know why everyone had gathered, and Zong couldn’t bring himself to explain the situation. Instead, he told Everest, Titan and King multiple times that he loved them, and that he had to go away. 

He told his two oldest sons, Yaay and Kenji, that he was facing potential deportation because of a felony conviction. They understood the gravity, having seen news coverage of Operation Metro Surge. He asked all of his sons for forgiveness, explaining that he was being taken away and not leaving them by choice.  

“It’s nothing that you guys or mom did. It’s something I did – a mistake, way back before I met your mom, and now I have to face the consequences of it,” he told them. 

Linda and Zong had discussed the deportation process with their oldest sons in the past year to prepare them for the possibility.  

“I was more aware of it and knew what was going to happen, so I was already able to mentally prepare myself while they still can’t really grasp it,” said Yaay, referring to his younger brothers. “They’ll have to go through a lot more of their lives, compared to mine, without our dad.” 

Part of Linda and Zong held onto some hope that federal agents would take Zong to his check-in the next morning and bring him home instead of detaining him for deportation. The other part slowly began accepting the painful reality that it could be Zong’s final hours with his family on U.S. soil.  

Linda packed underwear, pants, shirts, socks and shorts for Zong. Zong grabbed his essentials: allergy medicine, hydrocortisone cream, contact lenses and his glasses. They laughed later when Zong found that Linda had packed only three shirts.

Thoughts of running away crept into Zong’s mind as family and friends continued arriving to say their goodbyes, but he told himself he couldn’t get away from his past. 

“I just need to take it head on,” he told himself, comforted by the knowledge that Linda and his sons were by his side. 

“That’s what really, really helped me mentally, too, but even at that, we’re all still human — we want to be with family, your kids, your wife, and it was a tug of war,” Zong said later as he reflected on the last night with his family. 

Linda and Zong made breakfast for their sons the next morning. Linda’s phone buzzed again with a call from a federal agent. They wanted to detain Zong before 9 a.m. She refused. She didn’t want her sons’ last image of their father to be of him walking away with federal agents. 

Wait until the boys board their buses and leave for school, she told the agent. 

She felt relieved when the agent obliged. The agent told her they would send no more than two agents to the house and agreed not to put Zong in handcuffs. 

Yaay, Everest and Titan boarded their buses soon after the call as federal agents sat in vehicles idling nearby. Kenji, 15, stayed home to see his father off. About 9 a.m., less than 30 minutes after the last boys left, two federal agents came to the door. Zong grabbed his duffel bag and backpack. Linda and Zong hugged and kissed. 

“What are the chances that you guys are really releasing him back to me?” she asked the agents. 

They brushed her off, she said, saying they needed Zong for paperwork. She pressed on. 

“Can I come with you?” she asked. 

They wouldn’t allow her to get in their vehicle. She worried they would bring Zong to a “random warehouse.” But the federal agent on her front porch told her they were taking him to the Whipple building, contradicting what another agent had told her over the phone the previous day. 

As the two agents drove off with Zong, five other vehicles parked on the same street quickly pulled away, said Linda, who was stunned that more agents had been concealed and waiting.

Linda’s brother sat in a vehicle nearby, ready to give chase. She joined him, eager to see Zong walk out of the Whipple building free to go home. 

The past catches up

Linda and Zong started looking for attorneys early last year as news began circulating that Hmong residents were being deported. They worried that Zong could be next and closely followed news about other cases, comparing them to his case. 

“It (the detention of Hmong residents) didn’t bother me, but maybe it should’ve, but also maybe it was best that it didn’t get to me, because I would’ve ran or hid,” Zong told Sahan Journal in a video interview from Laos. “I didn’t know anything like this would happen. I wasn’t thinking of this side of the consequences.” 

Laos historically refused to accept deportees from the United States, but shifted its stance early last year due to political pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration. It’s unclear how many Hmong and Southeast Asian residents have been deported to Laos. However, several Hmong Minnesotans have publicly documented loved ones’ deportations to Laos through Facebook or GoFundMe campaigns, as did the family of South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, resident Ma Yang after her deportation to Laos in 2025.

Linda and Zong held onto hope after seeing a few cases where Hmong detainees were released from federal custody. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued a pardon last year for Lue Yang, a father of six whose criminal conviction had been expunged, putting a stop to his deportation. Minnesota resident Thi Dua Vang, a refugee, was detained for two weeks in January before being released on bond. 

But attorneys told the Yang family there was nothing they could do. The legal costs and severity of Zong’s criminal conviction made it difficult to change his fate. 

Zong arrived in the United States with his family at age 3 after they fled Laos as refugees in the wake of the Vietnam War. Many Hmong, including children, had been recruited by the United States to serve as CIA-backed soldiers to fight against communists and to rescue downed American pilots and injured soldiers. As the U.S. military fled after the war, the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese militaries retaliated against the Hmong community for aiding the Americans, according to the Minnesota Historical Society.

Zong was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and had never been issued citizenship in Thailand, Laos or the United States. He received a green card when he immigrated to the United States and said he never applied for citizenship because he assumed that since his green card said “Permanent Resident,” it secured his lifelong residency in the country. 

He was convicted of felony burglary in Wisconsin in 1999 for stealing several semi-automatic handguns from the Gander Mountain store in Appleton, Wisconsin, when he was 21. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, serving about seven years before he was released at the end of 2006, according to court records. His criminal record also includes a conviction for drug possession in 2019. 

The burglary conviction is considered a removal offense by the federal government, stripping Zong of his green card and preventing him from ever applying for U.S. citizenship. It also resulted in a final order for deportation against him that required him to regularly check in with ICE at the Whipple building at the discretion of his immigration officer, or until the government could find a country that would accept him as a deportee.

“I should have not done anything like that, taking somebody else’s stuff. It was wrong,” Zong told Sahan Journal. “At that time, my mind was just, I was away from home, but my mind was just not where it was supposed to be.” 

