The federal government has extended its lease on a downtown Milwaukee property used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to federal lease records and the building’s owner.
The property at 310 E. Knapp St. is owned by the Milwaukee School of Engineering but will remain in use by the federal government through at least April 2026, with options to extend through 2028, said JoEllen Burdue, the college’s senior communications director.
“We do not have immediate plans for the building and will reevaluate next year when we know whether or not the government wants to extend the lease,” Burdue said.
The lease was originally scheduled to expire in April 2025.
With a new ICE facility under construction on the city’s Northwest Side, the downtown lease extension raises the possibility that the federal government is expanding local immigration infrastructure or enforcement. This would be consistent with other forms of expansion in immigration enforcement, statewide and nationally.
“I’m upset and concerned about what this means for my immigrant constituency. For my constituents, period,” said Ald. JoCasta Zamarripa, who represents the 8th District on the South Side.
Immigration infrastructure
The Knapp Street property is used by ICE as a field office for its Enforcement and Removal Operations, according to ICE.
This includes serving as a check‑in location for individuals under ICE supervision who aren’t in custody and a processing center for individuals with pending immigration cases or removal proceedings.
The Vera Institute is a national nonpartisan nonprofit that does research and advocates for policy concerning incarceration and public safety.
The most people held by ICE at a given time at that Knapp Street location during the Biden administration was six. On June 3, 22 people were held there – also exceeding the high of 17 during President Donald Trump’s first administration, according to data from Vera Institute.
The office generally does not detain people overnight but can facilitate transfer to detention centers that do.
The functions carried out at the Knapp Street office mirror those planned for the Northwest Side facility.
A new ICE field office is expected to open at 11925 W. Lake Park Drive in Milwaukee. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
City records show the West Lake Park Drive property will be used to process non-detained people as well as detainees for transport to detention centers.
The records also state that the property will serve as the main southeastern Wisconsin office for immigration officers and staff.
The U.S. General Services Administration, the federal government’s real estate arm, initially projected the new site would open in October. However, a spokesperson said there was no update and did not confirm whether that timeline still stands.
Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, responded to NNS’ requests for comment.
Rise in immigration enforcement
As local immigration enforcement grows, so does enforcement throughout the state and the rest of the country.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonprofit at Syracuse University that conducts nonpartisan research.
Not only are more people being detained, but they are being detained for longer, said Jennifer Chacón, the Bruce Tyson Mitchell professor of law at Stanford Law School.
A July 8 internal memo from ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons instructs agents to detain immigrants for the duration of their removal proceedings, effectively eliminating access to bond hearings.
Eighty-four of 181 detention facilities exceeded their contractual capacity on at least one day from October 2024 to mid-April 2025, according to a July report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
The Dodge County Jail, which ICE uses to detain people apprehended in Milwaukee, is one of the facilities that exceeded its contractual capacity. On its busiest day, it held 139 individuals – four more than its 135-bed limit.
In addition to Dodge County, Brown and Sauk county jails have also entered into agreements with ICE to house detained immigrants, according to records obtained by the ACLU of Wisconsin.
ICE’s unprecedented budget
Noelle Smart, a principal research associate at the Vera Institute, notes that it remains unclear whether increased immigration enforcement drives the need for more detention infrastructure or expands to catch up with more infrastructure.
But, Smart said, with ICE’s unprecedented new budget, the question of which one drives the other becomes less relevant.
Trump’s proposed ICE budget in 2025 was $9.7 billion – a billion more than ICE’s 2024 budget. An additional $29.85 billion was made available through 2029 for enforcement and removal as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
“We know this administration intends to vastly increase the number of people subject to arrests and detention, and we expect to see increases in both given this budget,” Smart 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.
In 2023, Arian Rice became a private pilot at age 18.
Now 20, he’s working toward his goal of flying commercial planes and encouraging Black children to explore their dreams.
“After getting the news about getting my license, I can look back and say that I didn’t sit and wait for somebody to do it for me,” Rice said.
Currently, Rice is participating in the aeronautics program at Gateway Technical College to fly commercial planes.
While there, he will complete 125 hours of training to receive his Airline Transport rating, the highest level of pilot certification issued by the Federal Aviation Administration.
First time in a cockpit
Rice was 11 when he was first introduced to aviation. His nana, Isha Kinard, took the family to Burlington to experience the Young Eagles flight program, eat breakfast and explore airplanes.
There, Rice was given the opportunity to fly a plane for the first time.
“I wasn’t scared at all, and when we took off, it felt exhilarating,” Rice said.
During the one-on-one flight, the pilot allowed Rice to take control of the plane, teaching him how to steer and turn.
“I remember we were by a pole, and the pilot tells me to turn around it,” Rice said.
Rice’s aviation journey had just begun.
“I saw a sense of purpose in his eyes as he shared his experience,” Kinard said.
Not old enough for flight school
Rice said his biggest challenge was finding additional flight training. He wanted to train at Spring City Aviation at Milwaukee’s Timmerman Airport, but the minimum age to fly an aircraft solo is 16.
“It was hard, but I didn’t let my dream of aviation die out,” he said.
From ages 13 to 14, he participated in free aviation training through the Young Eagles Sporty’s Learn to Fly course. There he learned the fundamentals of aviation.
In addition, he watched videos on YouTube.
Rice’s mom, Dahneisha Gavin, home-schooled Rice and said he’s good at being a self-learner.
“He can see something and adapt to it,” Gavin said.
Rice mowed lawns and sold fireworks during the summer to pay for the training.
“When we were at the breakfast that day, there was a man that spoke life into not only my son, but us as a unit. He said if we wanted him to fly, we would all have to work together,” Gavin said.
Kinard, Gavin and Rice’s dad, James Sims Robinson, searched for scholarships, pitched in financially and provided other support.
Winning a scholarship
In 2023, mentor and former flight instructor Sean O’Donnell encouraged Rice to apply for a $10,000 EAA Ray Aviation Scholarship, which he won.
“Sean understood my limitations with getting training, and in his spare time, he saw an opportunity for me and forwarded the information to me,” Rice said.
Rice said he was the only Black applicant, which motivated him to work harder.
“Most of the applicants already had the experience and come from families with pilots,” Rice said. “They saw I had worked to do the 10 hours of training, and that stood out to them.”
A generational trailblazer
After passing written exams and completing training hours, Rice received his official private pilot license at 18. He is the first pilot in his family.
Gavin said flying with her son for the first time was one of the proudest moments of her life.
“Arian showed me that he belongs to the sky. It’s not just about flying airplanes. It’s about breaking barriers and creating a legacy to show other young people in Milwaukee that anything is possible,” Gavin said.
Rice said he has moments when he thinks about his first experiences leading up to now and thanks his nana for it.
“My nana invested in my future just by bringing me to that breakfast,” Rice said.
Rice said he believes that Black people aren’t exposed to other careers enough.
“Blacks are always being pushed into music or sports. My license gave me a freeing feeling because some families become too complacent when there isn’t a push,” he said.
For more information
For children looking to go into aviation, Rice suggests reading books about planes at a library and researching resources.
“It’s out there, but you just need to read what’s in front of you,” he said.
Kinard encourages parents to start small. “Break the dreams down into smaller achievable steps and support their efforts to learn and grow along the way,” she said.
Wearing his Milwaukee police uniform, Gregory Carson Jr. stepped into the witness stand, raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth.
Two years earlier, a man had been shot in an alley. His girlfriend said police pressured her to allow a search of the duplex as she held her infant. That search had turned up five guns, and now her boyfriend faced a federal charge.
On the stand that afternoon, a public defender asked Carson if he recalled making inappropriate statements to the girlfriend. Commenting on seeing her underwear on the floor? Reaching out to her hours later? Texting her?
Carson’s answer under oath to each question was the same.
No.
A few witnesses later, the girlfriend swore to tell the truth and read screenshots of text messages she had received.
Hey, it’s me. Honestly it was seeing your thong on the floor that had me like damn lol.
The woman replied to ask who was contacting her. She read the response in court: Hey it’s Carson from yesterday and I understand.
The officer had been caught in a lie.
Gregory Carson Jr. (Provided photo)
At the time, Carson already was on the Milwaukee County district attorney’s list of officers with a history of credibility, integrity or bias concerns, commonly referred to as a “Brady/Giglio” list.
He also was under internal investigation for those same text messages. None of that was known to the defense attorney who questioned him.
After that court hearing, Carson remained on the Milwaukee Police Department payroll for more than two years. In that period, he came under internal investigation three more times.
His nine-year career illustrates the risk of keeping such officers on the force and interacting with the public after their credibility and integrity have come under question. At least a dozen officers, including Carson, kept their jobs after landing on the Brady list, then ended up on the list again for another incident, an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 News and Wisconsin Watch found.
Reached in April, Carson declined an interview request.
Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said Carson faced several allegations that overlapped in time and that the officer had due process and collective bargaining rights. Internal investigations can take months or even years to complete, the chief added.
“But we still have to remember, just as a court case, you are innocent until proven guilty,” Norman said in an interview in January.
Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman speaks with reporters at the Milwaukee Police Administration Building in July 2025. (Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Officers’ rights are important, but so is protecting public trust, said Justin Nix, associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Nebraska Omaha.
