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A new guide from Johns Hopkins University recommends 10 policy changes to reduce gun violence in Wisconsin, including three identified as potentially especially helpful for communities such as Milwaukee, where gun violence has been prevalent.

“The recommendations are intended to have statewide impact,” wrote Ethan Bartlett, assistant research and policy adviser at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions and lead author of the guide, in an email to NNS.  

“That being said, research suggests some recommendations may have a larger impact in certain areas than others, depending on factors such as community culture, demographics, rurality and differences in implementation.”

The Wisconsin guide is the seventh state-specific policy road map published by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, following guides for Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Maryland and Maine.

Bartlett said researchers began by examining Wisconsin’s existing firearm laws to identify gaps.

“From there, we were guided by research evidence and identified evidence-based policies that would fill those gaps and ultimately work toward better outcomes for Wisconsin residents,” he said. 

Bartlett said the guide is intended to help policymakers, local governments and organizations identify legislative changes that could reduce firearm deaths and injuries.

“We view gun violence as an epidemic-level public health emergency and saw an opportunity to create a product with the potential to be part of the solution,” he said. 

Three recommendations he said may be especially significant for Milwaukee and other communities experiencing higher levels of interpersonal gun violence: establishing firearm purchaser licensing; licensing gun dealers; and providing sustainable funding for community violence intervention and prevention programs.

Current snapshot of Milwaukee gun violence

As of Oct. 8, Milwaukee had recorded 84 homicides and 325 nonfatal shootings, compared with 108 homicides and 425 nonfatal shootings during the same period in 2025, according to the Milwaukee Police Department’s crime dashboard. Both categories declined over 20% compared with the same period last year.

In 2025, the city recorded 142 homicides and 516 nonfatal shootings, compared with 132 homicides and 639 nonfatal shootings in 2024. 

Bartlett emphasized that firearm homicides represent only one aspect of gun violence.

“Firearm suicides represent the largest portion of firearm fatalities, and there are more firearm injuries annually than firearm homicides and suicides combined in Wisconsin,” he said.

In July, NNS reported firearms were involved in the majority of suicides in Milwaukee County in 2025. 

“All forms should be taken into consideration when discussing ways to mitigate gun violence,” Bartlett said. 

Here is a breakdown of the three strategies Bartlett highlighted for communities like Milwaukee.

Firearm purchaser licensing

The first recommendation calls for a requirement that prospective firearm buyers obtain a license before purchasing a gun.

Wisconsin does not require firearm purchasers to obtain a license, according to the guide.

Johns Hopkins recommends requiring prospective purchasers to complete firearm safety training, including live-fire instruction, submitting fingerprints, a comprehensive background check and an in-person application process.

The guide states that purchaser licensing laws were associated with an 11% reduction in firearm homicides in 136 large urban counties between 1984 and 2015. 

The requirements could strengthen background checks and help prevent firearms from reaching people legally prohibited from possessing them, according to the guide.

Milwaukee County Supervisor Justin Bielinski broadly supports the recommendations, but he raised concerns about purchaser licensing.

Bielinski said firearm purchaser licensing requirements could disproportionately affect lower-income residents and people of color, particularly those living in heavily policed communities.

Gun dealer licensing

Another recommendation is for Wisconsin to establish licensing requirements for firearm dealers – on top of existing federal requirements.

Wisconsin does not currently require a separate state firearm dealer license, according to the guide.  

Johns Hopkins recommends statewide licensing that includes recordkeeping, security measures and inspections to strengthen oversight of firearm sales.

The guide cites research finding that strong state firearm dealer regulations, including licensing and inspections, were associated with a 64% reduction in firearm trafficking within states.

The report highlighted federal data showing authorities recovered and traced 8,841 firearms in Wisconsin in 2023, including 3,781 in Milwaukee.

Bridget Whitaker is executive director of Safe & Sound, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit focused on community safety and violence prevention. She said the firearm purchaser licensing and gun dealer licensing speak to the accountability and responsible access to firearms.   

“I think there’s value in creating stronger safeguards to help prevent firearms from getting into the wrong hands,” Whitaker said. “This is so important when we consider how quickly a disagreement, an impulsive decision or an unresolved conflict can become a tragedy when a firearm is involved.” 

Sustainable funding of community violence intervention

Whitaker said the recommendation that resonates most with her is for sustainable investment in community violence intervention and prevention.

Milwaukee already has several local efforts, including Safe & Sound, the 414LIFE violence interruption program and other initiatives coordinated by the city’s Department of Community Wellness and Safety. 

Johns Hopkins researchers recommend sustained funding for anti-violence programs and a formal establishment of Wisconsin’s Office of Violence Prevention in state law, which could provide more stable state support for local violence prevention efforts.

“Too often – especially this year – nonprofits are charged to produce long-term outcomes with short-term funding,” Whitaker said. “We are asking organizations to build trust and maintain consistent relationships in neighborhoods while providing funding that may only last a year. Trust doesn’t operate on a grant cycle.”

Gov. Tony Evers’ actions

Bielinski said state lawmakers would need to push for most of the guide’s recommendations.

“Most of the reforms in the Hopkins report have to be initiated at the state level,” he said.

NNS reached out to Gov. Tony Evers about the three recommendations. Britt Cudaback, communications director for Evers, pointed to the governor’s previous budget proposals and calls for special legislative sessions and federal funding investments for violence prevention.

Evers created the Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention – by way of an executive order in January 2025. The office was initially supported by $10 million in federal funding, and Evers proposed making the office permanent through his 2025-27 budget.

However, the proposal was not included in the final budget.

In 2022, the Evers administration directed $8.4 million in federal funding to Milwaukee’s violence prevention efforts.

He also has called for universal background checks and an extreme risk protection order law, which would allow courts to temporarily restrict access to firearms for people who pose a serious risk of harming themselves or others.

Bielinski questioned whether Milwaukee County could expand its violence prevention programs from a financial perspective.

“Funding-related measures, like hiring more violence interruptors, credible messengers, etc., are highly unrealistic given current budgetary circumstances,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Administration, which oversees the state’s Office of Violence Prevention, also emphasized the need for sustained funding.

“The greatest impact, from the (Office of Violence Prevention) perspective, is continued sustainable, reliable and flexible funding for violence prevention in Milwaukee and across the state,” the spokesperson said.

Whitaker said the guide’s recommendations “reflect something those of us working in neighborhoods have understood for a long time: Reducing violence requires a comprehensive approach.” 

More recommendations

The other recommendations in the Johns Hopkins guide are:

• Strengthening firearm storage requirements
• Strengthening protections against domestic violence involving firearms
• Establishing an extreme risk protection order law
• Expanding restrictions on firearm purchases and possession
• Prohibiting large-capacity ammunition magazines
• Strengthening requirements for carrying firearms in public
• Requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms

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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.

New guide identifies policies that could reduce gun violence in Wisconsin 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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As the Milwaukee Brewers take on the Tampa Bay Rays in their first World Series in more than 40 years, tour Milwaukee to see how artists have celebrated the home team with public art.

“Wild Bill”

“Bob Uecker”

Baseball sculptures

“Hank Aaron” 

“El Paletero” 

“Sam’s Rocks WI”

“South Side en La Hora Mágica”

The Valley Passage Mural

“The Launch”

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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.

Here’s where you can find Brewers-inspired public art in Milwaukee 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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Wisconsin’s general election is Nov. 3, with voters deciding who will be the state’s next governor and attorney general, as well as picking candidates for the state Legislature in several other races. Voters also will decide on three proposed amendments to the state constitution. 

When voting in person, residents throughout the state must present an acceptable form of photo ID, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Wisconsin law allows eligible residents to obtain a state-issued ID for voting free of charge.

Despite there being no cost, the process can still present other challenges, said Peg Schrader, president of the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County.

“The practical barriers include missing supporting documents, the cost and effort of replacing them, transportation to the DMV and understanding which documents and IDs are acceptable,” wrote Schrader in an email to NNS.

Here’s what to know about getting a free ID before the election.

Steps

U.S. citizens who will be at least 18 years old on or before Nov. 3 – but who don’t have an ID that can be used for voting – can apply for one for free through the Wisconsin Division of Motor Vehicles, or DMV.

Although “voter ID” is a common term, there is no separate ID specifically for voting. Wisconsin accepts state-issued ID cards, which also can be used for other purposes.

Other acceptable forms of ID for voting include Wisconsin driver’s licenses, U.S. passports, military IDs and certain student and tribal IDs.

The photo ID requirement also is separate from voter registration, which has different requirements. 

Registration establishes a person’s eligibility to vote, while the photo ID requirement is for when someone actually votes.

People applying for a state ID for the first time must visit a DMV customer service center in person. People renewing or replacing an existing state ID may be able to do so online or by mail. 

When applying for a state ID for the first time, people ordinarily need to bring:

• Proof of name and date of birth.
• Proof of identity.
• Proof of Wisconsin residency.
• Proof of U.S. citizenship or legal status.
• Their Social Security number.

Some documents can fulfill more than one requirement. For example, a certified U.S. birth certificate can establish name and date of birth as well as U.S. citizenship.

The DMV maintains a list of acceptable documents for each type.

Generally, people must bring original documents or certified copies rather than photocopies. However, the DMV accepts printed electronic records and photocopies of certain documents used to prove Wisconsin residency.

Also, people generally need to provide their Social Security number but do not have to bring the physical card unless the DMV cannot verify the number electronically.

In addition to these documents, people must complete the Wisconsin Identification Card Application, indicating that they want a free ID for voting.