Zong moved to Minnesota for a job and met Linda in 2007 through a mutual friend. She eventually moved to Minnesota from North Carolina, and the two married about a year later. They bought a house where their sons tussled on the living room floor. 

Zong never kept his past from Linda. He attended his check-ins at the Whipple building for 20 years. Initially, he checked in every three months, but it varied from every six months to twice a year back to every three months.

Their prior sense of security against Zong’s deportation started falling apart when federal immigration agents started flooding Minnesota last year. In an effort to lighten the mood, they started joking about Zong being deported to Laos, imagining him in different careers and soaking up the warm weather, and Linda visiting on vacation. 

She pictured growing old with him in Laos after the children had all grown up. They’d retire and buy a house there. 

Zong makes a plea for his spirit

Zong arrived at the Whipple building for the last time on Feb. 5, 2026, a chilly Thursday morning. Linda and her brother parked outside the building for about an hour and a half, waiting to pick him up after his check-in.

Federal agents put shackles around Zong’s ankles and brought him into a room with other shackled detainees. He knew he would never return home. 

He called Linda, who was still waiting outside. She broke down in tears. He was shipped to Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, a few hours later.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to questions about federal agents’ interactions with the Yang family. 

Zong said there was no time to file any legal challenges in hopes of keeping him in the country or releasing him from custody, or to arrange a visit with an attorney before he was deported. 

Zong met about 50 other Hmong, Lao and Vietnamese men while detained in Texas. They were all later transferred to the El Paso Processing Center, where he said they were held for two months.

“It’s just so many thoughts and emotions running through my head,” Zong said of his state of mind while in federal custody. “It was just more of like, ‘This is it.’”

Zong still gets overwhelmed with emotions thinking about the day he was detained and the three months he spent in federal custody. He’s angry that federal agents tried to pick him up a day before his regular ICE check-in and falsely give his family hope that he would return home after the check-in. But he’s also grateful that he was able to say goodbye.  

“It was better than just getting snatched up and not spending time with my kids and my wife, you know?” Zong said of his last day with his family. 

In many cases, federal agents detained people at work, during traffic stops or while they were fueling their cars at the gas station. Agents detained people at bus stops, and while visiting businesses door-to-door in immigrant-dense neighborhoods. They detained children on their way home from school, broke into homes without warrants and arrested U.S. citizens, chasing and tackling people in the streets and snow. 

Zong, who practices traditional Hmong shamanism, looked out the airplane window on his deportation flight in early May and pleaded to the heavens to allow his spirit to follow him to Laos, and to let his family know that he did not choose to leave them. 

“I would never ever be able to step on this American soil again. I would never ever see my kids on American soil, where we built our home,” he recalled thinking at the time.

The Yang family’s new chapter 

Zong arrived in the Lao capital, Vientiane, on May 9 and was moved into a detention facility for U.S. deportees run by the Lao government. He found a sponsor, who is Hmong and a Lao citizen, to help vouch for him so he could move out into independent housing. Laos requires deportees to find a sponsor, complete multiple rounds of interviews with Lao officials and finish paperwork before leaving the detention facility. 

Zong was intimidated buying food at the local market his first few days because he doesn’t speak the Lao language. But he’s settling in, and making an effort to get to know other deportees. He spends his days going on walks, exploring the city and building up his confidence. 

He now lives in an apartment about 15 minutes from the National University of Laos in Vientiane. He calls Linda and their sons every day on Facebook or WhatsApp around 7 p.m. Minnesota time, or 7 a.m. Lao time, and once more before he goes to sleep.

Zong and Linda are coping with the turmoil of his deportation by documenting their journey on Facebook to help others going through the same experience, and to help their younger sons understand their father’s story one day. They’ve shared more than 50 posts through written entries, videos and photos chronicling their family’s separation.  

Linda, an accountant, has always been the family breadwinner, but Zong’s absence has added financial strain on their family. Zong was working as an overnight freight worker at Home Depot in Inver Grove Heights when he was deported. 

She got rid of one of their vehicles to cut costs and finds comfort in the support she’s received from family members. Her nephew and aunt have helped babysit King. Relatives visit more often these days to check on her family. But there’s only so much other family members can do to shore up Zong’s absence. 

Linda and Zong’s eldest son, Yaay, graduates from South St. Paul Secondary this year and plans to attend Winona State University this fall. 

“It is hard just going through all this without him,” said Yaay, 17. “I was expecting to go through all this with him, and for him to be there during my achievements. But it honestly has pushed me a little in some aspects just to do better, and be better.”

Linda and Yaay sat on a sofa in the family’s home in early May as Everest and Titan played with their cousins upstairs. King napped in another room. They cried and laughed as they recalled the last few months and thought about the year ahead without Zong. They didn’t know what the future would bring, but one thing was certain — they wouldn’t let an ocean keep their family apart. 

When ICE came for her husband, Linda Yang negotiated one more day with him. But their luck wouldn’t last. 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: 13 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• For nearly 40 years law enforcement has publicly said little more than that pregnant 23-year-old Shelly Hansen disappeared after leaving work in Phillips and that her car was found the next day in a local tavern parking lot.
• Newly obtained records show investigators gathered enough evidence by 2008 to get the DNA of Michael D. Raskie, who law enforcement had identified as a suspect as far back as 1989.
• Nearly two years after Hansen vanished, Raskie was convicted in a vicious attack on his wife, whose family owned one of Price County’s largest businesses.
• A key breakthrough in the case came in 2003, when a former Phillips police officer told investigators he saw Raskie’s vehicle in Hansen’s apartment parking lot the night she disappeared. The officer reported seeing Hansen at a local bar hours after she left work. 
• The new reporting raises questions about why Raskie was never charged before he died in 2015 and why investigators kept so much of the case hidden from the public.

Nearly 40 years ago, Marchelle “Shelly” Hansen went missing in Price County, Wisconsin. Law enforcement officials have since told the public very little about what happened to the pregnant 23-year-old. 