“Officers can arrest us, they can use force on us, and along with that comes a lot of responsibility to uphold certain values and to be honest,” Nix said in June.
“When officers fail to meet those standards, in my mind, it’s unacceptable.”
Officer lands on Brady list after domestic violence arrest but keeps his job
Carson wanted a long career with the Milwaukee Police Department.
He started as a police aide.
He had relatives who were cops and he wanted to make a difference in his community, “busting down drug houses, getting guns off the streets,” he wrote to a supervisor in 2015.
“I am striving for success, and 25 years plus on the job,” he added.
He became a sworn officer in 2018. Two years later, his own department arrested him on a domestic violence allegation.
A woman had called for help, saying she wanted Carson to leave their shared residence. She had confronted him over infidelity suspicions, and then he held her against the couch and bit her cheek, she said.
Police separated the two. Officer Roy Caul asked the woman about domestic violence incidents that had occurred at any time, not just that night in 2020.
“Just because he’s a cop doesn’t mean that he’s free to do this to you,” Caul said, according to transcripts from body camera footage.
The woman said she just wanted Carson out of the house.
The officer asked if anything occurred that night or within the last 28 days to cause her pain or make her fear for her safety. The woman replied no.
Officers arrested Carson, already in uniform for his next shift, and took him to the training academy for further questioning. He denied hurting the woman.
The department referred the case to the district attorney’s office. Assistant District Attorney Nicolas Heitman declined to charge Carson. In a recent email to the Journal Sentinel, Heitman said the office did not feel it could meet the burden of proof with the available evidence.
Three months later, the woman told Internal Affairs she had not feared for her safety. Carson told Internal Affairs nothing physical happened.
“I feel that I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, according to department records.
Norman, the chief, disagreed and gave Carson a three-day suspension.
The arrest resulted in the district attorney’s office placing Carson on its list of officers with credibility or integrity issues, often called a “Brady/Giglio” list, named after two landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
These lists are maintained to help prosecutors fulfill their legal obligations to share information favorable to the defense. Often, criminal cases come down to the word of an officer against a defendant. Judges and juries must weigh the credibility of both.
With Carson’s name added to the list, prosecutors would need to disclose his criminal referral and integrity violation to defense attorneys if he appeared on their witness list.
Then it would be up to a defense attorney, and later a judge, to determine if it was relevant to bring up in court.
Carson kept his job, his badge and his ability to testify.
Wisconsin does not have statewide standards for Brady lists, leaving it to each county to track material
Until recently, the county’s full Brady list was kept secret.
As a result of reporters’ questions, District Attorney Kent Lovern removed officers and added others. His office released a corrected and updated list of nearly 200 officers in February, which was published by the Journal Sentinel and media partners.
Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern speaks at a news conference on April 8, 2025, in Milwaukee. (Jovanny Hernandez / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Who gets on a list – and whether counties even have a list – varies widely in Wisconsin, where there are no statewide standards. Officers can testify in multiple counties or in federal court, depending on the case and where an investigation leads.
Federal prosecutors, however, have standardized U.S. Department of Justice guidelines. Prosecutors are supposed to ask law enforcement witnesses directly about potential Brady material and check with officers’ home agencies.
“This process is designed to identify information that is even broader in scope than what is legally required and what might trigger being on a list in another jurisdiction,” said Kenneth Gales, a spokesman with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Milwaukee, in an email.
Gales maintained the office followed all proper procedures prior to Carson’s testimony in the federal hearing.
Even if a formal list is not shared by prosecutors, state and federal public defenders in eastern Wisconsin often exchange information between their offices about the credibility of law enforcement witnesses.
Criminal defense attorneys in Wisconsin say inconsistencies in disclosing Brady material can lead to injustice and wrongful convictions.
Such information is crucial for an effective defense, said Bridget Krause, trial division director for the State Public Defender’s Office.
“Our clients have liberty at stake,” she said.
In shooting case, a witness says officer made inappropriate comments in person and through texts
In late 2021, the Milwaukee Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division received a letter from a prisoner at Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution.
In it, a man accused officers of illegally searching his house during a shooting investigation.
It was the call involving Carson.
Internal Affairs opened an investigation and notified Carson, saying he was accused of taking part in an illegal search and failing to activate his body camera.
A third allegation read that “while on scene, you made inappropriate comments to a female citizen as well as sending her an inappropriate text message,” according to paperwork served on Carson on March 1, 2022.
Seven days later at the court hearing, Carson denied knowing anything about the texts.
A transcript shows Milwaukee police officer Gregory Carson Jr. answering questions about texting a witness during a 2022 federal court hearing. The witness’ name was redacted. (Milwaukee Police Department)
He also defended his decision to turn off his body camera, saying he had switched off the device to speak with other officers, who did the same. No one recorded the conversation detectives had with the woman about searching the home.
“My role in the investigation was over once the detectives were on scene inside the residence,” Carson said, according to a court transcript.
When the man’s girlfriend testified, she said she felt pressured to allow the search after an officer mentioned child welfare. She feared her baby would be taken away. She also said that Carson had flirted with her in the house.
When the prosecutor asked her to elaborate, she quoted Carson as saying: “Oh, you might as well kiss your man goodbye, because you ain’t never going to see him again.”
She also remembered this comment: “I’m going to come back and see you later, okay? You going to let me in? It’s just going to be me and you.”
As the hearing closed, Joshua Uller, a federal public defender, sharpened his argument that officers had acted improperly and their search was not lawful.
Carson and others violated department policy when they didn’t record their interaction with the woman as she signed the consent form. They treated a shooting victim as a suspect without evidence to do so, and Carson had acted completely inappropriately, he said.
“Turning a woman with a newborn child whose boyfriend was just taken away in an ambulance into a romantic objective is really beyond the pale,” Uller said, according to a transcript.
Later that month, Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Dries issued his report and recommendation. Though he chided officers for failing to record the woman signing the form, he concluded they had properly gotten her consent and the search was legal.
Carson’s testimony on the text messages, he said, was not credible.
Officer, already on the Brady list, tries to dissuade a woman from filing a complaint against another officer
Two days after the hearing, an internal investigator questioned Carson about the text messages.
He admitted to sending them, contradicting his testimony.
He said he had a “weakness” and had contacted the woman in “romantic pursuit,” department records say.
“In no way shape or form did I ever intend to be inappropriate or disrespect her in that manner,” he said, according to the records. “It was honestly me trying to shoot my shot and that was it.”
He denied making inappropriate comments to her in person and denied using his position as a police officer as an advantage. He said he regretted it and had learned a lesson.
He never mentioned his false testimony. At this point, federal prosecutors had not notified the police department of any concerns.
A portion of Milwaukee Police Department records detailing the internal investigation into Gregory Carson Jr., who was found to have sent inappropriate text messages to a woman he met at a shooting scene. (Milwaukee Police Department)
About three months after that interview, Carson had another troubling interaction with a woman he met on duty when she and her ex-boyfriend walked into District 7 on the city’s north side.
The former couple had a heated property dispute. The woman also said the man had intentionally hit her head while closing a car door. The man said it was an accident.
Carson was one of four officers dealing with the situation.
The woman grew frustrated with an officer who implied she was lying about the car door injury and refused to write a report about the incident. Police cited the man for battery.
Hours later, the woman received a call from a blocked number.
It was Carson.
He explained who he was and said he was off-duty. He pleaded with her not to file a complaint against his co-worker who had implied she was lying, according to police records. All of the officers involved were “good guys” who could only do so much, she remembered him saying.
She also recalled Carson saying that he hoped she would leave her ex-boyfriend alone because he did not want the ex “popping up at her house” while Carson was there, which she believed to be a flirtatious comment.
The next day, she filed two complaints at District 7: one against the officer who implied she lied and one against Carson.
In a recent interview with the Journal Sentinel, the woman called the actions of the officers that day “extremely disheartening.”
“When you’re going through one of the toughest times of your life, the last thing you should have to deal with is them approaching you in a sexual manner or accusing you of lying when you’re literally crying out for help,” said the woman, who asked not to be named publicly for privacy and safety reasons.
Internal Affairs classified her complaint against Carson as potential misconduct in office and assigned a detective to investigate.
A federal prosecutor tells the Milwaukee Police Department an officer gave false testimony in court
That summer, the federal case involving the shooting victim and Carson’s texts continued.
The defense attorney asked another judge to weigh in on the legality of the search.
As prosecutors prepared for another hearing in July 2022, Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Paulson reached out to Carson about his prior testimony.
She then wrote a memo summarizing their conversation, in which she said Carson admitted to sending the texts and not being truthful in his testimony, adding: “I’m human and I’m attracted to women.”
The Milwaukee Federal Building and Courthouse is shown in Milwaukee on Aug. 5, 2016. (Angela Peterson / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
On July 6, 2022, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Funnell emailed Internal Affairs with concerns about Carson’s credibility. He followed up the next day with a transcript from the March hearing, the earlier judge’s report and the defense motion for a second evidentiary hearing.
Asked about the case and the length of time it took the U.S. Attorney’s Office to contact Milwaukee police, a spokesman for the office said prosecutors acted appropriately.
“The United States also timely satisfied all legal disclosure obligations to the Court and to the defense in the matter you have referenced,” Gales said in an email.