People who complete the regular in-person application generally receive a temporary paper receipt with their photograph at the DMV. The receipt is good for 45 days and can be used to vote while they wait for the permanent card to arrive by mail.

According to the DMV, permanent cards generally arrive within 10 business days.

Identification Petition Process

Wisconsin has an alternative process for eligible residents who do not have the documents usually required to obtain a state ID, called the Identification Petition Process. 

The process allows U.S. citizens who will be at least 18 on or before the next election to apply for an ID for voting while the DMV works to verify their information.

Schrader called the petition process an important option.

“Its key benefit is that a missing birth certificate or other required document does not have to prevent someone from obtaining identification for voting,” she said.

People who apply must go to a DMV office, fill out paperwork and wait for the document to arrive by mail.

People should bring whatever documents they have to a DMV service center and also complete two forms: the Wisconsin Identification Card Application and the Identification Petition Process application.

The DMV then mails a temporary photo identification document that can be used for voting while the petition is processed.

According to Wisconsin law, the DMV generally must issue the temporary document within six working days of receiving the petition.

For petitions filed within seven days before or two days after a statewide election – Oct. 27 through Nov. 5 for this year’s general election – the DMV must issue the document within 24 hours and send it by overnight or next-day mail.

Expedited processing does not guarantee people will receive the document before Election Day for those who file before Nov. 3. 

Other ID options

Residents may already have an ID that meets the Wisconsin voting law requirements. 

Wisconsin driver’s licenses and state ID cards are acceptable for voting if they are unexpired or expired after Nov. 5, 2024, the date of the last general election. U.S. passports and qualifying military IDs also are acceptable if these meet the same expiration requirements.

Joel DeSpain, a communications specialist for the Wisconsin Elections Commission, refers voters to the agency’s list of acceptable photo IDs.

A REAL ID is not required to vote, and the address on a photo ID does not have to match the voter’s current address.

The City of Milwaukee Election Commission also provides information about which IDs qualify.

Wisconsin enacted its voter ID law in 2011, although legal challenges delayed its full implementation until 2015. 

In April 2025, voters approved a constitutional amendment adding the photo ID requirement to the state constitution, making the requirement more difficult to change.

Options on Election Day 

Registered voters who arrive at the polls without acceptable photo ID can still request a provisional ballot for this year’s general election.

For the ballot to count, these people must present an acceptable photo ID at their polling place by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 3, or to their municipal clerk by 4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6.

Wisconsin also allows eligible residents who are not registered to go through that process at their polling place on the day of the election. However, they must provide proof of residence to register, which is a separate requirement from having the right ID to vote. 

Where can I get help?

The Wisconsin DMV operates a voter ID hotline at 844-588-1069 for questions about free IDs and the Identification Petition Process.

Schrader named several organizations that can assist Milwaukee-area residents:

• You can call or text VoteRiders at 866-432-8683 for free help obtaining identification and supporting documents, as well as arranging transportation the day of the election. 
• Souls to the Polls provides information about free rides to DMV offices and polling places. You can reach the organization by calling 414-742-1060.
• The League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County provides voting information and assistance resources at mkevote.com.
• Disability Rights Wisconsin can be reached at 844-347-8683 with questions about voting rights and accessibility for people with disabilities. 

For questions about voter registration, polling locations and other election information, visit MyVote Wisconsin.

Here’s how to get a free photo ID before the Nov. 3 election 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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Two board members resigned Tuesday and United Way and the Milwaukee Area Labor Council pulled future support from the Social Development Commission, dealing another blow to the anti-poverty agency as it faces a $3.5 million estimated net deficit and considers filing for bankruptcy.

SDC leadership attempted to address the deepening crisis during a Tuesday press conference, revealing the agency currently has just $2,770 in cash left as it tries to chart a path to restart services after a two-year shutdown.

Despite the organization’s current challenges, SDC leadership sketched a path to restart services and highlighted an opportunity to apply for an IRS program at the NAACP Milwaukee Branch, 2745 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, on Tuesday.

SDC leaders plan to work to reestablish the Social Development Foundation, a separate 501(c)(3) fundraising nonprofit, which could accept unrestricted private funding while the organization works to rebuild trust with the community and government funders, according to Jorge Franco, chair of the SDC Board of Commissioners and interim CEO.  

“It’s really a complicated situation, but the good news is we are now in a position to begin the process to restore,” Franco said.  

Franco was reelected as board chair at a hectic Sept. 23 meeting, with Commissioner Spencer Coggs elected as vice chair and treasurer and Commissioner Peter Fetzer elected as secretary.

Plans to address debt 

Before the press conference, SDC shared documents that revisit its founding in 1963 as an intergovernmental commission on poverty and decades serving as an anti-poverty and community action agency that offered social services ranging from career and educational programs to food, housing, senior and youth services. 

The documents also mentioned the weakening of internal financial controls that contributed to the agency not being able to pay employees and eventually shutting down in April 2024. 

“We had some unfortunate circumstances happen, but that is never enough to stop fighting for the people that we serve,” said Diane Robinson, executive director and chief operating officer for SDC.

SDC tried to reopen in a limited capacity in December 2024, but wasn’t able to restart services. Now, the agency is facing a preliminary 2026 net deficit of just under $3.5 million and has about $2,770 in cash, according to SDC documents. 

“I believe SDC must repay every dollar it owes to whoever it owes it to,” Franco said.  

The board is considering filing for bankruptcy or taking other actions to address its debt. 

“Yes, we’re looking at bankruptcy alternatives, but all of that can run in parallel as we navigate and receive, assuming we have proper management and those things, and we’re working on those things now and bringing that to the table,” said Franco. 

Board resignations 

 Ahead of the press conference on Tuesday, Commissioners Pam Fendt and Richard Diaz submitted resignations to the board. 

According to a letter that Amy Lindner, president and CEO of United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County, sent to Franco and others Tuesday, Fendt resigned immediately and the organization will not be nominating any new member due to “serious and ongoing concerns with the management and governance of SDC.” 

“Equally importantly, we also have seen no meaningful progress in the past two years to secure funding that would allow SDC to provide services of value to the community,” the letter stated. 

Fendt, president of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council, was initially appointed to serve its seat on the board in 2025. She switched appointments to serve on behalf of the United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County later that year to allow Diaz to join the board as the labor council’s representative. 

Diaz sent his resignation to members of the board via email on Tuesday afternoon. Fendt confirmed his resignation in an emailed press statement sent on behalf of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council. 

Concerns cited by Diaz included the decision-making ability granted to Franco as both the board chair and CEO, the board not responding to community concerns and a lack of strategic vision or plan. 

Diaz said his reason for joining the board was to see SDC restore services.

“I will continue to believe that it is possible to restore SDC services but based on the facts and the tendencies of existing leadership, I find it inextricably unfathomable to consider that to be more than a belief,” he wrote. 

In response to a reporter’s question on the resignations, Franco said he continues to serve at the request of SDC commissioners who believe in him and his ability to turn things around for SDC.  

He said he is not concerned about appointing agencies not filling seats and predicted that United Way would appoint a representative and fund SDC again some time in the future.  

“I’m happy to navigate that and work through that and it ain’t my first rodeo in this kind of situation,” he said.  

Restoring tax services

SDC leadership met with IRS officials and was invited to reapply for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA, program, according to Franco. SDC used to run Milwaukee’s largest VITA program, which helps underserved and low-to-moderate-income individuals file income tax returns for free and eligible households to access the Earned Income Tax Credit, Franco said. 

Any application would be subject to IRS review, and SDC would not accept funding until an “appropriate structure” to manage the program would be in place, according to a memo circulated before the press conference. 

The IRS did not respond to a request for comment on SDC. 

Also discussed was the possibility of revisiting a proposal for a revolving credit facility of up to $15 million from Wings Credit Union, which could help SDC address the funding gap when waiting on reimbursement-based grants, according to Franco. 

Franco said that this option could work with government grant or private sector funding and that the lender is still interested after board members voted in December not to advance it at the time. 

“I think we have a commission now with board members who are on the commission who are prepared to march and to move forward with that,” Franco said. 

Board to meet Thursday 

The board will meet virtually at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 15. Included on the agenda is a presentation from law firm Foley & Lardner about bankruptcy restructuring alternatives, including pathways under Chapters 7, 9 and 11.

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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.

Milwaukee anti-poverty agency has just $2,770 in cash left as financial crisis deepens 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.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The National Association of Pupil Transportation announced several winners and its latest inductee to the NAPT Hall of Fame during its annual conference this weekend.

The event in Louisville, Kentucky recognized Keith Henry, a longtime student transportation leader whose career has been marked by service, mentorship and advocacy for the profession, as this year’s solo inductee into the NAPT Hall of Fame. Henry is a past president of NAPT and currently serves as president of the NAPT Foundation. He is also the executive director of the Missouri Association for Pupil Transportation.

Henry started in the student transportation industry in 1994 as director transportation for Windsor School District in Imperial, Missouri following six years of service as an aviation electrician in the U.S. Coast Guard. He moved to Mehlville School District in 1997 as director of transportation and support services and then to Independence School District as director of transportation in 2010. He joined Lee’s Summit R-7 School District as director of transportation in July 2016 and four months later began his two-year term as NAPT president. He retired from Lee’s Summit at the end of June 2021.

NAPT describes its Hall of Fame as the association’s highest individual honor, recognizing professionals whose contributions, influence and leadership have had a lasting impact on both NAPT and the school transportation industry.