The sheriff in 1987 said investigators didn’t suspect foul play. They have never publicly stated that she was killed, and she remains listed in a state Department of Justice missing person database. Her body has never been found.

But a Wisconsin Watch investigation has uncovered substantial information about the case, including a never-before-named lead suspect whose DNA was obtained through a long-sealed search warrant in 2008, seven years before he died.

Law enforcement officials long ago determined that Michael D. Raskie, Hansen’s supervisor at Marquip Corp., was their top suspect and the likely father of her unborn child, according to the newly obtained court documents. The records — including a search warrant affidavit containing sworn statements from investigators — confirm the Price County Sheriff’s Office has been investigating the case as a first-degree intentional homicide.

Raskie was never charged in connection with Hansen’s disappearance. Wisconsin Watch is naming Raskie because the court document identifies him as a suspect. He died in 2015 at the age of 64.

Price County Sheriff Brian Schmidt, who took office in 2009 after 20 years as a deputy, declined to comment for this story. He denied Wisconsin Watch’s request to review the Hansen case file, calling it an “ongoing criminal investigation.” In a 2024 interview with WSAW he gave no new details and didn’t mention the unsealed search warrant, but said there is still hope there might be “someone that knows something now that time has passed who wants to come forward and at least talk about this with us.”

The Wisconsin Department of Justice also denied a records request, citing the open investigation and “any potential criminal prosecutions.” A spokesperson said the agency is limited to an assisting role in the investigation.

Hansen’s family declined to comment on the investigation.

Cold case warms up

For nearly four decades, the Hansen case has stumped investigators, divided Hansen’s siblings and featured in recent true crime podcasts. Many reports have speculated that the unknown father of her unborn child is a likely suspect, but have not named Raskie.

Two years after Hansen’s disappearance, Raskie was convicted of a brutal attack on his wife, whose brothers founded Phillips Plating, one of the largest companies in Price County.

Raskie was sentenced in August 1989 to seven years in prison for the attack. They divorced shortly after. A former Price County prosecutor told Wisconsin Watch that investigators didn’t have enough evidence to charge Raskie before he was paroled in December 1991.

The Hansen case had a breakthrough in 2003 when a former Phillips police officer belatedly reported seeing Raskie’s vehicle parked at Hansen’s apartment the night she disappeared, former Price County Sheriff Wallace Krenzke told Wisconsin Watch.

It took five years of additional investigation before Price County deputy and lead investigator Christopher Jarosinski signed the affidavit seeking Raskie’s DNA. The affidavit reveals that Raskie was rumored to have been responsible for Hansen’s disappearance as early as September 1989.

A former Marquip employee who spoke with Wisconsin Watch, but is not mentioned in the affidavit, said she alerted the Phillips police officer in spring 1988 that officials should investigate Raskie in Hansen’s disappearance. A few days later, she said, Price County’s lead homicide investigator on the case at the time, Richard Heitkemper, contacted her and she told him she had seen Raskie and Hansen engaged in an intense conversation the day Hansen disappeared.

Who is Shelly Hansen?

Of the roughly 170 open missing person cases in Wisconsin, Shelly Hansen’s is the 40th oldest.

Hansen grew up in the Sheboygan County village of Random Lake, with six older siblings. When her parents divorced, she moved with her mother to Hawkins, Wisconsin, about 25 miles from the Price County seat of Phillips, about an hour-and-a-half northwest of Wausau.

Hansen graduated from Ladysmith High School in 1982. She then went to work at Phillips Plating and moved into the Starlite Apartments just north of Phillips. In November 1987 she was working second shift at manufacturer Marquip Corp. and a second job at the IGA grocery store in Phillips.

She saw her mother for the last time on Oct. 11, 1987, during a visit to Random Lake. Her mother told The Sounder newspaper that they picked apples at Waldo Orchards. Hansen surprised her mother with the news that she might be pregnant.

Two weeks later, Hansen sent her mother a letter confirming the due date was in July and she wouldn’t be getting an abortion. In another letter she wrote that the father was going to be paying the medical bills and “all of this stuff — dresser, bed, stroller, walker, everything. And my agreement is not naming him as father to anyone.”

“All I want to know is you’re with me and same with everyone in the family,” Hansen wrote. “If not, I’ll do it on my own.”

‘Her eyes told me everything’

An employee at the IGA grocery store where Hansen worked a second job reported her missing on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 1987.

Five days earlier, on Thursday, Nov. 12, the last day she was seen alive, Hansen spent the morning getting an ultrasound at Flambeau Hospital in Park Falls. Around lunchtime she brought the sonogram to the Park Falls bar that her brother Ron and sister-in-law Wendy were getting ready to open. Ron asked about the father, but she didn’t give a name — only that he was married, Wendy Hansen told Wisconsin Watch. 

Later that afternoon Shelly went to a laundromat in downtown Phillips where she ran into Kathy Krenzke — whose husband later became sheriff. Hansen proudly showed off the ultrasound photos of her healthy baby and talked about not being sure whether to visit her mother that weekend or go to Ron and Wendy’s bar opening.

“She was excited,” Krenzke recalled in an interview with Wisconsin Watch. “She showed me the ultrasound of the baby, and I wonder if they ever found that in her purse, because she took it out of her purse to show me.”

Krenzke asked Hansen who the father was, but Hansen wouldn’t provide a name. Krenzke said Hansen told her she planned to “confront” the father to make sure he would financially support the child.

Krenzke said Hansen appeared to be in a hurry, removing her still-damp clothes from the dryer with plans to air-dry them at her apartment near Marquip.

Hansen worked the evening shift at Marquip, now BW Papersystems, on the north end of Phillips — the same shift Raskie worked as a supervisor at what was then a corrugated splicing machine manufacturer.

Former Marquip employee Tina Andersen told a state investigator that Hansen showed her the sonogram the day she disappeared and that Hansen described the father as a Marquip foreman with two small children, according to the affidavit. Those descriptions fit Raskie.