Carson was on the county’s Brady list of officers with credibility issues — he had been since 2021 — but Uller, the federal public defender, said he had never seen the county’s Brady list until the Journal Sentinel and other media partners published it in February.
“While I cannot comment on this particular case, I am not aware of any instance in which, prior to the publication of this list, a lawyer in our office was notified of an officer’s inclusion in this list,” he said.
The Journal Sentinel tried to contact the woman who received the texts but was not successful. Her then-boyfriend charged in the case died in a shooting two years ago.
After hearing from the federal prosecutor in July 2022, Internal Affairs opened an investigation into Carson’s false testimony.
Carson was now the subject of three pending internal investigations, had previously received a three-day suspension and was on the county’s Brady list.
Still, he remained on patrol.
“At the time, it’s an allegation,” Norman, the police chief, said in an interview.
“We have, again, due process,” he added. “And so we need to make sure that there is, you know, the fairness of ensuring that there is credibility to everything, even from a prosecutor.”
A domestic violence victim calls for help, and an officer under internal investigation responds
Bobbie Lou Schoeffling called 911 for help on July 11, 2022.
Over the previous months, Schoeffling or her sister had repeatedly called police to report violence from Schoeffling’s ex-boyfriend, Nicholas Howell. Howell had not been arrested despite the multiple reports, having an open warrant for fleeing and being under the supervision of correctional agents for a past robbery conviction.
Bobbie Lou Schoeffling is seen in an undated family photo. (Courtesy of Tia Schoeffling)
That night, Schoeffling called police twice to report threats from Howell. On the second call, she said he had threatened to burn down her house on Hampton Avenue. She had left the area, fearing for her safety, she added.
Carson and his partner were dispatched to the second call. They did not drive to her house. Instead, Carson spoke to her over the phone and failed to activate his body camera to record their conversation.
Carson and his partner — and the two officers who responded earlier that night — did not file any reports or make any arrests.
Schoeffling was found shot to death two weeks later, on July 26.
On Sept. 4, 2022, police leaders finally pulled Carson from patrol, stripped him of his police powers and assigned him to the stolen vehicle desk in the forensics division.
He did not routinely interact with the public in the role, and the job limited him from having to testify, a department spokesperson said in an email to the Journal Sentinel.
As internal investigations conclude, officer faces a suspension, then termination
As Carson sat at his desk job, his discipline piled up.
In February 2023, Norman suspended him for six days for the inappropriate texts and for failing to activate his body camera at the shooting scene.
Milwaukee police officer Gregory Carson Jr. was one of four officers disciplined for their response to 911 calls from Bobbie Lou Schoeffling reporting domestic violence. Carson and his partner were dispatched to her home in the 9000 block of West Hampton Avenue but called her instead of going to the residence. (Ebony Cox / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
That same month, Internal Affairs interviewed Carson about the complaint filed by the woman at District 7. That investigation had slowed, in part, because it was difficult to reach the woman for follow-up interviews, records show.
The woman told the Journal Sentinel that she recalled speaking to an investigator once after filing her complaint and said she received several letters from the department.
Carson told the investigator, Sgt. Adam Riley, that when he called the woman, he did not say anything suggestive, only that she was worth more than her ex-boyfriend, according to department records. He acknowledged urging her not to make a complaint.
Riley pointed out the officer appeared to have a “pattern.”
Riley asked about Carson’s court testimony in the earlier case, pointing out he knew about the allegation related to the texts before his testimony. Carson said he thought he was truthful on the stand because he did not remember the text at the time.
Carson also said the federal prosecutor who wrote the memo had “misinterpreted” their conversation. Riley asked if Carson would have done anything differently.
No, he said.
Federal and state prosecutors declined to file criminal charges of perjury or misconduct against Carson.
But the district attorney’s office did add him to the Brady list for a second time — and the false testimony cost him his job.
Norman fired him for lying under oath and for discouraging the woman at District 7 from making a complaint.
Carson’s discharge date was Aug. 28, 2024, three years after he was first placed on the Brady list in the aftermath of his domestic violence arrest.
The woman who filed the complaint against Carson and the other officer at District 7 knew Carson had been fired. Still, she has concerns about how the department investigates misconduct allegations.
“I think it’s not handled appropriately or quickly enough,” she said.
Tia Schoeffling, Bobbie Lou Schoeffling’s sister, called it “ridiculous” that an officer arrested in such a case could then respond to domestic violence victims.
She thought of Carson on desk duty for two years, collecting nearly $80,000 in annual wages while he was the subject of several ongoing internal investigations.
She questioned if it would have taken that long to investigate a regular citizen for similar allegations.
“It’s mind-blowing that he was even allowed to respond to her call,” she said.
This story is part of Duty to Disclose, an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 News and Wisconsin Watch. The Fund for Investigative Journalism provided financial support for this project.
Then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton (R) listens to President Donald Trump as he and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte talk to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House July 18, 2019. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — FBI agents raided the home and office of former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, a one-time adviser to President Donald Trump who has become a frequent critic of the president, to investigate Bolton’s handling of classified documents, according to multiple media reports.
The raid on a former Trump adviser’s house represents an escalation from the Justice Department in targeting critics of Trump, whom he vowed to go after should he return to the White House for a second term.
Speaking to reporters Friday, Trump said he was not briefed on the raid of Bolton’s house in the wealthy suburb of Bethesda, Maryland, and office in Washington, D.C., according to White House pool reports.
But the president noted his longstanding feud with his former adviser.
“I’m not a fan of John Bolton,” Trump said. “He’s a real sort of a low life. He could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”
Earlier this year, the president revoked the security detail for Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 to 2019 and as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration in 2005 and 2006.
Following his time in the Trump administration, Bolton, who was an important member of the Bush administration’s national security team that favored active military involvement in the Middle East, emerged as a chief Republican foreign policy critic of Trump, authoring a 2020 book that blasted the president and widened the public rift between the two men.
Bolton has not been charged with a crime and is not in custody, according to The Associated Press, which cited a person familiar with the matter.
The first Trump administration launched an investigation into Bolton to probe if he improperly used sensitive information in his book. The current search involves federal officials investigating Bolton’s actions over the last four years, according to the New York Times, which cited a federal law enforcement official.
Trump documents case
Trump himself was prosecuted for mishandling classified documents after the FBI raided his Florida golf course and main residence of Mar-a-Lago in 2022. A federal judge dismissed the resulting criminal charges against Trump.
FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on social media that “NO ONE is above the law,” and that FBI agents were “on mission.”
The FBI declined to comment.
In 2020, the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into Bolton’s book and tried to block its publication, but were stymied in court.
Patel also wrote a 2023 book where he lists Bolton, along with a dozen other people, as members of the “deep state” who are working against Trump, according to the Times.
News always travels fast, but it is not always accurate, which led to a Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District (Cy-Fair ISD) bus driver being incorrectly accused of driving erratically while transporting students via a local news station. The district’s superintendent released a social media statement setting the record straight.
On Monday, KHOU-11 published a news article reporting that the unidentified Cy-Fair ISD bus driver was pulled over by police and administered a field sobriety test after a receiving report from a bystander claiming they “saw the bus driving erratically.”
Cy-Fair Superintendent Doug Killian released a statement Thursday defending the school bus driver and clarifying the events.
“On Monday morning, one of our new drivers hit a curb on a tight turn to avoid a vehicle in the opposite lane,” Killian stated. “A community member reported this to Harris County Precinct 5 Constables. Our team reviewed the video of the route multiple times and can definitively say the driver was not driving erratically, as it was reported.”
Killian confirmed the driver was given a field sobriety test twice by law enforcement, as was shown by KHOU-11, and both tests came back negative. The school bus driver was then taken to a clinic for drug and alcohol testing, per district protocol. Killian confirmed those tests also came back negative.
The school bus driver was reportedly back on route Friday.
In the statement, Killian expressed his disappointment in the “click-bait report” that was released by the news station and said that the district is requesting an on-air retraction and apology to the driver.
“The media story created unnecessary embarrassment for this driver and was released prior to the completion of our full investigation. It painted a negative light on the true professionalism of our CFISD bus drivers and transportation staff,” he said.
He continued that while he does not hold out hope that the retraction and apology will happen, he felt it was his duty as superintendent to publicly release the facts of the incident and that he “cannot in good conscience sit by and watch a staff member be attacked or presented in a poor light when their actions were not poor or negatively impactful to kids.”
He explained that after the school bus driver was pulled over, the students onboard behaved well despite the delay, which he attributed to the “quality of our drivers and the high expectations they set for our riders since the first day of school.”
Killian thanked the driver involved for their service and said he encourages the media to report on positive news stories throughout the school year.
On social media, Kilian’s statement was commended by the community for defending the reputation of the driver. One Facebook commenter noted that following the release of the story, “There were so many hurtful and ugly negative comments,” illustrating how a story shared on social media can quickly garner a strong public reaction, even if the facts have not been verified yet.
“This was truly a fantastic example of leadership, accountability, and standing and speaking directly to the people and FOR the people you serve,” said another Facebook comment.
Meanwhile, KHOU published an updated article Thursday noting Killian’s response and the school bus driver passing all drug and alcohol tests, adding, “That criticism came despite the fact that we reached out to Cy-Fair ISD multiple times throughout the day ahead of our story Tuesday night and shared the district’s statement that noted the driver passed two field sobriety tests and an alcohol test, but had been placed on paid leave pending drug test results.”