“I’m not up here, I don’t think, by accident but by design. And it wasn’t not my design, it was all your design,” Henry said during his acceptance speech Oct. 4. “You all have put so much into me and that’s the why. And my why is simple. I like to help others. I like to serve others. .. I went into the Coast Guard because I wanted to help others. When I got out of the Coast Guard in 1994, I took a temporary job in a transportation department that I didn’t seem to be able to kick. Here I am.”

The 2026 NAPT Distinguished Service Award was presented to Sue Shutrump, recognizing her exemplary leadership, service and “unwavering desire to make things safer for all children on the school bus” over the past 41 years, said nominator, NAPT past-president and NAPT Foundation board member Alexandra Robinson. A retired occupational and physical therapy supervisor for Trumbull County ESC in Ohio, Shutrump is the owner of Sue Shutrump Consulting and serves as co-chair of NAPT’s Special Needs Advisory Committee alongside Robinson. She is a member of the Transporting Students with Disabilities and Special Needs Tenured Faculty and long-time supporter of those who transport students with disabilities and preschoolers.

Shutrump recounted how she first became involved in school transportation in 1991, after her supervisor at the time received a phone call from a parent who expressed concern that her son was being transported unsafely to school in his wheelchair.

“I learned that she was right and I have never stopped learning since then,” Shutrump said during her acceptance speech. “And that is thanks to this incredible transportation community, full of people who are so willing to share their expertise in support of getting kids to school safer.”

Meanwhile, Jeff Hall, a school bus driver for Dickson County Schools in Tennessee, was posthumously awarded the NAPT Heroism Award sponsored by Blue Bird, for his selfless and decisive actions while evacuating students during a December 2025 school bus fire emergency, despite only being a school bus driver for four months. He died unexpectedly Feb. 10. Melissa Garton, director of transportation for Dickson County Schools, accepted the award on Hall’s behalf Sunday.

The School Bus Driver Training & Safety Award, sponsored by IC Bus, was presented to Dennis Murphy, training and safety officer for Greenville County Schools in South Carolina. Murphy was recognized for his commitment to school bus driver training and for helping advance student transportation safety. He was ill and unable to attend NAPT, so his colleague Shane Mitchell accepted the award on his behalf. IC Bus created the award to recognize school districts, companies and transportation professionals with exemplary driver-training programs and includes a $500 grant to further enhance driver training within the recipient’s operation.

The Continuing Education Award, sponsored by Thomas Built Buses, was presented to Angela Renz, the Northeast and Southeast Quadrant Manager for Metro Nashville Public Schools in Tennessee. The award recognizes Renz’s commitment to continued learning and to advancing the student transportation profession through education.

The NAPT Special Needs Transportation Award, sponsored by Q’Straint/Sure-Lok, was presented to Pamela Kelley, transportation administrative assistant at Spartanburg School District Six in South Carolina. Kelley was honored for her dedication to providing safe, compassionate and exceptional transportation for students with disabilities and special needs.

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Related: Shutrump Humbled By Grandolfo Special Needs Award at STN EXPO
Related: Update: NHTSA Seeks Fix to Child Safety Restraint Standard Affecting School Buses
Related: NAPT Opens Nominations for 2026 Board Elections in Three Regions

The post Henry, Shutrump Among NAPT Honorees at 2026 Annual Conference appeared first on School Transportation News.

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The Milwaukee Police Department told NNS it is looking to the future with its policy on generative artificial intelligence, or AI. The department is not currently using the technology, but that could change.

One potential law enforcement use of generative AI is helping officers write police reports. 

For example, Axon, the company that provides MPD’s body cameras, offers a product called Draft One, which uses body-camera audio to generate draft police reports. 

Some civil rights advocates and defense attorneys say using this type of emerging technology could create problems for Milwaukeeans accused of crimes.

“You have this risk of errors and hallucinations and bias that we see a lot of large language models have, whether it’s a transcription error or if it’s a bias that’s baked into the training data sets,” said Amanda Merkwae, policy and advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

MPD and generative AI

MPD released its policy governing generative AI in January.

Among other requirements are that AI-generated material should be considered a draft and reviewed for accuracy. 

Department members should also indicate in the final work product that AI was used.

An MPD spokesperson said its Generative Artificial Intelligence Committee has met to consider a variety of AI products but is still evaluating the utility, cost, accountability and effect that those products may have on the department’s work product.

“Any onboarding of an AI product is only in the consideration phase, so have we given it thought? Yes. Are we anywhere close to implementing that (technology)? No,” the spokesperson said.

What happens at the DA’s office?

Prosecutors in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office have considered what the use of AI technology could mean for criminal cases.

Jeffrey Altenburg, chief deputy district attorney for Milwaukee County, acknowledged risks associated with generative AI but said it could be useful with sufficient human oversight.

“It can be a helpful tool as long as it’s overseen and regulated by actual humans making actual observations and making sure that what is generated is consistent with what was intended to be,” he said.

Deputy District Attorney Matthew Torbenson said prosecutors are not expecting AI-generated reports to capture everything an officer observes. 

He gave the example of a child neglect investigation, during which observations — including what a home looks and smells like, whether there is a bug infestation, whether food is available — would have to come from police officers.

“All of that has to come from the impressions of the officers that are on scene,” Torbenson said.

The what ifs

Merkwae said there are concerns about the use of generative AI that should not be ignored. 

What happens, for example, if an officer’s testimony later conflicts with an AI-assisted police report? 

The error could stem from AI, she said, but it could also raise questions about an officer’s credibility. 

“If it was a human-written report and there’s that type of contradiction that can rise to the level of a potential dishonest statement — that could land a prosecutor putting a police officer on the Brady list,” Merkwae said. 

The Brady list refers to prosecutors’ records that identify law enforcement officers whose credibility issues may have to be disclosed to defendants.

Connor Romenesko, a forensic science practice coordinator with the Wisconsin State Public Defenders Office, said AI-generated reports could create serious problems without any malice or ill intent on the part of police or prosecutors.

There could be a situation, he said, where an officer is rushed at the end of a shift and fails to adequately review an AI-generated report, and a prosecutor uses that information to charge someone.

Milwaukee Police Department considers use of generative AI 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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Members of Milwaukee’s Community Collaborative Commission are looking to Baltimore as they work to give residents a greater voice in how policing is carried out in Milwaukee.

Community policing, a core focus of the commission’s work, calls for police and residents to work together to identify and respond to neighborhood problems.

Baltimore’s “Community Policing Plan” spells out who is responsible for that work, what it involves and how it can be put into practice.

“What works in Baltimore may or may not work in similar ways here,” said Tim Baack, president and CEO of Pathfinders, an organization that supports homeless and runaway children, and a member of the commission. “But there’s enough of the framework that it’s not like we have to start from scratch.”

In recent years, the commission has worked on police policy reform, community-oriented policing and oversight of other reforms. Its members include community activists and leaders of local nonprofits.

Earlier this summer, the group said it was in the late stages of completing a community policing plan for Milwaukee.

Community policing already happening, Milwaukee Police Department says

The Milwaukee Police Department says it has already implemented the framework for community policing in the city. 

The department has a community-oriented policing policy and has worked with the Community Collaborative Commission to gather community input and develop a plan.

“MPD has always been a part of the conversation with the (Community Collaborative Commission)” in developing the plan, a spokesperson for the department said.

MPD worked with the Community Collaborative Commission and Fire and Police Commission beginning in 2022 on community engagement sessions across the city, according to MPD’s 2025 Community and Problem Oriented Policing Review.

Here are four lessons from Baltimore and how they compare with what MPD is already doing.

1. Every officer is responsible for community policing

Baltimore’s plan states that “every officer is a community policing officer.”

In other words, community policing is not supposed to be limited to officers with specialized community-related duties.

“Community policing should shape everyday interactions/enforcement encounters/training and decision-making across the department,” said Bridget Whitaker, executive director of Safe & Sound and a member of the commission.

Safe & Sound is an organization that works to unite residents, youths and law enforcement.

MPD has an official policy that requires all department members to engage in community and problem-oriented policing daily.

The department is “committed to the principle that community policing is the responsibility of every officer,” a spokesperson for MPD said.

However, the Fire and Police Commission has questioned how fully that principle has been put into practice.

In a January memo to the Milwaukee Board of Fire and Police Commissioners and MPD command staff, the Fire and Police Commission argued that MPD relies too heavily on command staff and specialized community liaison officers for community engagement.

2. There’s a difference between engagement and being present

Baltimore’s plan distinguishes police simply being visible in a neighborhood from engaging with the people who live there. Officers are expected to have informal conversations with residents to help build relationships.

“Presence matters, but meaningful engagement requires interaction, listening, relationship building and collaboration,” Whitaker said.

MPD’s 2025 review similarly says community events alone do not amount to community-oriented policing.

However, the review says such events can still contribute to community policing by allowing residents and police to exchange information and develop solutions together.

The Fire and Police Commission memo makes a distinction between community involvement and collaboration.

With involvement, police largely identify problems and decide what to do. With collaboration, residents help identify problems, shape responses and determine whether they worked.

MPD says residents already participate in that process through district crime and safety meetings, community partnership units, community organizations and various other forums.

Ralikh Hayes, deputy director and co-founder of Baltimore-based Organizing Black, a grassroots civil rights and advocacy group, said his city’s residents still lack a formal way to ensure their input influences what the city actually does.

“There’s no formal mechanism of ‘we want this specifically,’ and then accountability if they see it or don’t,” Hayes said.

3. Focus on root causes

Problem-oriented policing focuses on the root causes of crime, rather than only enforcing laws or responding to individual incidents.