Cindy Miller, another former Marquip employee, told Wisconsin Watch she saw Hansen that same day at the plant having an intense conversation with Raskie. She recalled Hansen previously asking if she had any leftover maternity clothes.

Miller, who handed out equipment at the tool room counter window, said she saw Raskie and Hansen near the bubbler, the large analog clock above them showing it was before 6:30 p.m. Miller told Wisconsin Watch she saw Raskie pacing, his hand gripping his wrist behind his back.

“She looked up at me, and our eyes locked, you know, looked right at each other, and just the expression on her face, it was very sad,” Miller said. “Her eyes told me everything.”

Previously undisclosed Hansen sighting

The only official story law enforcement officials have put out about Hansen’s last known whereabouts is that she was seen leaving Marquip at 8 p.m. on Nov. 12.

But the affidavit reveals another, previously undisclosed Hansen sighting that came to light in an August 2003 interview with former Phillips police officer Leonard Shilts, who died two years later. Shilts told investigators he talked to Hansen at the Tasmanian Devil bar while on patrol duty between 10 and 11 p.m. that night. Shilts said Hansen indicated she was leaving her apartment “for a time” and asked him to check in on it.

Shilts told investigators he drove past Hansen’s apartment building later that night between 2 and 3 a.m. He said he saw only two vehicles — Raskie’s truck and a white or light-colored vehicle that likely belonged to another apartment resident.

Hansen’s maroon Dodge Omni was found hours later at the Lake Ten tavern, located on a small clear lake 10 minutes southwest of Phillips, according to the affidavit. It was parked at an angle that looked as if someone had left it in a hurry, the tavern owner’s mother told investigators in 2007. She reported the abandoned vehicle to the sheriff’s office the afternoon of Saturday, Nov. 14, 1987.

Doug Sprague, the Price County sheriff’s deputy who responded to Lake Ten, told Wisconsin Watch that the tavern owner reported the vehicle wasn’t there when he closed the bar at 9 p.m. on Nov. 12. Sprague said the car was locked in the tavern parking lot, which overlooked a 42-acre lake and boat landing. Sprague said he later checked Hansen’s apartment.

“I went to where she lived, just north of town in a room, and none of her clothes were disturbed,” Sprague recalled. “There was nothing packed in a suitcase or anything like that. It just looked like she wasn’t planning to go anywhere.”

Another Raskie connection

At that time, Michael Raskie’s brother Steven rented a home about a half mile from the Lake Ten tavern, according to the affidavit. Steven told investigators in September 1989 — a month after his brother’s spousal abuse conviction — that he had heard the rumors implicating Michael in Hansen’s disappearance, but that he had never seen them together. 

He said his brother didn’t have a key to his home and didn’t appear to have used the residence during the times Steven was away working as a bricklayer.

But the landlord’s wife told an investigator in 2003 that Steven, who died in 2012, always left the rented residence unlocked. 

Michael Raskie’s ex-wife, who at the time was the human resources manager at Phillips Plating, told investigators over the course of three interviews in 2006 and 2008 that her ex-husband stored a dirt bike, a motorized tricycle and a Harley motorcycle in a shed on the property his brother rented. She declined a Wisconsin Watch interview request.

She also said she found it strange when she overheard Hansen talking about Raskie to her former co-workers at Phillips Plating. She said her husband told her that Hansen would bring him dinners at Marquip and that he “couldn’t get rid of her,” according to the affidavit.

Raskie’s ex-wife told investigators when she told her husband that Hansen had gone missing, he replied, “Well, she was a sick human being anyway.”

Wallace Krenzke, who was sheriff from 2003 to 2009, told Wisconsin Watch that deputies dredged Lake Ten and dug in multiple places, including a garbage pit behind the house Steven Raskie had rented. But the search for Hansen’s body came up empty.

A breakthrough — and a denial

Krenzke said the Shilts interview in 2003 — 16 years after Hansen’s disappearance — was a turning point in the case. The affidavit cites interviews from 1987 and 1989, but then nothing for 14 years. Then there was a flurry of activity in the years leading up to the 2008 search warrant for Raskie’s DNA.

Raskie himself was interviewed three times in 2004 and 2005. He told investigators that Hansen was capable of manipulating someone over a pregnancy.

“Sometimes you had the feeling like she would do something like that to someone,” Raskie is quoted in the affidavit. Asked if he had any theories about what happened, he mentioned the 2004 murder of a woman in Salt Lake City whose husband confessed to throwing her body in a dumpster. He noted that without a body, police could not be sure that the Utah woman was murdered.

Raskie also denied a sexual relationship with Hansen, while speculating that his ex-wife could have been behind the disappearance because she suspected him of an extramarital affair.

DNA retrieved from car

In 2006, investigators collected DNA swabs from inside Hansen’s vehicle, which was still in law enforcement custody as of 2024. The State Crime Lab identified DNA from one unknown male. Investigators obtained DNA from Steven Raskie and ruled him out.

They also ruled out a former Marquip employee who told investigators he had an informal “sexual” relationship with Hansen, but suspected she was also seeing Michael Raskie. The former employee was unmarried at the time with no children and did not fit Hansen’s description of the father.

At one point, he told investigators he had confronted Raskie about having sex with Hansen. Raskie never admitted or denied it, according to his telling, but “would smile and walk away.”

When asked if he had ever been in Hansen’s vehicle, Raskie stated he may have sat in her passenger seat. He said he and Hansen were part of a group of Marquip employees who often drank together after work. 

The affidavit notes two other witnesses who in the 2000s provided circumstantial evidence that Raskie and Hansen had a personal relationship.

Hansen’s next-door neighbor told investigators that in the days before Hansen’s disappearance she was awakened by a violent and extremely intense argument she could hear through the thin wall. She said she heard a male speaking in loud, accusatory tones and a female voice speaking in calming tones. She also told investigators the male’s vehicle was a “spruced up” “guy truck” pickup.