The news station also reported it asked Cy-Fair for access to the video exonerating the school bus driver, but the request was denied.
Last week’s storms destroyed Sabrena Henderson’s Milwaukee home, leaving her family displaced.
Not only did the basement of her Garden Homes rental unit flood, destroying her washer, dryer and freezer, but the heavy rains collapsed her ceiling.
While she does have renters insurance, she said, it’s been a long process of trying to apply for assistance, file claims and figure out next steps.
“It’s only thanks to my family that we are not homeless,” she said. “But we can’t stay in our house, and we are waiting for the landlord to do their part.”
Additionally, Henderson is a breast cancer survivor who is still in cancer care and should not be anywhere near her home. Mold buildup could be dangerous for her immune system, she said, making cleanup another major concern.
Henderson’s family is one of thousands trying to put their lives back together.
Impact
Two American Red Cross shelters have been set up in Milwaukee at Holler Park, 5151 S. 6th St., and Washington Senior Center, 4420 W. Vliet St., to assist temporarily displaced individuals.
Jennifer Warren, the regional communications director with the Red Cross, said on Sunday, Aug. 18, the shelters housed 39 people.
She said since the shelter has been set up, the Red Cross has served over 1,400 meals and snacks. Workers handed out 3,400 emergency relief supplies.
Vickie Boneck, the director of marketing and communications with IMPACT 211, a central access point for people in need, said her organization is supporting local emergency management offices by collecting reports of property damage caused by flooding.
Days after the storm, calls for flood-related assistance continue.
As of the afternoon of Aug. 18, over 16,500 flood-related service requests had been made to 211 from Milwaukee County and the surrounding counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington. About 85% of those requests originated from Milwaukee County alone.
According to 211 data, the highest concentration of service requests came from Milwaukee County’s Northwest Side and the West Milwaukee area, particularly from ZIP codes 53218, 53209 and 53216.
ZIP code 53218, where Henderson’s home falls, reported the most significant impact, with 1,851 damage reports. It also led in utility disruptions, with 2,562 reports, and had over 850 reports of structural damage.
Of the data collected, approximately 6,000 referrals were for storm-related assistance, helping connect residents to county emergency services, disaster food programs, cleanup supplies and other recovery resources.
What’s next
Milwaukee County’s disaster teams are assessing damage. The Salvation Army has teams out handing out water and snacks to those impacted.
Benny Benedict, the emergency disaster services director for the Salvation Army of Milwaukee County, said people are still trying to understand the full impact of the floods.
“It takes a while to figure out basically what you’re dealing with, and it seems that this flood is definitely very significant,” Benedict said.
Teams from partner agencies are also on site to help residents clean homes and basements.
Both the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross are accepting monetary contributions to help those impacted as on-site donations are too much to manage at the moment.
“Today it might be the masks that everyone needs, and then we get thousands of them, and next thing you don’t know, the need is baby formula, and all we have are masks,” he said. “So the monetary donation, we don’t have to sort it, it’s very fluid, and the Salvation Army takes great care in making sure that we’re just meeting the critical needs.”
Benedict said in his experience, this will be a case of long-term recovery for many of those impacted.
“Preliminary numbers are showing that there is a significant number of destroyed homes,” he said. “So, we know that the unmet needs are going to be quite large. That could be everything from just cleanup kits, flood kits, help getting the house mucked out, basically rebuilding, and then there’s going to be needs for household items that were destroyed.”
How to get help
Residents who wish to report property damage may contact IMPACT 211 and speak to a community resource specialist. That is also the best way to access information and referral to programs and services that may help in the aftermath of this storm. If people just want to report property damage, the best way is to complete the online form 211 Wisconsin.
The Wausau Fire Department's division chief of emergency medicine services was arrested and charged with misconduct in public office for allegedly stealing fentanyl and another painkiller.
Incarcerated people exercise in the maximum security yard of the Lansing Correctional Facility in April 2023 in Lansing, Kan. This year, several states have taken steps to install air conditioning and expand cooling measures to address sweltering heat inside prisons, but many across the country remain years away from significant upgrades. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Summer heat is bearing down on U.S. prisons, where temperatures in uncooled cells can climb well into the triple digits.
Facing growing pressure from advocacy groups, lawsuits and climate projections that show hotter days ahead, some state prison systems are moving to install air conditioning and expand cooling measures — though many facilities remain years away from significant upgrades.
But in other states, such efforts have stalled or failed. That may lead to more lawsuits in the future, experts say, even as judges may raise the bar for such cases.
An emphasis on being “tough on crime” and prioritizing other public safety measures may have contributed to less attention on prison conditions in some states. In others, slowing revenue growth and pressure to rein in corrections spending could be making new investments a harder sell.
At least two states this year, Virginia and Texas, considered legislation addressing excessive heat in prisons but neither measure became law. The Texas bill would have required the state Department of Criminal Justice to purchase and install climate control systems in all of its facilities by the end of 2032. About two-thirds of the state’s correctional facilities have only partial or no air conditioning.
The measure passed the House but did not advance in the Senate before the legislature adjourned in June.
In Virginia, lawmakers approved a bill that would have required the state corrections department to install heat and air conditioning in its prisons and to ensure cell temperatures not exceed 80 degrees. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed it, citing the cost of installation and operational burdens. Youngkin also wrote that existing state corrections data “does not substantiate the claims of extreme temperatures or health risks.”
But in Delaware, the fiscal year 2026 capital budget approved last month includes $2 million in funding to install air conditioning at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center.
These changes mark the latest actions in a long-running debate over how correctional systems respond to rising summer temperatures — an issue that affects both incarcerated people and staff. Some of the policy debates and facility updates this year follow years of advocacy and litigation over the health, safety and operational challenges posed by heat in correctional settings.
The problem of excessive heat in prisons has persisted for decades and has unfolded alongside other challenges, including chronic understaffing and overcrowding. In some cases, these problems have led to extended facility lockdowns, even during the summer months.
“There are people working in prisons and they have the right to work in climates that are comfortable,” said Nancy La Vigne, a criminal justice researcher and dean of the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University. “When they’re not, there’s retention issues, and it’s hard to replace staff. And when you don’t replace staff, then you have challenges in maintaining the safety and security of the facility.”
In New York, for example, correctional officers staged a three-week strike earlier this year and many didn’t return to work. Some facilities now are operating with 30%-60% fewer guards than needed, resulting in some incarcerated people getting only an hour or two outside of their cells each day.
A 2023 study published in the peer-reviewed PLOS One journal found that mortality in state and private prisons rose during periods of extreme heat, with deaths increasing 3.5% on extreme heat days and up to 7.4% during three-day heat waves. Between 2001 and 2019, nearly 13,000 people died in prison during the summer months, almost half of them in the South, though the study did not determine how many of those deaths were directly attributable to heat.
Climate change is fueling longer, more intense periods of extreme heat. Exposure to extreme heat can worsen conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and asthma, and has also been linked to worsening mental health and higher suicide rates among incarcerated people.
“Average temperatures are rising, and you’re going to have more and more states around the country where incarcerated people are held in conditions that are not livable because they’re too hot,” said Sharon Dolovich, a law professor and director of the Prison Law and Policy Program at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Some upgrades
At least 44 states lack universal air conditioning within their prison facilities, even in regions known for sweltering summer temperatures, according to a 2022 USA Today analysis. A recent Reuters investigation also found that nearly half of state prisons across 29 states have partial or no air conditioning in housing units.
But some states are investing millions to update their prison facilities.
In North Carolina, corrections officials are working toward their goal of installing air conditioning in all 54 state prisons by 2026. To date, 33 facilities are fully air-conditioned, 17 are partially air-conditioned, and four have no air conditioning, according to its dashboard.
In California, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which operates 31 adult prisons, has spent $246 million in the past five years on cooling improvements at five prisons, according to a department spokesperson.
Lawmakers this year also approved funding for the Air Cooling Pilot Program at three facilities, with $17.6 million allocated for fiscal years 2025-26 and $20 million for fiscal years 2026-27. It will evaluate the effectiveness of two alternatives prior to a statewide plan to address high indoor temperatures across the California prison system.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, as of Aug. 1, is building 12,827 “cool beds,” or prison cells in air-conditioned units, and is in the process of procuring an additional 7,162, according to its dashboard.
Texas is one of the states most closely associated with heat-related deaths in prison. A 2022 study estimated that, on average, 14 deaths per year in Texas prisons are associated with heat. And a Texas Tribune analysis found that at least 41 incarcerated people died during a record-breaking heat wave in 2023.
In March, a federal judge ruled the extreme heat in Texas prisons is “plainly unconstitutional,” but declined to order immediate air conditioning, saying the work could not be completed within the court order’s 90-day window and temporary systems might delay a permanent fix.
‘More miserable’
Sweltering summer heat can turn prisons into pressure cookers. People inside already may have health conditions, limited access to cooling, or take medications that make it harder for their bodies to handle the heat. And research suggests that high temperatures can heighten irritability and aggression, sometimes fueling more conflicts between incarcerated people or with staff.