Baltimore uses a four-step process: identify the problem; analyze its causes; develop a response; and assess whether it worked.

MPD said it already uses the same approach, known as the SARA model.

Baack said Milwaukee will still have to adapt ideas from other cities to Milwaukee’s own circumstances.

“One thing we realized in looking at what works and sometimes what didn’t work in other communities — it’s never really an apples to apples,” he said.

Hayes said even different neighborhoods within Baltimore require different approaches.

“Baltimore is not a one-size-fits-all place,” he said. “Every neighborhood is different and has different issues.”

4. Reward officers for community policing work

Baltimore makes community policing part of how officers are evaluated, including annual performance reviews and promotions.

That stood out to Whitaker.

“Organizations ultimately demonstrate their priorities through what they measure, reward and hold people accountable for,” she said.

The Fire and Police Commission memo recommends problem-solving work should factor into performance evaluations, promotions and transfers.

Baack said the ultimate measure should be what residents think.

“The plan will be successful when the community says it’s successful,” he said.

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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.

What Milwaukee can learn from Baltimore’s community policing plan is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Federal officials charged a Utah letter carrier Tuesday with throwing 300 primary ballots in a church parking lot dumpster, an incident that a top U.S. Justice Department official said made the case for stricter regulations of voting.

The prosecution of Damon Matai Seei, of Payson, Utah, showed “voting fraud is real,” acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said at a press conference at DOJ headquarters in Washington.

The Justice Department gave the arrest an unusually high profile, spotlighting the administration’s efforts to combat voter fraud after the U.S. Supreme Court this month blocked a new U.S. Postal Service rule limiting mail voting from going into effect for this year’s elections.

The regulation was meant to “address the chronically abused mail-in ballot system,” McCotter said. He criticized the trial judge who initially blocked the rule, which would have required special tracking and design features, among other things such as creating a national database of eligible voters.

“Election integrity should not be a political or partisan issue,” McCotter said. “Who could be against properly tracking mail-in ballots? Unfortunately, but entirely predictably, that regulation was blocked by a judge in Massachusetts. … The Trump administration, however, will continue taking aggressive actions to protect our elections.”

Postal Service rule

U.S. District Judge Indiria Talwani’s order blocking the rule is only in effect for the Nov. 3 elections, a provision meant to preserve the status quo because the rule was finalized mere months before the midterms. The merits of the case are still being argued. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Talwani’s decision.

The prosecution of Seei, and the attention the administration sought to give it, undercut a key argument the administration made in the case: The rule included only “modest” technical specifications for a category of mail and should not be interpreted as an election regulation.

The U.S. Constitution grants states the authority to administer elections, with policy oversight from Congress. 

In siding with the Democratic states and voting rights groups who filed suit, Talwani and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit said the rule was clearly an attempt to affect election policy and was not restricted to a modest mail regulation.

Trump and mail-in voting

President Donald Trump has railed against mail-in voting and claimed, without evidence, that it is a major source of election fraud and contributed to his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden.

Since Trump retook office in January 2025, the department has charged 70 immigrants with illegally voting, compared with only 13 in the four years of Biden’s term, McCotter said Tuesday.

“And we intend to bring many more,” he added.

Homeland Security Investigations, a Homeland Security Department agency, has made 160 recent arrests, from 1,600 open voter fraud cases, HSI acting Deputy Executive Associate Director Matthew Millhollin said.

A reporter in the room noted that 70 prosecutions amounted to a bare fraction of the 150 million votes cast in the 2024 election.

McCotter responded that the Utah case involved 300 ballots, and that law enforcement had only scratched the surface of possible incidents. “Thousands more” cases were being investigated, he said.

“The folks on the other side, the opponents of the president, insist this has never happened, that there is no voting fraud,” he said. “And so when we have dozens of cases … I think that discourages and defeats their characterization.”

No partisan motive alleged

Seei, who is no longer a postal worker, intentionally threw out about 300 mail ballots on June 3 that were being mailed to voters in advance of the June 23 primary in Utah, according to charging documents.

In an interview with law enforcement, he indicated he did not have a political motive but said he threw away the mail, which also included advertisements, “because he wanted to ‘lighten his workload’ so he could presumably go home earlier,” prosecutors said.

Melissa Holyoak, the top federal prosecutor for Utah, traveled to Washington, D.C., for Tuesday’s press conference. She noted that 95% of the state’s voters cast their ballots by mail.

Many people in Seei’s delivery area in Eagle Mountain, Utah, complained to the Utah County Clerk that they hadn’t received ballots, Holyoak said. Using county databases, the clerk found that voter participation was “remarkably low” in the area where complaints originated.

“As American citizens, we have certain freedoms and rights,” Holyoak said. “And one of those fundamental rights is the right to vote. But when defendant allegedly tossed the mail-in ballots into a parking lot dumpster, those citizens’ right to vote were also thrown away.”

The federal public defender representing Seei did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

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The Milwaukee Public Schools district still expels Black students in higher numbers than any other group. 

The findings come after the U.S. Department of Education announced last month it will investigate whether Milwaukee Public Schools uses race as a factor in expulsions.

MPS expelled 38 students in 2025-26, according to newly released district expulsion data. Of those students, 30 were Black. Black students made up 48% of the district and 79% of expulsions last school year.

No white students, who represent 8.5% of the district’s student population, were expelled. Five Hispanic and three Asian students were expelled last school year.

In 2018, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights detailed findings from an earlier investigation into whether the district was disproportionately disciplining Black students. 

Using data from the 2011-12 school year, the office found Black students made up 56% of MPS enrollment but 84.7% of its expulsions, including more than 100 incidents over two years where Black students were expelled while white students were only suspended for similar infractions. 

MPS entered an agreement with the department to address the disparity in 2018.

MPS has received little information about what prompted the current investigation, according to the district. In a statement, the Department of Education said education leaders in Milwaukee “derided facially neutral school policies as reflecting systemic ‘whiteness,’ seemingly encouraging school officials to consider race in disciplinary practices.”  

Kevin O’Connor, media relations manager for MPS, said the Department of Education has since requested MPS submit the district’s student enrollment and discipline data, student code of conduct, policies that “address discrimination based on race,” and staff training relating to race, discrimination and Title VI for the last two years, among other materials.

The Department of Education has declined to comment further on the issue, citing the open investigation.

Despite disparities, expulsions have declined

During the 2010-11 school year, 415 MPS students were expelled. That number dropped to 116 in the 2016-17 school year before spiking again in 2018-19 to nearly 200. The number declined to a record low 23 in 2024-25 before increasing to 38 last school year.

O’Connor said the district has managed to significantly reduce its expulsions in the last 10 years as a result of initiatives including Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, Social Academic Instructional Group curriculum, peer mediations and other restorative practices.

“Our principals and school administrators build relationships with students and work closely with them,” O’Connor wrote in an email to NNS. “They are intentional about putting plans in place to proactively mitigate behavior that may impede a student’s ability to have a quality educational experience.”

O’Connor said the district provides alternative educational services for expelled students. Some options include online learning, moving to another school or, for students with disabilities, being placed based on their Individualized Education Plan, known as an IEP.

Why students were expelled

Thirteen students were expelled for bringing weapons including firearms, BB guns and pepper spray, but over half the expulsions are grouped together in a general “other” category. Matthew Boswell, senior director of the district’s Department of Student Services, said in the board meeting that this mostly covers things like “substantial battery to staff.”

Monthly reports from the independent hearing officers who handle the district’s expulsions paint a more detailed picture behind the “other” category. 

A third of all expulsions represented an “endangerment of physical safety and mental well-being,” but other offenses in the general category included theft, inappropriate use of electronic communication devices and arson.

Race can’t be a factor in discipline, Department of Education says

The Department of Education has stated it is not interested in what disparities are revealed in the numbers. Rather, it wants to see policies that are “facially neutral” or do not explicitly reference race.

The department’s new guidance argues that”facially neutral” discipline policies do not violate federal law even if they produce racial disparities, as long as they’re applied evenhandedly. 

“Mere statistical disparities generally cannot show discriminatory intent or disparate treatment,” the guidance stated.

Angela Harris, an MPS teacher and chair of the Black Educators Caucus MKE, said it would be ridiculous for a child’s race to determine a consequence, but “if we’re seeing that there is a disparity that exists between how consequences are administered, that is absolutely something that we should be looking at.”

Harris said the district’s practice of examining trends of racial disparities and looking for potential biases in discipline decision-making is completely different from using race to decide how a child is disciplined.

“If the concern is that MPS is using race to determine an individual child’s punishment, then the Department of Education should be able to provide us what policy or practice is being referenced or that they found that is explicit in doing that,” she said.

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Meredith Melland contributed to this report.

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Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.

Amid federal probe, Black students remain disproportionately expelled at Milwaukee Public Schools is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday kept in place a lower court’s order blocking President Donald Trump’s embattled plan to place new restrictions on mail ballots for this year’s midterm elections.

The unsigned, one-paragraph order upheld a Massachusetts federal court’s injunction on a U.S. Postal Service rule until after Nov. 3 and did not decide whether the rule itself was lawful. But a majority of the court said the Democratic state officials and voting rights groups challenging the rule were likely to succeed.

Two of the court’s stalwart conservatives, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented from the decision. Alito wrote that the Postal Service has “broad authority to regulate the mail” and that at this preliminary stage of the suit challenging the rule, its policy should remain in place.