An investigator also spoke with a witness who said he saw Raskie and Hansen kissing outside the Stonecroft Tavern. The witness also said Hansen told him in November 1987 that the father of her unborn child was married with two children, according to the affidavit.

Based on all of the presented evidence, Price County Circuit Judge Douglas Fox ordered the DNA sample be taken from Raskie. Records show Jarosinski took three swabs from Raskie’s mouth.

Because the investigative file remains closed to public inspection, the results of the lab testing remain unknown to the public. Though Raskie acknowledged sitting in the passenger seat of Hansen’s vehicle, the unknown male DNA was found on the left side of the steering wheel, which could mean the person drove the vehicle.

For investigators to obtain DNA evidence, they must lay out their case in a sworn application filed in court. Then-Price County District Attorney Mark Fuhr, now the county’s lone circuit court judge, asked every six months that the search warrant records remain sealed to protect confidential informants in the case. In 2017, two years after Raskie died, the seal expired and was not renewed.

A search for Raskie’s name in the online statewide court record system does not reveal the existence of the search warrant, but Wisconsin Watch found it by searching on the single computer terminal in the Price County Clerk of Courts office.

Why wasn’t Michael Raskie ever charged?

The affidavit renews questions about the Hansen case, specifically why Raskie was never charged and why law enforcement officials have kept so much of their investigation secret.

“I was asked once by the local paper what the status was of Michael Raskie,” recalled Krenzke, the former sheriff. “I said, ‘If I had information which would lead me to probable cause, he’d be arrested.’ I told them I had none.” Krenzke added that he was unaware authorities had obtained a DNA sample from Raskie during his time as sheriff.

Krenzke said he kept some distance from the investigation because as chief of security at Marquip in the 1980s and 1990s he had worked with both Hansen and Raskie. Schmidt, the current sheriff, also overlapped with Hansen and Raskie when he worked at Marquip from 1987 to 1989.

Heitkemper, the lead investigator on the case in 1987 and sheriff from 1995 to 2001, said the case got off to a slow start. Heitkemper said he was the county’s only homicide detective at the time and yet he wasn’t assigned to the case until many days after Hansen was reported missing. All that time Hansen’s car remained unattended in the Lake Ten parking lot, he said.

Heitkemper blamed then-Sheriff Wayne Wirsing, who died in 2018, for not assigning him the case sooner because he was a political rival. Heitkemper ran for sheriff against Wirsing and lost in 1986, 1990 and 1992 before defeating him in 1994.

Miller, the former Marquip employee, said not long after she left the company in spring 1988 she saw Shilts at a gas station and told him police should be looking at Raskie in the Hansen case. She said she got a call from Heitkemper a few days later and shared her account of seeing Hansen and Raskie at the bubbler.

Heitkemper acknowledged Raskie became the lead suspect while he oversaw the case.

Heitkemper said Hansen called her mother Joyce Hansen the day she disappeared and told her Michael Raskie was the father of her unborn child, although he said Joyce didn’t share that detail with investigators until years later. 

Joyce Hansen died in 2022. Her obituary notes Shelly is “assumed dead.”

Heitkemper added that Raskie’s connections in Price County made the Sheriff’s Office particularly cautious in tying him to Hansen’s disappearance. 

“Raskie was a very well-liked individual,” Heitkemper told Wisconsin Watch. “He had a lot of contacts throughout the community, a lot of people with money, and so we had to be very, very, extremely careful where we let information out.”

Buck Schilling, who served as Price County district attorney from August 1990 until January 2003, right before the breakthrough in the case, recalled Heitkemper telling him he wanted to be able to charge Raskie in Hansen’s disappearance before Raskie was released from prison.

“At the time I don’t believe they had enough evidence for me to charge him,” Schilling said. “Even (Heitkemper) knew he didn’t have enough evidence yet.”

Schilling reviewed the 2008 search warrant at Wisconsin Watch’s request. He said it shows the Price County Sheriff’s Office established probable cause to obtain Raskie’s DNA, a lower standard than proving someone’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal court. Prosecutors generally must believe the available evidence can meet that higher standard before filing charges.

If the unknown male DNA on the left side of Hansen’s steering wheel matched Raskie’s, it might have strengthened the case because it could be used as evidence that Raskie drove the vehicle at some point.

A state Department of Justice spokesperson said the department is reviewing Wisconsin Watch’s request to reconsider its denial of releasing Hansen case records.

Editor’s note: This story corrects the description of Marquip in 1987. By then it had switched from manufacturing building construction machines to corrugated splicing machines.

Anyone with information about the Shelly Hansen case should contact the Price County Sheriff’s Office at (715) 339-3011.

Nearly 40 years after Shelly Hansen vanished in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, unsealed records reveal a hidden suspect 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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A federal judge on Tuesday declined to overturn a Wisconsin judge’s obstruction of justice conviction for helping a man evade immigration officers who showed up at a courtroom looking to detain him.

The case against Hannah Dugan, who resigned from the Milwaukee County Circuit Court following her conviction, was an early test of how the courts would respond to President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

Trump allies branded Dugan as an activist judge, while her supporters said she was unfairly targeted.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman postponed Dugan’s sentencing on June 3 to consider arguments about whether he should overturn her conviction. But Adelman said in his ruling Tuesday that Dugan’s conviction would stand. He did not immediately set a sentencing date.

“The court’s decision is wrong,” Dugan’s legal defense team said in a statement.

Questions about a similar case in Virginia

Dugan’s attorney had argued that her conviction in helping Eduardo Flores-Ruiz leave the courthouse was invalid and should be overturned. He said that was necessary because a federal appeals court in April overturned a key Virginia immigration case that the judge and prosecutors had cited in Dugan’s case.

In the Virginia case, an immigrant who was in the country illegally was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and later escaped. He was recaptured and indicted on a charge of obstructing a pending immigration proceeding.

The federal appeals court found that the ICE action did not constitute a “pending proceeding,” as is required under the federal obstruction law.