“It makes you more miserable. … If you to the point of even thinking about suicide, that’s just going to add to it,” said Ronald McKeithen, who spent 37 years incarcerated in Alabama prisons and is now the director of second chances at the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. McKeithen recalls feeling “on edge” due to tension among other incarcerated people on hot days.
At the Oshkosh Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, Devin Skrzypchak said the heat worsens his bladder condition, and he often can’t get the incontinence briefs he needs. The heat forces him to drink more water, and on days when ice isn’t available, he’s left drenched in sweat.
“At times, it’s a living hell. … It can be very excruciating,” Skrzypchak wrote in a message to Stateline through the facility’s messaging platform.
At times, it's a living hell . . . It can be very excruciating.
– Devin Skrzypchak, who is incarcerated at Oshkosh Correctional Institution in Wisconsin
D’Angelo Lee Komanekin — who has spent about 25 years in and out of different Wisconsin corrections facilities — said prison architecture plays a major role in why temperatures inside climb so high.
“The planet is getting hotter and hotter,” said Komanekin, who relies on a small plastic fan to stay cool. Komanekin also is incarcerated at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution. “They’re doing nothing about the architecture. Some institutions’ windows open, some don’t, but most of the doors have steel doors with trap doors.”
Older prison designs that rely heavily on steel and concrete building materials often trap heat, making it difficult to keep temperatures down in the summer. Aging facilities also are less likely to be equipped for the installation of central air conditioning.
Some state prison systems, including Alabama’s and Wisconsin’s, are adding air-conditioning or air-tempering systems to new prison construction and major renovation projects.
Future legal battles
Legal experts say the issue of excessive heat in prisons is likely to become more pressing as climate change drives longer and hotter summers.
Extreme heat in correctional facilities has already been the subject of litigation in dozens of states, with plaintiffs arguing that high temperatures constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Court rulings in these cases have varied, but some experts say even more lawsuits are likely if facilities do not adapt.
“The conditions are going to worsen. [Incarcerated people are] going to be looking for every possible avenue for assistance they can,” Dolovich, the UCLA law professor, told Stateline.
One of the latest cases comes from Missouri, where the nonprofit law firm MacArthur Justice Center filed a class-action lawsuit in May on behalf of six incarcerated people at Algoa Correctional Center.
The lawsuit alleges that the conditions violate their constitutional rights under the Eighth Amendment. It seeks to require the Missouri Department of Corrections to work with experts to develop a heat mitigation plan that keeps housing unit temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees. If the department cannot meet that standard, the plaintiffs are asking for the release of three of the incarcerated people who have less than a year remaining on their sentences.
Lawsuits such as the Missouri case often focus on claims that extreme heat worsens existing medical problems. To proceed, they must meet two legal requirements: proving the heat poses a serious health or safety risk, and showing prison officials knew about the danger but failed to address it, according to Dolovich, whose work has focused on the Eighth Amendment and prison conditions.
Courts may also raise the bar for proving such claims if judges echo decisions in cases with similar Eight Amendment arguments related to the death penalty and homelessness, Dolovich said. Judges have shifted, she said, toward a “superadding terror, pain and disgrace” standard under the Eighth Amendment — a higher threshold requiring proof that conditions were created with the intent to cause unnecessary suffering.
Dolovich added that some recent court decisions have provided only narrow remedies, such as ordering ice and fans instead of installing air conditioning.
“Prison officials have a moral and a constitutional responsibility to respond to changing conditions. In this case, it means air conditioning. … Anything less than that, to me, is indefensible.” she said.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.
A woman accused of killing two teenagers while driving drunk is back in the Dane County Jail after briefly being held in an immigration detention facility.
Community organizations such as DAIS in Dane County could see further cuts if the Trump Administration is allowed to withhold VOCA funds. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has joined a multi-state lawsuit against the Trump Administration’s demand that states participate in federal immigration enforcement efforts or risk losing access to federal money available through the Victims of Crime Act.
If the conditions are allowed to go through, Wisconsin could lose up to $24 million meant to help compensate victims of crime as well as fund local advocates, counselors and crisis response centers, according to a state Department of Justice news release
“VOCA funding is intended to be used to help victims of crime,” Kaul said in a statement. “It is appalling that the Trump administration is weaponizing this funding.”
Wisconsin is joined in the lawsuit, which was filed in a Rhode Island federal district court, by New Jersey, California, Delaware, Illinois, Rhode Island, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
VOCA takes fees, fines and penalties collected in federal court proceedings and disburses those funds to the states to use on victim services — which can include the operations of community-based organizations such as domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers and the work of victim-witness offices within county district attorneys’ offices.
While individual law enforcement agencies have agreed to help immigration authorities in various capacities through efforts such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 287(g) program, the lawsuit argues that civil immigration enforcement is strictly a federal responsibility. Requiring that states participate in such actions violates the constitution’s tenets of separation of powers and federalism, the suit argues.
A handful of communities across the state have enacted policies to prevent local law enforcement from aiding ICE enforcement. Milwaukee Police Department policy states that immigration enforcement is the authority of the federal government and local cops getting involved in the enforcement of immigration law could harm the department’s relationship with immigrant communities.
“With a policing philosophy that is community-based, problem-oriented, and data-driven, we are committed to ridding the city’s streets of violent offenders regardless of whether such offenders are in the United States legally or illegally,” the policy states. “We are also committed to facilitating safe, sustainable communities where individuals are encouraged to report crime and provide the police with useful information and intelligence. However, proactive immigration enforcement by local police can be detrimental to our mission and policing philosophy when doing so deters some individuals from participating in their civic obligation to assist the police.”
The Trump Administration’s threat to withhold VOCA funds comes as the program has already seen massive cuts. Last year, Wisconsin’s portion of federal VOCA grants dropped from $40 million annually to $13 million.
Because of those previous cuts, shelters across Wisconsin have been struggling to make ends meet and retain the services available for victims of crime.
“Victim services is not just about one person gets hurt and experiences trauma, and then they’re helped and they go on with their lives,” Shira Phelps, executive director of DOJ’s Office of Crime Victim Services, told the Wisconsin Examiner last year. “This is really about sort of taking away a foundation for communities that help in every other aspect. Housing, education, all of those different fields are going to feel this really deep impact.”
The coal-fired Mill Creek Generating Station operates in Kentucky last year. President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered some retiring coal plants to stay online, even as they have struggled to remain economically viable. (Photo by Liam Niemeyer/Kentucky Lantern)
Mandates from President Donald Trump’s administration to retain aging coal plants could cause a massive spike in energy costs, according to an independent analysis commissioned by several environmental groups.
Orders from the U.S. Department of Energy to save coal plants from retirement could cost ratepayers more than $3 billion per year, according to a report from Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm. It was carried out on behalf of Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club.
Under Trump, the agency has issued emergency orders to maintain operations at coal plants that were scheduled for retirement. While federal officials say the coal plants need to stay online to avoid blackouts, power plant owners and state regulators planned their closures because they were no longer economically viable or needed for reliability.
“DOE mandates override those well-informed decisions, inflating electric bills for homeowners and businesses and undermining the competitiveness of U.S. factories and data centers,” the Grid Strategies analysis found.
Across the country, coal plants have phased out as they’ve struggled to compete with cheaper renewables and natural gas. A 2023 analysis by Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan think tank, found that 99% of existing U.S. coal plants “are more expensive to run than replacement by local wind, solar, and energy storage resources.”
But Trump, who has pushed to unleash more fossil fuel development and to stymie wind and solar, has ordered a retiring coal plant in Michigan to stay online, along with an oil and gas plant in Pennsylvania.
“Based on the trend to date and indications that DOE has approached the owners of many retiring fossil power plants about potentially mandating their retention, DOE may attempt to mandate the retention of nearly all large fossil power plants slated for retirement between now and the end of 2028,” reads the Grid Strategies report.
The cost of keeping those plants online would be immense. By 2028, if Trump were to mandate the retention of all fossil fuel plants slated for retirement, the annual cost to ratepayers would be more than $3.1 billion, the analysis found.
The report also considers a number of aging plants that are not yet scheduled for retirement. It finds Trump’s actions could create a “perverse incentive,” causing plant owners to claim they’re planning to shut down, inducing the feds to step in and keep them open, with the cost borne by ratepayers.
Accounting for that possibility, the report found that ratepayer costs could reach $5.9 billion per year to keep the entire aging fossil fuel fleet online. California, Texas and Colorado would see the highest increases in electricity bills.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.
Former AmeriCorps service member Daniel Zare, 27, visits Project Change at Sligo Middle School on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025 in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he mentored students before federal government cuts in April. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
SILVER SPRING, Md. — Daniel Zare worked one-on-one as an AmeriCorps member with students going through rough times in school, lightening teachers’ workload in the classroom.
At AmeriCorps Project CHANGE, based in Silver Spring’s Sligo Middle School, Zare was one of several in his group who tracked adolescents’ emotional and social wellbeing over months using a system dubbed “My Score.” They then helped support the kids who were struggling the most.
In April, though, the program screeched to a halt. That’s when the Trump administration abruptly canceled nearly $400 million in active AmeriCorps grants across the United States that fund volunteers who embed in communities, in exchange for a small stipend and education award.