“I express no view on whether the Government would be likely to succeed on de novo review of the Postal Service’s powers,” he wrote. “But for now, the Government has satisfied its burden of making a strong showing that the plaintiff States’ … claim is not likely to succeed.”

In a brief concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the rule, which codifies technical requirements on the envelopes carrying ballots and requires states to collect and send to the federal government lists of eligible voters, may be legal, but was unworkable for the midterm elections 50 days away.

“There is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority,” he wrote. “But applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious …  because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.”

In a social media post Tuesday morning, Trump excoriated the decision, saying, without evidence, it would allow Democrats to use vote-by-mail to cheat.

“It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself, and makes cheating by the Radical Left ‘Dumocrats,’ on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do – And now they have an open field to do so.” 

He also complained about other high-profile rulings that he lost and, without naming them appeared to aim particular ire at the justices he appointed to the court: Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.

“This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years,” he wrote. “These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves.”

Case continues

The rule’s challengers argued, in part, that the regulations would be impossible to install ahead of Election Day. Several election administrators, pro-democracy groups and others declared to the court that they agreed with that argument. 

The Postal Service did not bring any evidence against those claims.

Democrats and voting rights advocates also argued the rule was illegal and unconstitutional. The executive branch has virtually no role in elections administration, which is a state responsibility with congressional oversight under the U.S. Constitution, they said. 

The case, tried before President Barack Obama appointee U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, will continue to evaluate the legality of the rule for future elections.

Challengers react 

The groups and officials challenging the rule, as well as other Democrats, hailed the ruling in statements.

“Today’s order from our nation’s highest court makes clear that states cannot be forced to undermine their mail voting systems and risk voter disenfranchisement because of the President’s political agenda,” Massachusetts Attorney General Joy Campbell said. “Mail voting is safe, secure, and reliable, and I will continue to stand up for Massachusetts residents who rely on mail ballots to ensure that they can have their voices heard in the November election.”

Virginia Kase Solomón, the president and CEO of Common Cause, one of the groups suing to block the rule, called the decision “a major win for the millions of everyday Americans,” including elderly and rural voters, and those with disabilities, who depend on vote-by-mail.

“This executive order was a blatant power grab designed to silence voters and undermine our elections, but it failed because the people and the law were on our side,” she said in a statement. “Our Constitution is clear: states run our elections, and voters choose their leaders—not the other way around. No administration can strip the people of their power.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose state was the lead plaintiff in the case, said the rule was part of Trump’s “attacks on democracy” for the past 20 months.

“California stood up for democracy and we won,” Newsom wrote on social media. “Today is a good day for democracy, the rule of law, and the American people looking to exercise their Constitutional right to vote.”

Phil Weiser, Colorado’s attorney general and Democratic nominee for governor, said the court “just sent the message that President Trump and the Postal Service need to stay the hell away from our elections.”

California and Colorado are among the eight states that send ballots to every registered voter.

Spokespeople for the Postal Service and U.S. Department of Justice, which represented the administration in the case, did not respond to emails seeking comment late Monday.

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Although the Milwaukee Police Department halted its use of facial recognition technology in February, there are still cases being prosecuted in Milwaukee County in which the technology was used at some point in the investigation. 

This means concerns about the technology – and the potential errors it can introduce – still remain, community members told NNS.

Facial recognition technology uses artificial intelligence to identify someone by comparing a photo of an unknown face to a database of images of known faces.

“The reliability of these systems is certainly in question, and particularly the disproportionate risk of inaccuracy when identifying non-white faces,” said Amanda Merkwae, policy and advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

Questions also remain about whether defendants and their lawyers have always been told when facial recognition technology played a role in an investigation.

MPD and facial recognition

In April 2025, the Milwaukee Police Department acknowledged it had, for two to three years, used other agencies’ licenses to obtain facial recognition search results without having a written department policy governing the practice.

At the same time, MPD was considering expanding its access to facial recognition technology through an agreement with the company Biometrica.

The proposal provoked substantial opposition from residents and civil rights groups who raised concerns about misidentification, racial bias, surveillance and public trust.

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman announced in February that MPD would prohibit its members from using facial recognition technology and would not consider acquiring the technology until after the department develops a policy with the Fire and Police Commission.

However, the moratorium did not eliminate the technology from criminal cases in which it had already been used.

MPD did not respond to questions about its policies and practices relating to disclosing the use of facial recognition to the DA’s office. 

What happens at the DA’s office?

Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern said his office treats facial recognition technology as an investigative lead.

“It is not, in and of itself, probable cause,” Lovern said. “It’s not, in and of itself, the sole basis for gaining a search warrant.”

Lovern said information his office receives about the use of facial recognition in an investigation gets turned over to the defense as part of the case file. 

Deputy District Attorney Matthew Torbenson described a 2021 home invasion and sexual assault case prosecuted by the DA’s office in which another law enforcement agency used facial recognition technology to develop about five potential suspects from surveillance footage.

Investigators pursued these leads and focused on one person based on additional evidence, including an identification by his former spouse.

The five individuals who it came back with as a potential match were all turned over to the defense, Torbenson said.

Torbenson said the potential errors would be more concerning if just facial recognition were being used to directly identify a suspect.

“That is not at all how we’re using it,” he said.

Technology creates challenges

Connor Romenesko, a forensic science practice coordinator with the Wisconsin State Public Defenders Office, said defense attorneys can obtain the image submitted for a facial recognition search and some information about the software used but may not have the information needed to evaluate the system as a whole.

“The biggest concern I have with these services is that they’re provided by private companies who don’t necessarily provide information about how these systems are trained,” Romenesko said.

This can make challenging a facial recognition result “extremely difficult,” he said.

Federal research has found that facial recognition systems can have higher false-positive rates for some racial and ethnic groups, including Black, Asian and American Indian people. 

‘Still a big unknown’

Another question is whether prosecutors and defendants have always been told when MPD used facial recognition technology.

The ACLU of Wisconsin reviewed police reports from more than a dozen cases MPD had identified as examples of facial recognition use.

“In many of those cases, there was just no mention of (facial recognition technology) use at all,” Merkwae said. 

She said it still isn’t known how many total cases in recent years – or ever – MPD used facial recognition technology in any step of an investigation. 

“And of that total – was that information turned over to the defendant in discovery if that person was charged?” Merkwae asked. “I think that’s still a big unknown.”

Romenesko said facial recognition information is sometimes included in initial discovery but sometimes must be requested from law enforcement or prosecutors.

Public defenders are trained to spot vague language such as “investigative lead” that can indicate facial recognition technology was used, Romenesko said.

“Our lawyers are all trained, so that if they see that language, they’re going to go up to kind of alert to the fact that maybe this hasn’t been disclosed up front, which we also see in some cases,” he said. 

Jeffrey Altenburg, Milwaukee County’s chief deputy district attorney, said there are instances in which leads or suspects developed early in an investigation are not initially shared with prosecutors.

“However, once those leads are corroborated using standard investigative techniques, those details are included in the reports that are provided to our office and turned over to the defendant if they are criminally charged,” Altenburg said. 

Despite police department ban, facial recognition technology lingers in Milwaukee’s criminal justice system is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Democratic-led states and voting rights groups suing to block enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive order to restrict mail-in voting warned in briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday the policy would have disastrous consequences for the upcoming midterm elections if it is allowed to move forward.

Less than two months before the Nov. 3 elections, at least two states have already begun sending ballots to voters, and officials in several others have voiced serious concerns that complying with the U.S. Postal Service rule this election cycle is impossible, opponents said.

The Democratic attorneys general of 23 states, the District of Columbia and the governor of Pennsylvania told the high court they strongly object to the Trump administration’s request that justices allow the rule to move forward.

“Whatever else may be said of USPS’ new rule, it would wreak havoc on States and their voters if it takes effect at this late point—when some States, including North Carolina and Wisconsin, have already begun to mail out ballots,” they wrote.

Only Democratic state officials have sought to challenge the rule in court, but Wednesday’s brief noted that top elections officials in the Republican-led states of Utah, Florida and Ohio have also warned the rule would cause “catastrophic harms.”

The suit, now at the Supreme Court, was brought by the attorneys general of California, Massachusetts, Nevada, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin, along with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

“Allowing USPS’ new rule to take effect would be virtually certain to prevent many millions of Americans from casting mail ballots in this fall’s elections,” opponents wrote.

The record in the Massachusetts federal court that issued the preliminary injunction blocking the rule’s enforcement that the administration is seeking to overturn includes “unrebutted evidence” that “establishes that compliance with USPS’ rule would be impossible ahead of the midterms,” the state officials wrote.

Spokespeople for the White House, Postal Service and U.S. Department of Justice, which is representing the Trump administration in the case, did not respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday.

The case is on what’s known as the court’s emergency docket, and it’s not clear when a decision on whether or not to keep the preliminary injunction in place will be issued.

Voting rights groups echo Dems

A coalition of voting rights groups also filed a response Wednesday, making similar arguments.

The groups, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, emphasized the likelihood of disenfranchisement for many of the roughly 50 million voters set to receive ballots from the states challenging the rule.

Even if the mail specifications under the rule could be met in time for the election, the online portal the Postal Service has rushed to develop is not ready, the challengers wrote. 

Several friend-of-the-court briefs also made that argument, including the federal employee whistleblower who reported last week that the portal’s rushed development would lead to numerous errors if used this election. 

As of late last week, states had not yet been given access to the portal, which is supposed to be the mechanism for verifying compliance with the rule, even as some began mailing ballots.