Dugan’s attorneys argue that she should not have been charged because there was no “pending proceeding” against the immigrant in her courtroom being sought by ICE agents, only a warrant filed for his arrest. The filing of a warrant does not constitute a “proceeding” under the law, Dugan’s attorneys argued.

Prosecutors countered that the facts in the Virginia case are different and don’t apply to Dugan’s. They also argued that other cases support Dugan’s conviction.

Adelman said the attempted arrest of Flores-Ruiz did count as a “pending proceeding,” in part because it was a planned and targeted operation rather than an arrest resulting from a random encounter.

“Defendant argues that ICE was acting as a law enforcement agency here,” Adelman wrote. “But this ignores the fact that, unlike, say, the FBI, ICE can issue its own warrants and adjudicate and effectuate a removal, as it did with Flores-Ruiz, without the involvement of a court. This makes a difference.”

Dugan faces 5 years in prison, but will likely get probation

Dugan, 67, faces up to five years in prison after a jury convicted her on Dec. 19, but she is unlikely to be sentenced to time behind bars. Federal sentencing guidelines generally call for probation for defendants like her, who have no criminal history and are convicted of a nonviolent crime.

Dugan resigned from her position as a Milwaukee County circuit judge two weeks after her conviction amid threats of impeachment from Republican state lawmakers. She had been a judge for nine years.

The Trump administration brought the case against Dugan as the president pressed ahead with his sweeping immigration crackdown.

Trump’s administration and his allies branded Dugan as an activist judge, while Dugan’s attorneys said she was being unfairly targeted and argued, unsuccessfully, that she was immune from being charged because she was a judge.

Dugan’s case marked the first time that a state judge in Wisconsin went to trial on charges of obstructing immigration agents. She was acquitted of concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor.

Dugan helped an immigrant wanted by ICE agents

On April 18, 2025, immigration officers went to the Milwaukee County courthouse after learning Flores-Ruiz had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

Dugan confronted agents outside her courtroom and directed them to the chief judge’s office because she told them their administrative warrant wasn’t sufficient grounds to arrest Flores-Ruiz.

After the agents left, she led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. A week later, FBI agents arrested Dugan in the courthouse, leading her outside in handcuffs.

Flores-Ruiz was deported in November.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Judge upholds conviction of former Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan for helping immigrant evade ICE 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: 10 minutes

Editor’s note: This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing “988.” 

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Jared and Jamie Weigelt share the story of their son Landen’s sextortion and suicide in an effort to educate northeast Wisconsin students, teachers and law enforcement officers about the signs of the scams and ways to report it.  
• Since Landen Weigelt died in 2023, sextortion cases in Wisconsin have skyrocketed.  
• From 2024 to 2025, the number of cases nearly tripled, according to the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. 
• Families are not sitting on the sidelines: They’re speaking to schools, advocating for legislation to protect victims, and some are suing social media companies. 
• Lawmakers passed five bills into law in 2025 to provide recourse for victims and allocate more state resources to responding to sextortion cases.

In a hotel conference room in Appleton, Jamie and Jared Weigelt prepared to tell the story of their son’s death to a waiting group of police officers. In the three years since 17-year-old Landen Weigelt died, they’ve shared this story with countless schools in northeast Wisconsin. 

It’s not easy to relive that day, but they won’t stop anytime soon. 

On Feb. 7, 2023, Landen Weigelt spent the day at Oconto High School, where he was a junior. He was a football and varsity basketball player, popular among his peers, got good grades and had plans for a career as a counselor. 

An employee of the school district, Jamie Weigelt worked in Landen’s building. The day before, a few students came up to her and said something seemed off about Landen.

“Some kids had said that he just didn’t seem himself,” Jamie Weigelt said. “I went down and I talked to him. He told me everything was fine, everything was great.” 

The next afternoon, Jamie found her stepson in his bedroom after he had taken his own life. 

“At first, it really did look like he was sleeping,” she told the group of officers. “It was not until I got closer that I realized something was seriously wrong. … I grabbed his sweatshirt and shook him, but there was no response, and it was at this point that I screamed and grabbed my phone. I knew that I wasn’t calling 911 to save him, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

She learned Landen exchanged nude images with a scammer on Snapchat, who threatened to share them widely if he didn’t pay hundreds of dollars. Landen begged the suspect not to release photos, but they continued to demand money and told Landen they would ruin his life.

“I’m sorry but I think I would rather kill myself,” Landen had responded. 

He was the victim of a crime known as sextortion, something Jamie Weigelt had never heard of before. In the years since Landen’s death, cases have skyrocketed. In Wisconsin, sextortion cases nearly tripled in a single year. The state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received 650 online tips related to sextortion in 2025, an increase from 230 in all of 2024. 

Now, the Weigelts and other victims’ families are devoted to raising awareness about the dangers of this deadly crime. Their efforts, in tandem with law enforcement and state lawmakers, have led to increased outreach in schools, more legal protections for victims and additional resources for the state Department of Justice to respond to sextortion tips.

What is sextortion?

Victims of sextortion — often but not exclusively teens — are solicited or coerced into sending explicit photos to an individual online and then blackmailed into sending more money or more images. In most cases, the perpetrator will create one or more fake accounts posing as teens the victim’s age, sometimes offering nude images first before asking for images in return. Generative artificial intelligence has also increasingly played a role in perpetrators carrying out sextortion schemes without even having to receive a nude image. 

In 2025, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received an average of 137 reports of financial sextortion a day and noted that at least 36 teenage boys had committed suicide as a result of being sextorted. 

Parents, lawmakers act

In Wisconsin, families of victims teamed up with lawmakers to develop specific legislation that addresses sextortion. Last year, sextortion was classified as a felony in Wisconsin under “Bradyn’s Law,” named in honor of Bradyn Bohn. The 15-year-old from Kronenwetter died by suicide in 2025 after being sextorted, and his parents have been key in advocating for increased legislation. 