“All the work that we had culminating toward the end of the year, the relationships that we built with teachers and students and officials, it just completely went kaput because we were told we weren’t allowed to go to work at all,” Zare, 27, told States Newsroom.
Like so many longstanding federal programs and institutions severely reduced or dismantled as part of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency project, AmeriCorps — and its nonprofit partners — are now assessing the damage and seeking a way forward.
AmeriCorps programs that survived last spring’s DOGE cuts are slowly beginning a new year of service amid major uncertainty over whether they will be able to continue their work in classrooms, food banks, senior centers and other community hubs.
Winners and losers among states
AmeriCorps, a federal agency signed into law in 1993 by former President Bill Clinton, places roughly 200,000 members across the United States at 35,000 service locations, according to current agency data.
Members serve in schools, local governments and with a wide range of nonprofits that focus on health, disaster relief, environmental stewardship, workforce development and veterans.
The staffers, who pledge to “get things done for America,” are paid a modest living allowance that hovers around the poverty line. Some, but not all, can get health insurance while in the program.
Members who complete their service term, which usually lasts from 10 to 12 months, receive an education award that can be used to pursue a degree, earn a trade certificate or pay student loans.
AmeriCorps federal dollars reach programs via a couple routes. In many cases, grants flow from AmeriCorps to governor-led state and territorial commissions that divvy them up according to local priorities. In other cases, federal dollars flow straight to a program via a competitive grant process.
Kaira Esgate, CEO of America’s Service Commissions, said when the Trump administration ordered the cuts in April, some states lost large portions of their AmeriCorps portfolio, while other states fared better.
“There were no real clear trend lines around what or who got terminated and why,” said Esgate, whose member organization represents all 49 state commissions (South Dakota doesn’t have one) and the commissions for the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico.
Abby Andre, executive director of The Impact Project, an initiative of Public Service Ventures Ltd., a private corporation that launches and scales solutions to strengthen public service and communities., has been collecting data and plotting on an interactive map where AmeriCorps programs have been canceled. Andre, a former Department of Justice litigator, has also worked with her team to build other maps showing where federal workforce cuts have been felt across the country.
“AmeriCorps is a really great example of the federal dollars being kind of invisible in communities. Communities often don’t know that a local food bank or a senior center are supported by AmeriCorps volunteers and AmeriCorps money,” said Andre, who taught administrative law at the Vermont Law School after working under President Barack Obama and in Trump’s first administration.
Andre said communities with a lack of social services, including in rural areas, will likely feel the biggest losses without an AmeriCorps presence because the agency “facilitates pennies-on-the-dollar type services through volunteer work.”
“It’s not as though if these community services folded, those communities would have the money to fund equal or better services through the private market,” she said.
Losing trust
The Maryland Governor’s Office on Service and Volunteerism gave the green light to Project CHANGE to keep its program, which serves Montgomery County in suburban Washington, D.C., running through the upcoming school year.
Paul Costello, director of Project CHANGE, is now scrambling to launch a new AmeriCorps cohort after receiving the news on July 22 that the initiative had been funded. He estimates members won’t be able to begin until almost a month into the school year.
Paul Costello, director of Project CHANGE at Sligo Middle School in Silver Spring, Maryland, reads student self-assessments of their confidence levels, hopefulness and excitement for learning. Costello’s program places AmeriCorps members in classrooms to help students with emotional and social challenges. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
“Sadly, AmeriCorps, as a brand name, is badly damaged, I think. I mean, I’ve got a meeting on Wednesday with a major partner who told us two weeks ago ‘We thought you were dead,’” Costello told States Newsroom in an Aug. 11 interview.
Costello’s program not only places service members in Montgomery County Public Schools, where Zare served, but also with partners including Community Bridges, Montgomery Housing Partnership and Family Learning Solutions.
The nonprofits respectively focus on helping adolescent girls from diverse backgrounds, children whose families live in community-developed affordable housing units and teens eyeing college and career paths.
The county’s school system is the largest in the state and serves a highly diverse population. About 44% of the system’s 160,000 students qualify for free and reduced meals, and close to 20% are learning English while continuing to speak another language at home.
Costello’s 18 cohort members embedded in those schools and nonprofits this past academic year were suddenly yanked in April when the government cut his grant. The partners, which had planned and budgeted to have the members through June, were thrown into “total chaos,” Costello said.
“So some of them are so desperate, they rely on their members. They had to dig into their pockets to keep them on as staff. And then we go back to them this year and say, ‘You want members this year?’ AmeriCorps has made no attempt to make them whole. So they’ve been screwed,” Costello said.
AmeriCorps did not respond to States Newsroom’s questions about nonprofits losing money.
Legal action
The federal courts granted some relief to members and organizations who abruptly lost living allowances and contractually obligated funding.
A Maryland federal district judge ordered in June that funding and positions be restored in 24 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia that sued the agency.
Another district judge in the state also handed a win to more than a dozen nonprofits from across the country that sued to recover funding they were owed.
But for many it was too late, and AmeriCorps’ future still feels shaky.
After suddenly losing his living allowance in April, Zare had to leave Silver Spring.
“I was renting a room off of Georgia (Avenue), and I was not able to pay rent there anymore, so I actually moved back to my mom’s in Germantown for the time being,” he told States Newsroom in August, referring to another Maryland suburb.
Hillary Kane, director of the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development, said by the time the court orders were issued, many of her AmeriCorps members had already found other positions and she had completely let go of one of her full-time staffers.
While the court injunctions were “welcome news,” reinstating the programs remained “questionable,” Kane wrote in a July 21 update for Nonprofit Quarterly.
Kane’s organization is a member of the National College Attainment Network, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that was among the successful plaintiffs.
Other organizations that joined the lawsuit are based in California, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Virginia.
The Democratic-led states that won reinstatement for AmeriCorps members include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Going forward?
Kane got news on July 10 that PennSERVE, Pennsylvania’s state service commission, reinstated funding for her AmeriCorps program that places members in four West Philadelphia high schools to mentor students on their post-graduation plans.
The late notice meant Kane could only begin recruiting new members in mid-July.
“And so our start date has to be a bit fluid,” Kane told States Newsroom during a July 22 interview. “We have to essentially recruit people into this one-year cohort position, and say, ‘We’re hoping to start September 2, but we’re not 100% sure. Can you kind of just roll with it?’ It’s an awkward position to have to be in.”
The AmeriCorps pledge hangs at Project CHANGE at Sligo Middle School in Silver Spring, Maryland, on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
Other AmeriCorps programs have not fared so well, as the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget continues to withhold funds that were appropriated by Congress for the ongoing fiscal year.
Trump signed legislation in March that extended the $1.26 billion for AmeriCorps for the full 2025 fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30.
Kane said the most “insidious” part of the recent AmeriCorps storyline is that programs that receive grants directly from the federal agency are being strung along by OMB.
“So there are agencies who have been theoretically awarded money, but they’re like, ‘Is it actually going to happen? Should I spend all this money and then not be able to bill the federal government to reimburse me if OMB is going to hold it hostage?’”
Programs at risk include 130 recently expired contracts for AmeriCorps Foster Grandparent and Senior Companions programs that support roughly 6,000 senior citizen volunteers across 35 states. The programs are eligible for just over $50 million for the new service year, which should be off to a start.
Congress pleads with budget office
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators pressed the executive branch agency on Aug. 1 to release the funds.
“Further delays in grantmaking will have immediate and irreversible consequences for programs, AmeriCorps members, and communities,” the senators wrote in a letter to OMB Director Russ Vought.
Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined Democratic Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York in signing the letter. All are members of the Senate National Service Caucus.
The White House and AmeriCorps did not respond for comment.
The Republican-led Senate Committee on Appropriations voted on July 31 to preserve $1.25 billion in AmeriCorps funding for fiscal year 2026. Collins chairs the committee.
U.S. House appropriators, which for the last two years under Republican leadership have sought to cut AmeriCorps funding, are expected to debate its budget in September. But it’s almost certain Congress will have to pass a stopgap spending bill when the end of the fiscal year arrives to stave off a partial government shutdown, so a final decision on funding may not come for months.
Change for everyone
Zare never did have a chance to say goodbye to all his students in April.
And even though the option was on the table, he did not sign up to serve a third year with AmeriCorps.
Before he applied and earned a spot with Project CHANGE, Zare was working odd jobs, including as a utilities contractor for Comcast. He had also earned his associate’s degree.
Former AmeriCorps service member Daniel Zare, 27, visits Project CHANGE at Sligo Middle School on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025 in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he mentored students before federal government cuts in April. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
“I don’t think there’s any other program to take someone like me who was working a couple of different jobs and put them in an environment like this, to see firsthand as an American citizen how our classrooms operate and what position I would need to be in to actually be of benefit,” Zare told States Newsroom.
Zare is now freelancing and debating his next move, whether that’s a new job or further higher education.
“AmeriCorps is something that I’m always going to cherish because a lot of the people there still help me,” he said.
Editor’s note: D.C. Bureau Senior Reporter Ashley Murray served in AmeriCorps in 2009-2010.
People participate in a naturalization ceremony last year at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, N.J. The Trump administration is encouraging states to use an online search tool to verify the citizenship of registered voters, alarming some Democrats and privacy experts. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
BILOXI, Miss. — The Trump administration is developing a powerful data tool it claims will let states identify noncitizens registered to vote. But Democratic critics and data experts warn it could allow the federal government to vacuum up vast quantities of information on Americans for unclear purposes.