“USPS’s Rule gives states mere weeks to implement sweeping changes to their election systems—even though USPS has not yet established the necessary infrastructure to administer its new requirements,” they wrote. “The Rule would disrupt the administration of mail voting mid-election and disenfranchise eligible voters nationwide, including voters in all-mail states like Colorado and Utah and elderly, rural, and disabled voters who must vote by mail.”

Beyond Postal Service power

In addition to the impossibility of states’ complying with the Postal Service rule, which places new requirements on ballot mail and requires states to transmit voter data to the federal government, less than two months before Election Day, the regulation impedes states’ constitutional authorities and oversteps the executive branch’s powers, the state officials and groups wrote.

The U.S. Constitution specifies that administering elections is a state responsibility, though Congress may pass laws governing certain elements. The executive branch has virtually no role unless specifically delegated by Congress, the rule’s challengers wrote.

And Congress never passed a law to give the Postal Service the kind of power over election mail that the rule claims, they said.

“To the contrary, Congress has exhaustively enumerated the types of materials that USPS can lawfully refuse to deliver,” the state officials wrote. “Ballots are not among them.”

The rule bans postal workers from delivering ballots that do not meet any of the conditions specified in the rule, including pre-approval of envelope designs and lists of eligible voters that the administration plans to check against a citizenship database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security.

Outsiders weigh in

A flurry of 17 friend-of-the-court briefs hit the Supreme Court docket Tuesday and Wednesday. 

None sided with the administration.

The briefs, representing bipartisan former governors, state and local election officials, military voters, the Postal Service workers’ union, good government organizations, Democratic campaign groups and others all said the rule was impossible to comply with at this point in the election cycle.

“The late-breaking USPS Final Rule—which was promulgated mere months before the November 3, 2026 general midterm elections, and which mandates sweeping, costly, and burdensome changes to mail-in voting procedures—would prove disastrous for election officials and election administration,” local officials and the pro-democracy group Center for Election Innovation wrote. “And it would seriously undermine the upcoming elections.”

In another filing, a bipartisan group of current and former local and state election officials said it was impossible to comply with the rule this year. 

Their brief noted that many of their members were Republicans or represented Republican-majority districts and emphasized that they took no position on the rule’s legality. 

But they said implementing it now was infeasible and ran afoul of a Supreme Court principle that changes in election policy should not happen during or close to an election.

“The principle rests on incontestable facts about voters and about the people who run elections: that late changes breed confusion, that confusion keeps eligible voters from voting, and that a chaotic election erodes confidence in the result,” they wrote. They “therefore suggest only this: that the November 3, 2026 general election be conducted under the rules that were in place when the election’s administration began.”

The hotly contested U.S. Postal Service rule restricting mail-in voting usurps Congress’ authority, as well as states’ power to administer elections, more than 250 current and former members of Congress said in a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday.

All 47 members of the U.S. Senate Democratic Caucus, 199 current House Democrats and 15 former House Republicans signed the friend-of-the-court brief opposing President Donald Trump’s policy to add several requirements to mail ballots. 

The U.S. Constitution “is unambiguous” in empowering states to run elections, while Congress can enact laws to oversee elections generally, they argued.

“Congress has passed several laws regulating federal elections—though it has always done so surgically, deliberately leaving the States with considerable room to maneuver,” they wrote.

The executive branch has no role, they said. 

The Trump administration has argued the rule, published last month, requires only “modest” technical specifications for mail ballots and that states transmit lists of eligible voters to receive the ballots. The rule is a targeted measure affecting mail delivery, not elections, the administration says.

But the lawmakers say that argument fails. 

The agency cannot take action related to elections without a congressional directive, they wrote. Congress never wrote a law asking for the requirements included in the USPS rule, they said. 

Executive order

In this case, Trump spurred the Postal Service to write the rule in a March executive order, based on the unsubstantiated premise that vote-by-mail is vulnerable to fraud. 

That shows the rule is meant to address Trump’s concerns about election administration, not mail specifications, the lawmakers said.

“The integrity of our constitutional system depends on each branch keeping to its assigned role,” they wrote. “The Framers set up a two-part system that gave States default authority to regulate federal elections subject to Congress’s authority to override the States. The Framers did not provide the President with any authority to interfere in that system, nor has Congress imbued the Executive Branch with any such authority by statute.”

Spokespeople for the White House, USPS and the Department of Justice, which is representing the Trump administration in the case, did not immediately return messages seeking comment Tuesday.

In a separate brief, the legal advocacy group the Society for the Rule of Law made a similar argument, saying the federal postal law the administration has cited provides only broad language that does not empower the agency to regulate election mail.

“The non-election, boilerplate … provisions on which Applicants rely are not a secret, alternative way for the USPS to bar ballot mail, conditionally or otherwise, on the eve of election day,” the group wrote. “Under the federalism presumption and the major question doctrine, the USPS needed a clear statement of statutory authority.”

Rushed delivery

The rule would require technical elements such as unique barcodes on ballot envelopes. Elections experts say those requirements are unworkable in time for the fall’s midterm elections because states have already designed, printed and — in some cases — begun sending ballots.

The rule would also require states to send to the federal government lists of eligible voters, which would be checked against a Department of Homeland Security database to verify citizenship. 

The rule bans the Postal Service from delivering ballots to registered voters who are not verified through that method.

The online portal that the rule says states should use for this process has still, less than two months until Election Day, not been introduced to states. A whistleblower last week reported the rushed development has led to myriad problems with the tool, which could result in legitimate ballots being rejected.

Opponents, including more than 20 Democratic state officials and voting rights groups that sued to challenge the rule, say it would risk disenfranchisement for the millions of voters, including Trump, who vote by mail.

High court ruling pending

The rule has been the subject of rapidfire legal fighting over the past several weeks, and the Supreme Court is now weighing whether to overturn a Massachusetts federal judge’s order pausing the rule while litigation continues, after the Trump administration filed an appeal over the weekend.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Sunday asked the states and voting rights groups challenging the rule to file their response to the application by Wednesday at 4 p.m. Eastern.

That district court injunction from Judge Indira Talwani, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, held that the rule was likely unconstitutional and unlawful for reasons the members of Congress articulated Tuesday: The Constitution grants states and Congress the power to oversee elections and states would be harmed if they are forced to comply with the regulation before courts can determine its legality.

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McKenna and Celia Olson expanded their family by adopting four children, completing their South Side Milwaukee home. The adoption closed a chapter in their journey as foster parents with the Wellpoint Care Network. 

McKenna and Celia, closed their foster care license in May after spending the past eight years fostering 10 children. 

In June, the couple celebrated their 6, 5, 2 and 9-month-old children with an adoption party at Milwaukee’s Humboldt Park.

“We have four kids now and they’ve been with us since birth,” McKenna said. “This is our family unit now and we’re grateful to be alongside the kids as they grow.”

Adjusting to a new parenting lifestyle

As the Olson family has grown, McKenna and Celia have adapted to new parenting routines such as staying home when a child is sick, making multiple drop-offs to daycare or extracurricular activities and more.

“As the older kids are growing up, they’re getting more involved in things,” McKenna said. “We’re being aware of what works and understanding what’s best for each kid.”

McKenna said she’s also adjusting to no longer having to follow certain policies and procedures.

Last month, McKenna and Celia took the kids on vacation without going through an approval process.

“One part of being a foster parent is you have to get approval if you want to go out of state, and sometimes you might have to share your itinerary or birth parents have to get involved,” she said. 

As they navigate new parenting routines, McKenna and Celia are excited to create memories as a family such as celebrating birthdays and capturing moments from the first and last days of school. 

“In my dream ideal world, I would love to have so many people around the table during Thanksgiving and birthdays and that would include the birth families of my kids,” McKenna said. “I really just look forward to being a family, spending quality time and having our extended family come together.”

Feeling mixed emotions

No longer foster parents, McKenna and Celia still reflect on the bittersweet moments they’ve shared with other foster children.

“The kids that have left us, we still think about them and miss them,” McKenna said. “You’re in people’s lives for a reason during certain stages of their life.”

McKenna and Celia said they were grateful to care for all 10 children over the years. 

“Every kid that came into our home, we open our hearts,” McKenna said.

Using resources to help with trauma

McKenna and Celia chose to become foster parents through Wellpoint Care Network because of its Trauma Informed Care Program, which teaches principles for responding to people who have experienced trauma.

“Children who experience trauma, their brains formulate differently than children who may have not gone through trauma,” said Emily Davis, Wellpoint foster care recruitment and retention supervisor. 

In addition to supporting foster parents, the training has helped social workers, librarians, educators, police officers and others. 

According to Julie Scott, Wellpoint director of trauma-informed strategy and practice, the organization developed the training after discovering its former residential boys group wasn’t receiving enough mental health support. 

“We found that traditional mental health services and therapies weren’t enough,” Scott said. “Because of adversity and trauma there are particular needs that aren’t always met.”

Davis said there are five levels of foster parents, all of whom are required to take the free Trauma-Informed Care training to become licensed through Wellpoint Care Network. 

“We don’t want children to be moved from home to home, and our biggest goal is to only have a child in one placement the entire time they’re in foster care,” Davis said. “Providing foster parents with the training allows them to have the knowledge and ability to be that one foster parent the child needs rather than multiple.”

The training helped McKenna and Celia understand that no parent is perfect and that they shouldn’t take a child’s response to trauma personally. 

“It’s about being aware that everyone comes with their own story and situations,” McKenna said. “It’s all a work in progress because the kids are changing and you’re changing right with them.”

Scott and the Olson family encourage foster parents to meet children where they are instead of expecting them to reach a certain development stage.