This April, Gov. Tony Evers signed five new laws providing more recourse for victims and funding for the state to respond to sextortion crimes. Among them, 2025 Wisconsin Act 215 allows victims’ families to file a wrongful death lawsuit if their family member’s suicide was largely due to sextortion, in addition to allowing victims to file a civil suit for monetary damages.

The bills also provided an increase of $400,000 per year in the 2025-27 biennial budget for the Wisconsin Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which receives and responds to tips of suspected online child sexual exploitation. The legislation adds four full-time positions to the team — two criminal analysts, one outreach specialist and one digital forensic analyst — and requires the task force to run a public awareness campaign regarding online safety for children. 

The number of tips coming into the task force is “staggering,” said commander Jesse Crowe, and can cause mental health issues among his staff. As of May 21, 2026, they’ve received over 7,400 CyberTips so far this year with over 300 related to sextortion — which means their one part-time and three full-time criminal analysts are tasked with responding to nearly 1,500 tips per month.

“We really needed the resources based on our numbers,” Crowe said, “and this is a very, very good step in the right direction to get the resources that we need.” 

Having a designated outreach specialist will allow the rest of his team to focus solely on their caseload, rather than having to fit outreach in between cases. 

“This person will be dedicated to really working with communities, working with law enforcement to get more of our messages out there – not only about sextortion, just about how to use the internet responsibly,” Crowe said.

They hope to have the new task force members onboarded by the end of July. 

How tips are submitted

Although tips can be self-reported through report.cybertip.org, many are sent by electronic service providers — such as social media companies. 

Part of the exponential increase in tips over the past two years is because of the federal REPORT Act, which required electronic service providers to report online sexual exploitation of children starting in May 2024.

Self-reporting is also increasing, with NCMEC’s CyberTipline reporting a 100% increase in reports directly from victims in 2025. Experts say this is a positive result of heightened awareness because perpetrators rely on victims being too afraid to speak up. Crowe believes the state’s increase in CyberTips can be partially attributed to outreach efforts in addition to social media companies complying with reporting requirements. 

Once tips are received by NCMEC, they’re assigned to each state based on the location of the suspects and victims. Crowe’s team uses IP addresses, phone numbers or open records requests to determine which sheriff’s offices should receive tips. 

Brian Slinger is the Internet Crimes Against Children supervisor for the Brown County Sheriff’s Office. Once he receives a tip, his main priority is to locate the child and make contact as soon as possible. He relies heavily on partnerships with school districts, including school resource officers. 

“We will usually involve the school resource officers as quickly as we can to make contact with the child to ensure that they’re safe because that’s the number one goal,” Slinger said.

What parents can do

The main message that Crowe, the Weigelts and other advocates emphasize is to develop an open line of communication between parents and children. 

“We tell kids at a very early age, hold my hand to cross the street, wear a helmet, wear a seat belt, and that’s ingrained in them,” Crowe said. “If we start that conversation about safe, appropriate internet use when they’re young, it’ll just be a normal function of them growing up.” 

Becky Wright is the program director at HER Alliance, a nonprofit organization in Green Bay that works with people who have experienced sex trafficking. The organization does outreach presentations to school districts in Brown County about digital safety, healthy relationships and online exploitation.

“I think one of the biggest reasons criminals are using sextortion to target kids is because it causes them to completely panic,” Wright said. “They don’t know what to do because there’s money involved, and they realize they may have made a mistake in the conversation.” 

As a parent of a 12-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter, Wright has regular discussions with them about online safety. Each night, they return their phones to her bedroom to charge. 

“I’m monitoring and looking at their phone, usually on a weekly basis, just looking through photos and search histories,” Wright said. “But again, it’s also because I’m aware of what can happen, and they know that, and we’ve had a lot of discussions about that.”

Efforts underway

Rep. Lindee Brill, R-Sheboygan Falls, authored several of the recently passed laws, but wrote in a statement to Wisconsin Watch that they’re “only a few spokes in the broader wheel of kids’ online safety.” 

She pointed to other bills that came out of the Assembly Speaker’s Task Force on Protecting Kids, including Assembly Bill 962, which would require age verification on social media platforms. 

Bohn’s parents, Luke and Brittney Bird, testified in support of the bill, but it failed to pass in the Senate last year among concerns of privacy rights violations. The Birds also joined a wrongful death lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for failing to protect their children, emphasizing a growing effort to hold social media companies accountable for children’s safety. 

Justin Patchin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center, has a different proposal: safe sexting strategies. He outlined tips in a recent paper such as not including identifying features or sending suggestive images rather than explicit nude images. Patchin said there needs to be a less fear-based approach to sexting, which is in line with the state’s list of best practices for prevention programs.  

“Teens engage in sexting because it’s developmentally somewhat normative,” Patchin said. “We tell them not to engage in these behaviors, and in fact, some police officers threaten them with arrest.”

Teens who engage in sexting and find themselves victims of sextortion may then feel trapped. 

“Now you’re backed into a corner, right?” Patchin said. “That you’ve done this illegal thing, technically, because you’ve created and distributed child porn, and so now you feel helpless.”

Although possessing or distributing explicit images of a minor is still illegal under Wisconsin’s child pornography laws, minors generally won’t be charged when images they send are used to extort them – they are seen as victims of a crime in Wisconsin, Crowe said. However, children and teenagers can be charged if they create images and send them without coercion or prompting. 

According to Patchin’s research, only 24% of teens he surveyed said they engage in sexting. But among those who do, about half the time, that image is shared with someone beyond the original sender or they’re the victim of sextortion.

“In the last few years, the international bad actors have gotten into the game,” Patchin said. “They’ve gotten good at targeting vulnerable youth. If you look at case studies of this, if you look at the media reports, a lot of these – especially boys – who have been targeted in the last few years, are popular. They have a lot going on for themselves. They have a lot to lose.” 

Oconto Police Chief Kassie Dufek said over the years that she’s presented Landen’s story with the Weigelts, she’s only seen victimization increase, despite efforts from the DOJ or families. Real change would require social media apps “having significant restrictions.”  