Some Democratic election officials and opponents of the effort fear President Donald Trump wants to build a federal database of voters to target political opponents or cherry-pick rare examples of noncitizen voters to fuel a sense of crisis. Republican election officials allied with the president counter that he’s helping states to maintain accurate voter rolls.
The Trump administration has rolled out changes to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, tool at the same time the U.S. Department of Justice is asking states for copies of their voter rolls. The timing, combined with questions about what happens to voter data uploaded to the program, has alarmed critics.
Trump wants Congress to pass a national proof of citizenship voter registration requirement and in March tried to unilaterally impose one for federal elections through executive order. But with the legislation stalled and the order halted by the courts, the citizenship data tool may offer a backdoor way to accomplish the same goal.
SAVE was originally intended to help state and local officials verify the immigration status of individual noncitizens seeking government benefits. But U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, this spring refashioned it into a platform that can scan states’ voter rolls if election officials upload the data.
The changes to SAVE, rolled out over just a few months and with little public debate, are “tinkering with sort of the bones of democracy,” said John Davisson, senior counsel and director of litigation at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy group that argues privacy is a fundamental right.
“You’re talking about the voting process and who will be eligible to vote,” Davisson said. “And to take a system that is not designed for use in that process and repurpose it, really on the fly, without a formal comment process, without formal rulemaking, without congressional intervention — that’s pretty anomalous and pretty alarming.”
Previously, SAVE could only search one name at a time. Now it can conduct bulk searches, allowing state officials to potentially feed into it information on millions of registered voters. SAVE checks that information against a series of federal databases and reports back whether it can verify someone’s immigration status.
Since May, it also can draw upon Social Security data, transforming the program into a tool that can confirm citizenship because Social Security records for many, but not all, Americans include the information. NPR reported earlier on changes to SAVE.
“It is incredible what has been done, really since March,” Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, a Republican who supports proof of citizenship requirements and the SAVE tool, told a gathering of state secretaries of state in Biloxi, Mississippi, last week.
Individuals registering to vote in federal elections must already sign a statement affirming they are citizens under penalty of perjury, and those who cast a ballot face criminal penalties and deportation. One study of the 2016 election placed the prevalence of noncitizen voting at 0.0001% of votes cast.
But as Trump has spread falsehoods about elections, Republicans have made purging noncitizens from voter rolls a central focus.
Nameplates at the National Association of Secretaries of State conference in Biloxi, Miss. The Trump administration wants state secretaries of state to use an online program to identify noncitizens on their voter rolls. (Photo by Jonathan Shorman/Stateline)
Democratic concerns were on display last week at the National Association of Secretaries of State conference, held at the Beau Rivage casino-resort in Biloxi. In interviews on the sidelines of the conference, Democratic secretaries of state voiced deep reservations — or outright opposition — about plugging their voter data into SAVE.
Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said Aug. 6 that the federal government appeared to be trying to take over election administration. She formally rejected the Justice Department’s voter roll request two days later.
Bellows said the Department of Homeland Security told her in a recent phone call that it planned to retain SAVE data for 10 years for “audit purposes only.”
“Just like the [Justice Department] is asking us to hand over an electronic file of all the voters in our state, it seems like the Department of Homeland Security is through this backdoor system also asking us to share voter information about every voter in our state,” Bellows said.
At least one state appears to have granted the federal government sweeping authority over any voter data it provides to SAVE.
Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales announced in July he had reached an agreement with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to access the newly expanded system for voter list maintenance. Indiana’s agreement allows the federal agency to use information the state provides for any purpose permitted by law, including criminal prosecutions.
Morales, a Republican, said in a news release that SAVE represented “another step in safeguarding the rights” of eligible voters. His office didn’t respond to Stateline’s questions.
The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to encourage state election officials to use the expanded program. The White House hosted a bipartisan “fly in” event for state secretaries of state on July 29. Multiple secretaries of state told Stateline that USCIS Director Joseph Edlow, who was confirmed on July 15, spoke at the event.
“The president is very much keyed in on voter list maintenance,” Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, said in an interview — echoing other GOP secretaries of state who released statements praising the Trump administration after the meeting.
When we disclose information, particularly personal identifying information, we need to have a handle on how it’s going to be used, by whom and under what circumstances.
– Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat who attended the meeting, said he questioned how the federal government would handle voter information provided to SAVE. He added that the Justice Department’s request for his state’s voter rolls raised his level of concern about how data would be used.
“When we disclose information, particularly personal identifying information, we need to have a handle on how it’s going to be used, by whom and under what circumstances,” Simon told Stateline.
The White House referred questions about SAVE and the event to the Department of Homeland Security and USCIS.
In response to questions from Stateline, USCIS didn’t directly answer whether the agency would share voter roll data with other parts of the federal government but confirmed it disposes of records after 10 years.
“The SAVE application is a critical tool for state and local governments to access information to safeguard the integrity of elections across the country. It’s no wonder many states have quickly adopted it, and we continue to promote the tool to other states and counties not using SAVE,” USCIS spokesperson Matthew Tragesser said in a statement.
“We look forward to continued optimization efforts and implementing more updates to SAVE.”
GOP pressure
Some Republican election officials and Trump allies have long wanted the federal government to take an expanded role in searching state voter rolls for noncitizens.
Last summer the Trump-aligned litigation group America First Legal, co-founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, encouraged states to submit to the Department of Homeland Security the names of individuals for citizenship or immigration status verification.
Some states did just that. Texas, for example, asked USCIS to verify the citizenship of some voters in September, and Indiana asked the agency to verify 585,774 voters in October. The same month, 16 Republican state attorneys general signed a letter criticizing Homeland Security, then under the Biden administration, for failing to work with states on verification.
After Trump took office, GOP state officials kept up the pressure. Twenty-one Republican secretaries of state urged Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in February to prioritize SAVE improvements.
On April 16, Indiana sued the department in federal court for not responding to its verification request last fall. USCIS announced an overhaul of SAVE less than a week later.
As the agency continues to remake SAVE, the tool will soon allow searches using the last four digits of a Social Security number, multiple state secretaries of state told Stateline. The agency confirmed the feature is under development and will be available soon but didn’t provide an exact date.
The change would mark another significant expansion of the program because most states collect the last four digits when individuals without a driver’s license register to vote.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane, a Republican, said SAVE represents a better way to verify citizenship than a state law requiring voters to produce documents. “I think there’s a real opportunity for us to do a lot of this through just sharing of information and I think that’s what we’re seeing happen,” McGrane said in an interview.
Unreliable data?
But some voting rights advocates and experts on government data caution against an overreliance on Social Security data.
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, a progressive policy nonprofit, has noted that Social Security only began tracking the citizenship status of all applicants in 1978 — meaning the database doesn’t include comprehensive citizenship information for older Americans. Additionally, Social Security may not always have up-to-date information on the status of naturalized U.S. citizens.
The nonpartisan Institute for Responsive Government also warned in May that since SAVE hasn’t used Social Security numbers to verify citizenship in the past, its accuracy and effectiveness are unknown. The success of the expanded SAVE program may also partially depend on whether it has adequate staff and resources, it said.
A 2017 Government Accountability Office report found that between fiscal years 2012 and 2016, about 16% of the nearly 90 million SAVE searches required additional verification, which the institute says often translates into federal workers manually checking files. Now that SAVE allows bulk searches, the need for manual checking could rise dramatically.
Nick Doctor, director of implementation at the Institute for Responsive Government, said in an interview that a tool confirming the eligibility of registered voters in a way that doesn’t burden individuals can be a good thing. But he emphasized that it depends in large measure on SAVE’s implementation.
“The changes that have been made to SAVE happened very quickly and, to my knowledge, we haven’t seen releases on the level of accuracy of that information,” Doctor said.
During interviews, Republican secretaries of state stressed that voters aren’t kicked off the rolls because SAVE can’t verify their citizenship. Instead, an inability to verify would likely trigger a follow-up process with the voter.
“Just because we get something back from the SAVE database, it’s not a cut and dry, especially on those they’re not sure about,” Hoskins, the Missouri secretary of state, said.
Still, Arizona illustrates why some Democrats worry about any large-scale effort to ask voters — especially longtime, older residents — to prove their citizenship. After the state discovered errors in how it tracked voter citizenship dating back years, election officials are contacting some 200,000 voters seeking proof of citizenship documentation.
Some have been casting ballots for decades without incident and many feel targeted, Arizona Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said during a presentation at the state secretaries of state conference. “They feel insulted when they get that letter,” Fontes said.
There’s a lot of good-government reasons to believe that something like this, governed properly and governed with fail-safe mechanisms, could have an upside.
– Charles Stewart III, professor of political science at MIT who studies elections
Charles Stewart III, a professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies elections, said Arizona may actually point to the potential usefulness of SAVE. If Arizona runs its voter roll through the program, a list of 200,000 voters needing citizenship verification would perhaps drop into the hundreds, he suggested.
“There’s a lot of good-government reasons to believe that something like this, governed properly and governed with fail-safe mechanisms, could have an upside,” Stewart said.
Connecticut Democratic Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas told Stateline that every secretary wants tools to keep voter lists as clean as possible. But the details are important.