“Be compassionate, understanding and stick around a little longer,” Scott said. “A child may behave a certain way because they don’t understand their trauma.”

McKenna wants aspiring foster parents to know that the process requires them to embrace change. 

“If you’re entering a new world, you shouldn’t be going in the same person you were,” she said.

Information for new or aspiring foster parents

To become an eligible foster parent in Wisconsin applicants must meet the following requirements:

• Be at least 21 years of age.
• Pass a background check. 
• Show proof of income.
• Meet all home safety requirements.
• Have car insurance with valid license. 
• Have no past history with child welfare agency involving child neglect or abuse. 
• Be willing to work alongside the child’s biological family. 
• Demonstrate positive qualities such as patience and humor.

McKenna said she and Celia could always reopen their license if they wanted to. They are grateful for the support Wellpoint Care Network provided them as foster parents. 

“Wellpoint Care Network has been a part of our life, and because of this nonprofit, our family is the way that it is,” she said.

Milwaukee couple adopts four children after eight years as foster parents 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.

A U.S. Postal Service rule restricting mail-in voting, like the executive order from President Donald Trump that spurred it, is unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said in a Friday order extending a freeze on the policy.

The Trump administration quickly appealed the order to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday.

Then Sunday, the administration also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the preliminary injunction, saying Talwani rushed it without considering the actual text of its final rule.

“The district court’s continuing prejudgment of the rule is baseless, and an immediate stay is warranted,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a Sunday application to the court.

Sauer described the rule as containing “only modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements for federal-election ballots sent via U.S. Mail.” He added that USPS had long recommended the design requirements it was seeking to codify in the rule.

The Supreme Court will consider the application on its emergency docket. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Sunday asked the states and voting rights groups challenging the rule to file their response to the application by Wednesday. It’s unclear when a ruling would come.

Friday injunction

Talwani, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, issued a preliminary injunction late Friday, 60 days before Election Day, blocking the U.S. Postal Service rule from going into effect while court challenges play out. The injunction converts a 14-day pause she ordered a week prior.

The Massachusetts federal judge voiced several serious concerns about the policy, including that it infringes on states’ constitutional power to administer elections and Congress’ power to legislate election policy.

The rule, which the Postal Service published last month based on a Trump executive order in March, would disenfranchise voters who depend on mail voting, give states the impossible task of overhauling their election systems ahead of a fast-approaching election and assert power the agency does not have under the U.S. Constitution, Talwani said.

Not an election regulation, USPS says

The administration and a handful of GOP state attorneys general have defended the rule as regulating mail, not elections. 

A statement from U.S. Postmaster General David Steiner restated the claim earlier Friday.

The portions of the rule establishing technical standards for ballot envelopes were based on longstanding best practices and were not “breaking new and uncharted ground,” Steiner wrote.

Similarly, a more controversial provision requiring states to send the Postal Service a list of eligible voters was also not complicated for the agency, he said, noting that USPS would not amend the lists.

“The USPS does not edit, change, review or question the contents of the list—the list is merely a list of voters that a State says are receiving a ballot through the mail,” he wrote. “So basically, the State provided list is a manifest identifying the recipients of ballot mail.”

Clash with law passed by Congress

Talwani said Friday the federal government’s denial that the rule is an election regulation “rings hollow.” 

“Throughout its body of election legislation, Congress has never delegated its Elections Clause power to the USPS,” she wrote. “Unauthorized by the Elections Clause, the Final Rule clashes with Congress’s statutory scheme, and is unconstitutional where it intrudes not only on Congress’s Elections Clause powers but also that power left to the States.”

In addition to the constitutional principles the rule violates, it is unworkable ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress, she said. 

All states allow some form of mail-in voting. The first ballots were sent Friday, with North Carolina starting to mail ballots to certain voters. 

Sauer noted that ballots had begun to “enter the mailstream,” with more states set to send ballots in the coming weeks.

That added urgency for justices to act, he said. If courts eventually allow the rule to take effect and states have not taken action to comply, it could threaten voters’ ability to cast mail ballots in those states, he said.

“There is a grave risk that States may not have taken the necessary steps to comply, due to the false sense of latitude created by the court’s improper injunction, potentially depriving those States’ citizens of the ability to vote by mail,” he wrote.

In a statement, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, one of the Democratic attorneys general who sued to block the rule, said Talwani’s order would keep the commonwealth’s election administration on track.

“This order protects our ability to effectively deliver mail ballots to all residents relying on them to make their voices heard in the November election,” she said. “Voters should continue to vote-by-mail as usual and know that this system is safe and secure.”

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All three of the Milwaukee Police Department’s automatic license plate reader systems will be subject to new security safeguards, department officials confirmed Wednesday.

The department’s confirmation follows Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s announcement regarding new restrictions aimed at preventing officer misuse and protecting privacy.

An MPD spokesperson said the changes will be incorporated into the department’s official policy. 

The mayor’s initial announcement focused on Flock Safety, one of three automated license plate reader systems used by MPD. NNS previously reported that the department also uses Genetec and Axon systems. 

All three systems automatically capture license plate information that can be searched later.

As of June, MPD had access to: 35 Flock cameras; 39 Genetec cameras; and Axon license plate readers installed in 80 patrol vehicles.

New limits

Only MPD supervisors will be allowed to access automatic license plate reader systems, Johnson said in his announcement.

Some MPD personnel have been accused of misusing Flock. MPD officer Josue Ayala was convicted in June of attempted misconduct in public office in connection with his use of Flock cameras.

Access to Milwaukee’s license plate reader systems will also be limited to MPD, excluding other law enforcement agencies. 

Supervisors may use the systems only to investigate Part I crimes, which include homicide, rape and aggravated assault, among others. They may also use the technology to investigate critical missing persons, drug trafficking organization and abductions.

A department said automatic license plate reader cameras will continue to passively capture data, but supervisors may access it only for appropriate investigations.

Transparency efforts

The mayor announced transparency measures as well. 

MPD will create a public dashboard detailing its use of license plate reader systems, and the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission will conduct semi-annual independent audits of use.

Johnson said the commission has already initiated an audit of Flock systems.

The announcement does not specify what information will appear on the dashboard or what metrics the audits will examine.

NNS asked the mayor’s office whether MPD will write the changes into its policies and for additional details about the dashboard and audits.

The mayor’s office referred the questions to MPD, confirming that the police chief has authority over department policy.

Risks and concerns

After Johnson’s announcement, Amanda Merkwae, policy and advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, said in a written statement the changes are “a step in the right direction” but that “Flock is still an incredibly invasive technology that has the power to indiscriminately surveil our communities on a mass scale.” 

Merkwae argued that using Flock should require a warrant based on probable cause. She also called for independent oversight and written policies for all MPD surveillance technologies use.

“We cannot only accept a solution where police are responsible for policing themselves,” Merkwae said.

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

Milwaukee police: Flock restrictions will apply to other license plate reader systems 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: 2 minutes

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with new information from the Milwaukee Police Department. 

Although Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson has announced new safeguards for the Milwaukee Police Department’s use of Flock Safety cameras, it remains unclear whether the rules will apply to all three of the city’s license plate reader systems or only to Flock.

Flock is one of three automated license plate reader systems used by MPD. NNS previously reported that the department also uses Genetec and Axon systems. 

All three systems automatically capture license plate information that can be searched later.

As of June, MPD had access to: 35 Flock cameras, 39 Genetec cameras and Axon license plate readers installed in 80 patrol vehicles.

New limits

According to Johnson’s announcement, only MPD supervisors will be allowed to access Flock. Officers and detectives will no longer have access.

Some MPD personnel have been accused of misusing Flock. Former MPD officer Josue Ayala, was convicted in June of attempted misconduct in public office in connection with his use of Flock cameras.

Access to Milwaukee’s Flock cameras will also be limited to MPD, excluding other law enforcement agencies. 

Supervisors will be allowed to use Flock cameras only for investigating Part I crimes, which include homicide, rape and aggravated assault, among others. They can also use the cameras in cases involving critical missing persons, drug trafficking organization investigations and abductions.

The mayor also announced transparency measures. 

MPD will create a public dashboard with information about its use of Flock, and the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission will conduct twice-annual independent audits of the department’s Flock use. 

Johnson said the commission has already begun an audit. 

The announcement does not specify what information will appear on the dashboard or what metrics the audits will examine.

NNS asked the mayor’s office whether the safeguards would extend to Genetec and Axon, whether the changes would be written into MPD policies and what the dashboard and audits would include. 

The mayor’s office referred the questions to MPD, saying that the police chief has authority over department policy.

MPD did not respond to questions from NNS.

Risks and concerns

After Johnson’s announcement, Amanda Merkwae, policy and advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, said in a written statement the changes are “a step in the right direction” but that “Flock is still an incredibly invasive technology that has the power to indiscriminately surveil our communities on a mass scale.” 

The use of Flock, Merkwae argued, should require a warrant based on probable cause. MPD should also face independent oversight and adopt written policies for all of the surveillance technologies it uses, she added.

“We cannot only accept a solution where police are responsible for policing themselves,” Merkwae said.

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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.

Milwaukee limits Flock cameras, leaving other license plate reader rules unclear 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 man who was being held at the Milwaukee County Jail is disputing the account from the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office about the events leading up to the in-custody death last week of Kourtney Edwards, a 45-year-old Milwaukee man.

Alex Williams, 33, said officials at the jail ignored initial pleas to help Edwards. 

He said he heard people in a nearby holding cell banging on the door and yelling through a slot that someone was vomiting, wasn’t doing well and needed help.