“Our search warrants are signed by a judge that say you must give us this information by this date,” Dufek said. “They don’t comply because they know that they have these big time lawyers … it’s more of a fight for us than it’s worth because we don’t have the time, we don’t have the resources. They do.” 

‘The word is out’

Jill Yindra, who lost her son to sextortion-related suicide, said she and her husband hosted an awareness night in March with over 700 attendees in Mishicot. She recently received a call about a 15-year-old student from a local high school who contacted authorities after being targeted by someone on Instagram. 

“AI imagery was used, threats were made, demands for money, and that perpetrator had also friended mutual friends of the first victim,” Yindra said. “So when this individual realized what this was and what the dangers were, they called authorities right away, and they were able to stop it.” 

Seeing that her and her husband’s advocacy efforts were working gave her hope.

“It warmed our hearts,” Yindra said. “We just don’t ever want another family to go through what we are going through. It’s absolutely horrific.” 

The perpetrators of sextortion schemes depend on the victim feeling alone and ashamed of their mistake — which is why it’s important to inform the public that this is a scam where international criminals systematically target and manipulate teens.

“We’ve had the hard conversations with our kids, but these are career criminals,” Yindra said. “It’s sad, and it’s unfortunate, but we live in a cruel world, and we need to be proactive with it, because this crime goes like wildfire when we remain silent.

“But if you speak up, you talk, you educate, and advocate, things will slow down,” she said. “And now it’s obviously working, because the word is out.”

Data reporter Hongyu Liu contributed to this report.

This story was updated to include the name of the 2026 School Resource Officer Training Conference in photo captions and to clarify that Jamie Weigelt is Landen Weigelt’s stepmom.

‘The word is out’: Wisconsin families turn grief into action as sextortion cases rise 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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Salah Sarsour, the leader of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, has lost 30 pounds in the two months that he’s been in immigration detention, his attorneys say.

Sarsour’s federal case, in which advocates say the legal permanent resident is being targeted because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy, proceeded with a status hearing in district court Monday.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has accused Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, of lying on his immigration forms when he arrived from Ramallah three decades ago. He was arrested on March 30 and is being held in the Clay County Jail in Indiana.

Sarsour’s team has filed both a claim that Sarsour should be permanently freed, arguing that Sarsour’s overall detention is illegal, as well as a motion that he should be released sooner because of his deteriorating health. His lawyers also allege that his religious rights as a devout Muslim have been violated while in detention. In a letter filed to the court on May 29, Sarsour’s team said that Sarsour, who is diabetic, is not receiving regular blood sugar tests or medication. They also said that Sarsour’s ability to pray five times a day, in accordance with his faith, has been disturbed by guards.

“The continued detention of Mr. Sarsour—and his separation from his community and family—appears purely punitive; it continues to chill the speech of Mr. Sarsour and others seeking to speak out about Palestinian human rights,” the letter reads.

In a response, lawyers from the Department of Justice called those claims “unfounded.”

“(Sarsour’s) detention pending removal proceedings is entirely lawful and his belated conditions-based allegations do not support his request for release,” they wrote.

Attorneys reiterated these arguments on Monday before U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon, a nominee of President Donald Trump in the Southern District of Indiana.

Sarsour’s advocates said that he has not been provided with halal meals and that one diabetes-friendly snack he’d been offered was barbecue pork rinds, which many observant Muslims do not eat. Under those conditions, they said he had lost 30 pounds.

“Those are simply not adequate accommodations,” said one of his attorneys, Luna Droubi, on Monday.

Lawyers for the government refuted those claims. They said that Sarsour’s glucose had been checked daily for a week, until a doctor determined he only needed monthly checks. The attorney said that Sarsour’s glucose didn’t change in that time, that he is receiving daily diabetes medicine and a diabetes-responsive diet.

They also said that Sarsour was provided with an Arabic-language Quran by outside supporters and that his daily prayers are accommodated, but within “regular security measures within the jail.”

Judge Hanlon on Monday said he was “doing his best” to review those petitions quickly.

Salah Sarsour’s federal and immigration cases

Sarsour was arrested shortly after leaving his home in Franklin on March 30. In a statement, DHS called Sarsour a “terrorist” who had thrown Molotov cocktails at Israeli military members and lied about it on his green card application.

Sarsour’s supporters have said he was convicted of that as a teenager growing up in the West Bank, but dispute the details of the charges, which they argue were fabricated by the Israeli government.

Shortly after he was arrested, lawyers filed a writ of habeas corpus, which argues that Sarsour, a Palestinian native and activist for Palestinian rights, had been targeted on the basis of First Amendment-protected free speech while in the United States.

“It is definitely part of a pattern by this government of pursuing immigration cases against people whose advocacy, whose beliefs, whose activism this government doesn’t like,” said Samuel Cole, chief immigration litigation counsel with the ACLU of Illinois, which is supporting Sarsour’s case.

But in the meantime, Cole argued, Sarsour’s treatment in county jail justifies immediate release.

“There are some pretty extraordinary things going on here that would justify his release before the district judge even makes a decision on the habeas petition,” Cole said. “There’s no way to remedy the fact that he’s now been in jail since March 30, so it’s over two months.”

Sarsour’s lawyers first filed a motion for Sarsour to be released on bail in late April, citing the “extraordinary” nature of his detention, as well as his medical conditions.

“Respondents can point to no act—even a pretextual one—committed in the last 30 years which would warrant his sudden arrest and detention today,” they wrote. “Instead, Mr. Sarsour was whisked away from his wife, kids, grandkids, and mother on a Monday morning while on his way to work.”

In response, the government argued that Sarsour is “deportable for several reasons completely unrelated to his speech.”

Separately, Sarsour’s immigration case continues to unfold. The next hearing in those proceedings will be on June 24.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Milwaukee Muslim leader has unmet medical, religious needs in immigration detention, lawyers say 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: 5 minutes

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.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

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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Track Wisconsin’s prison population 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.