“Those calls went ignored for a while,” Williams said, estimating that they lasted several minutes.

Williams said officers eventually removed the man from the holding cell and began walking him toward the nurses’ station. He said Edwards made it about halfway there before appearing to have a seizure and collapsing. Williams said he was foaming at the mouth.

“He was not assessed by nurses until he was passed out on the ground,” Williams said. “I wouldn’t even call that an assessment. That was them trying to save his life.”

Williams said he arrived at the jail around 2 p.m. Monday, Aug. 17, and remained in the booking area until early Wednesday morning. He said he was still going through the booking process when Edwards became ill Tuesday morning.

Timeline from sheriff’s office

The account from the sheriff’s office previously reported by NNS stated that Edwards was brought to the jail the morning of Tuesday, Aug. 18, had been initially medically cleared and was awaiting a secondary screening when he reported vomiting and feeling ill shortly before 8:30 a.m.

Nurses then assessed him and determined he needed to be taken to a hospital. While an ambulance crew and two deputies prepared to transport the man to the hospital, he experienced a medical emergency. 

He lost his pulse and stopped breathing.

Emergency personnel attempted life-saving measures, but he was pronounced dead at 9:30 a.m.

A representative from the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office told NNS Tuesday that it would “be a while” before the cause and manner of Edwards’ death was determined.

Concerns about in-jail deaths

Alan Chavoya, treasurer and organizer for the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, said Williams’ account reaffirms concerns he already had about Edwards’ death.

“It’s deeply upsetting and infuriating if he was able to be assisted sooner – if that would have saved his life,” Chavoya said. “Could this have been prevented? It seems like yes.”

The sheriff’s office told NNS Friday that it had no comment beyond saying that it is an active, ongoing investigation and that questions should be directed to the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office, which is conducting the investigation.

The Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office has not responded to a request for comment.

Edwards’ death is at least the 10th of a person in Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office custody since June 2022, including six deaths during a 14-month period in 2022 and 2023 and three in 2025.

Other allegations

Williams also said the man’s death took place amid overcrowding, booking delays and repeated instances in which staff failed to promptly respond to requests for assistance.

He described the cells as hot, with little or no airflow, and said people repeatedly yelled through slots in the cell doors that they needed water or to use the bathroom.

“It was often ignored,” Williams said.

He said the jail was overcrowded. 

His holding cell was marked for 12 people but held between 13 and 20 people at different points, he said. Williams said the overcrowding made the toilet difficult to access because people were sleeping or standing around it.

Williams also described significant booking delays, made worse because there was no third-shift booking staff Monday night.

He said his bail was posted at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, but that he was not booked into the system until about 2:30 p.m. that day and was not released until around 1 a.m. Wednesday.

Nothing changed after death

Williams said he noticed no real changes after Edwards died during the time he spent in custody until he was released. He said officers still sometimes ignored pleas for assistance.

Williams believes the conditions at the jail contributed to the man’s death.

“They should take every call for help seriously,” he said.

Chavoya said the allegations from Williams fit what he sees as a broader pattern at the jail, including neglect and perhaps abuse “of the people who are supposed to be, as we’re reminded, under their care.”

Chavoya said he wants investigators to determine what happened and for the sheriff’s office to release video of the incident.

Last Friday, a spokesperson for the Office of Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley told NNS in a written statement that the incident doesn’t raise concerns about medical care at the jail.

“The jail’s medical staff and Milwaukee Fire Department EMS performed lifesaving measures, but, despite best efforts, the individual died,” the spokesperson for Crowley’s office said. 

When NNS reached out with Williams’ account, a spokesperson for Crowley’s office said that the initial report from the sheriff’s office of the incident did not indicate cause for immediate concern.

“The matter is now under review by the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office,” the spokesperson said. 

Williams said he is worried about potential retaliation for speaking publicly about what he witnessed but believes coming forward is important.

He said he wants “to model morals, bravery and humanitarianism” for his family.

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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.

Eyewitness says Milwaukee jail officials initially ignored pleas to help man who died in custody 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.

Public EV charging is expensive compared to juicing up at home, but $16,000 for 4.91 kWh is really taking the electrons. That’s the bill ($CAD22,308) one Canadian Kia owner says he received after a charging session apparently remained electronically open for more than 15 months.

Reddit user IntelliDev posted the incredible invoice more than a year after he’d topped up his EV9 with Hypercharge Networks. It shows the session beginning at 6.57 p.m. on May 17, 2025, but not ending until 1.09 p.m. on August 25, 2026.

Related: The Best Fast Charging Experience In America Isn’t From Tesla

The Kia EV9 is among the faster-charging electric cars, capable of swallowing up to 235 kW when hooked up to the right kind of equipment. But if this bill was to be believed, and the EV9 really did need 15 months to chug down just 4.91 kWh, its effective charge rate would have been less than half a Watt per hour. “And I thought my Bolt charged slowly,” one Reddit commenter joked, alluding to the 2017-23 Chevy‘s modest 55 kW rate.

The invoice itself offers a clue besides the price to there being some major mix-up going on here. It says the session “took place in the past on a terminal that was out of communication.” That suggests the actual charging stopped long ago, but the network didn’t receive or correctly process the message telling it the session was finished.

Billed By the Hour

And because the charger appears to have billed by time rather than electrical units, the meter apparently kept running. At roughly CAD$2 ($1.44) per hour, the elapsed time between those start and finish dates gets you close to the enormous invoice total.

In another glitch, the invoice lists the session duration as only seven days, 18 hours, 12 minutes and 40 seconds, apparently omitting the preceding year and three months even though the billing calculation seems to have remembered them.

IntelliDev said he emailed Hypercharge to dispute the bill but hadn’t received a response at the time of his latest update. We’ve also found nothing suggesting the company has publicly explained what happened yet.

Kia, IntelliDev

H/t to Auto Evolution

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Local jail reform advocates say they have serious concerns about the death of a 45-year-old man in custody at the Milwaukee County Jail on Aug. 18.

Many of their concerns are not new.

“It’s a very painful sort of flashback of the different cases we’ve encountered where people are in for a bit, or for a duration of time … and assistance isn’t provided,” said Alan Chavoya, treasurer and organizer with the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

The alliance is a Black and brown-led grassroots organization that says it aims “to end police crimes, advance community control of policing, and build collective power.”

Last week’s death is at least the 10th death of a person in Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office custody since June 2022, including six deaths during a 14-month period in 2022 and 2023 and three in 2025.

According to the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office, deputies picked up the man from the West Allis Police Department at 4:25 a.m. Aug. 18 and brought him to the Milwaukee County Jail.

During the booking process, Wellpath nursing staff medically cleared him, although a secondary medical screening remained pending. Shortly before 8:30 a.m., the man told jail staff he had vomited and did not feel good.

Nurses assessed him and determined he needed transportation to a hospital.

While an ambulance crew and two deputies prepared to transport him, the man experienced a medical emergency, lost his pulse and stopped breathing.

Emergency crews and Milwaukee Fire Department first responders attempted lifesaving measures, but officials pronounced him dead at 9:30 a.m.

“The timeline just seems very, very odd,” Chavoya said. “How is it that people are approved or like given the green light to be administered into the jail, and then less than a couple of hours later, the person is vomiting? Where was the failure there?”

Chavoya said the initial medical screening by Wellpath, the jail’s contracted health care provider, also raises questions.

“We’ve had our eye on Wellpath for quite some time, and it’s not just a Milwaukee issue – it’s a nationwide issue,” he said.

Robert Thibault, vice president of Prison Action Milwaukee, an advocacy and support group for people affected by the criminal justice system, and a member of the Sheriff’s Community Advisory Board, shared some of Chavoya’s concerns. 

“Did everybody do everything they possibly could have? Was everything done that could have possibly been done in a reasonable time?” Thibault asked. 

He pointed to an independent audit completed in 2024 that identified deficiencies in several areas, including mental health services, suicide prevention and staffing.

Thibault said he recently toured the jail and saw improvements compared with several years ago.

NNS contacted the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office but did not immediately receive a response.

County Executive David Crowley’s office responds

In a written statement to NNS, a spokesperson for the Office of County Executive David Crowley said the office is confident that everything possible was done for this man.

“The cause of death is still under review by the Medical Examiner’s Office, but this incident doesn’t raise concerns about medical care at the jail,” the statement read. “The jail’s medical staff and Milwaukee Fire Department EMS performed lifesaving measures, but despite best efforts, the individual died.”

Milwaukee County Supervisor Justin Bielinski, chair of the County Board’s Judiciary, Law Enforcement and General Services Committee, said he spoke with jail officials about the death, but the investigation will ultimately make clear what happened.

As the investigation proceeds, Chavoya said he wants accountability and concrete steps to prevent another death in custody. 

“Maybe you can’t give us everything, but, at least, get some public trust again by explaining what the steps you are taking to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” he said.

What happens next

Bielinski said he expects the investigation, being conducted by the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office, to take several months. Meanwhile, he said he is exploring changes that could identify medical emergencies sooner.

Bielinski said his focus after incidents like this is to figure out “how can we improve process.”

Specifically, Bielinski wants the county to explore providing wearable health monitors to people awaiting booking.

The devices could track measures such as pulse and blood oxygen levels and then alert staff to a medical emergency sooner. He said he asked Wellpath to explore a pilot program for the use of such devices.

“We just give ourselves the chance to get ahead of whatever medical emergency might be happening sooner,” Bielinski said.

Milwaukee jail death raises familiar concerns among reform advocates 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.