When she hears of something new, Thomas said she asks whether it’s the best option available and whether “the i’s are dotted, the t’s crossed.” She said she’s asked USCIS a series of questions about SAVE and is waiting on some responses.
“When it comes to voter lists,” Thomas said, “I don’t want Connecticut voters to be a guinea pig.”
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.
Federal Bureau of Investigation and Metropolitan Police Department officers conduct a traffic stop near the U.S. Capitol on Aug. 14, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice will rewrite an order from Attorney General Pam Bondi that initially placed a Trump administration official in charge of the District of Columbia’s police force, after an emergency hearing late Friday afternoon on a lawsuit filed by the district.
Attorneys on behalf of the Justice Department told District of Columbia Judge Ana C. Reyes they would rewrite Section 1 of Bondi’s order by a deadline the judge set of 6:30 p.m. Eastern Friday.
In that section, Bondi’s late Thursday order named Terry Cole, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, as head of the Metropolitan Police Department.
District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb called that move a “brazen usurpation of the district’s authority” in his suit filed early Friday against the Trump administration.
Reyes, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, said if she did not receive the new order by the deadline, she would issue a temporary restraining order against the DOJ. She said she found that section of Bondi’s order “plainly contrary to statute” of the district’s Home Rule Act of 1973.
The exact changes to the order were not immediately available.
District filed suit Friday
Schwalb early Friday sued the Trump administration for taking control of the Metropolitan Police Department’s 3,400 officers.
The suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia argued that President Donald Trump’s Monday executive order to federalize the district’s police force “far exceeded” the president’s authority under the Home Rule Act of 1973 that allows Washingtonians to elect their local leaders, but gives Congress control over local laws and the district’s budget.
Trump has warned he may pursue similar action in other Democratic-led cities that he sees as having “totally out of control” crime, though experts have questioned the legality and mayors already have raised objections.
“This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it,” Schwalb, a Democrat elected in 2022, wrote on social media. “The Administration’s actions are brazenly unlawful. They go well beyond the bounds of the President’s limited authority and instead seek a hostile takeover of MPD.”
District Mayor Muriel Bowser pushed back on Bondi’s order, and wrote on social media that “there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official.”
“Let us be clear about what the law requires during a Presidential declared emergency: it requires the mayor of Washington, DC to provide the services of the Metropolitan Police Department for federal purposes at the request of the President,” she said. “We have followed the law.”
The suit asks for a judge to vacate Bondi’s order and an order to prevent the Trump administration “from issuing any future orders or directives or taking any other action that attempts to place MPD under the control of anyone other than the Mayor and the Chief of Police, otherwise assert operational control over MPD, or otherwise attempt to direct local law enforcement activities.”
The suit does not challenge Trump’s decision to deploy 800 National Guard members to the district. Because the district, home to more than 700,000 residents, is not a state, the president has the sole authority over the National Guard members.
Carjacking preceded Trump order
Trump earlier this week declared a “crime emergency” after a former U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, official was injured on Aug. 3 in an attempted carjacking incident around 3 a.m. Eastern near the Logan Circle neighborhood. Two Maryland teenagers were arrested on charges of unarmed carjacking in connection with the incident.
Violent crime in the district is at a historic 30-year low.
The suit notes Trump’s previous comments about his plans for the district, from his time as a 2024 presidential candidate to his most recent remarks about taking over control of the district while at a February press conference.
“I think that we should govern the District of Columbia … I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely flawless … And I think we should take over Washington, D.C. … We should govern D.C. The federal government should take over the governance of D.C.,” Trump said in the court document.
Advocates and local leaders have criticized the president’s decision, arguing that the move is nothing more than an extension of the administration’s immigration crackdown. Checkpoints have popped up all over the city in communities with a high immigrant population.
Additionally, the district’s police chief Thursday issued a new order to allow local police to aid federal officials in immigration enforcement for immigrants not in police custody.
Trump praised Thursday’s order, calling it “a very positive thing,” especially at checkpoints in the district.
“When they stop people, they find they’re illegal, they report them, they give them to us,” he said.
The Milwaukee Police Department is still undecided about whether to expand its use of facial recognition technology, an MPD spokesperson said.
“We are in continued conversations with the public related to FRT (facial recognition technology) and have not made any decisions,” the spokesperson said.
MPD has been in discussions with the company Biometrica, which partners with police agencies and others to provide the technology.
Meanwhile, opposition to the technology continues to grow.
In July, the Milwaukee Equal Rights Commission unanimously passed a resolution opposing MPD’s use of facial recognition. The Equal Rights Commission is a city body working to promote equality in the city’s institutions and the broader community.
Tony Snell, chair of the commission, sent a letter to Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman urging him to reject the technology. Copies were also sent to the Milwaukee Common Council, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission.
The Equal Rights Commission’s overall goal is to help the city limit the risk of discrimination against people, Snell said.
The resolution also noted a lack of publicly available data on positive outcomes in other cities that have adopted the technology.
In May, 11 of the 15 members of the Milwaukee Common Council sent a letter to Norman opposing facial recognition, citing the risk of misidentification – particularly for people of color and women – and the potential for harm to the community’s trust in law enforcement.
Additional concerns raised in public testimony to the commission – by community members and civil groups – included the potential sharing of immigration-related data with federal agencies and the targeting of individuals and groups exercising their First Amendment rights.
What MPD says
The Milwaukee Police Department considers facial recognition technology a strong investigative tool. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
MPD has consistently stated that a carefully developed policy could help reduce risks associated with facial recognition.
“Should MPD move forward with acquiring FRT, a policy will be drafted based upon best practices and public input,” a department spokesperson said.
Facial recognition technology is a potent investigation tool to quickly and effectively generate leads, said Heather Hough, MPD’s chief of staff, during the Equal Rights Commission public meeting about the technology.
But Hough emphasized facial recognition’s role as one tool among many used by MPD.
“The real work is in the human analysis and additional investigation by our detectives, by our officers,” Hough said.
She also presented case studies, including a March 2024 homicide, in which facial recognition from a neighboring jurisdiction helped identify suspects.
Biometrica, the company MPD is considering partnering with, stressed how facial recognition’s potential errors can be reduced.
Kadambari Wade, Biometrica’s chief privacy officer, said the company is constantly evaluating and re-evaluating how it does its work, looking for ways to ensure it is more accurate.
She said she and her husband, Biometrica CEO Wyly Wade, are aware of concerns about racial bias and work to address them.
“Wyly is a white man from Texas. I’m a brown-skinned immigrant,” she said.
Kadambari Wade said they want to make sure their services would work as well on her as they do on him.
Wade also denied any current or future plans to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We do not work with ICE. We do not work in immigration,” she said.
What’s next?
Since the passage of Wisconsin Act 12, the only official way to amend or reject MPD policy is by a vote of at least two-thirds of the Common Council, or 10 members.
However, council members cannot make any decision about it until MPD actually drafts its policy, often referred to as a “standard operating procedure.”
Ald. Peter Burgelis – one of four council members who did not sign onto the Common Council letter to Norman – said he is waiting to make a decision until he sees potential policy from MPD or an official piece of legislation considered by the city’s Public Safety and Health Committee.
Snell’s main concern is for MPD’s decision to be fair and just.
“Regardless … you want to be part of the process in order to eliminate, or to the extent possible, reduce risk of discrimination to people,” Snell said.
Several other police departments throughout California and using EVs.
A Palo Alto police captain says the R1S is more spacious than the Ford Explorer.
It’s unclear if the agency will purchase any other EVs from Rivian.
Update: The Palo Alto Police Department has received its first patrol-ready Rivian R1S for testing, following an announcement earlier this year. In an interview with KRON4, which had the opportunity to ride along in the specially equipped electric SUV, Assistant Chief James Reifschneider commented, “This car works perfectly with a lot of the other technologies we use here in Palo Alto that I think separate us from other agencies.”
Original story continues below.
Screenshot KRON4 / YouTube
The first-ever R1S police cruiser has officially made its debut in the United States, and it’s headed straight to Palo Alto, home to Rivian’s sprawling facility. The electric SUV was unveiled at a recent event at Rivian’s headquarters, where local Mayor Ed Lauing took a moment to shower the company with praise.
Interestingly, this charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County is also home to Tesla’s new global engineering HQ, which has been operating there since 2023. Yet, for some reason, Elon Musk’s brand didn’t quite make the cut.
Unlike the louder, garish designs you might expect from a police cruiser, the R1S keeps it understated. Most of the exterior is decked out in gloss black, while the front doors get a clean white trim. The department’s badge makes a neat appearance on the sides, adding just enough flair to remind everyone this is a police vehicle—not a luxury SUV on a road trip.
The R1S Cruiser Still Needs a Few Tweaks
For now, the R1S doesn’t have the customary red and blue roof light bar—it just didn’t arrive in time for the event. There’s also talk of a push bar being added, as well as other custom equipment for the cabin. Rivian’s engineers are reportedly working closely with the city to get the SUV ready for active duty.
Palo Alto’s Captain James Reifschneider spoke to Palo Alto Online, noting that the R1S offers significantly more cabin space than the Ford Explorers and Jeep Durangos currently used by the department.
“The electric car was created years before Rivian first shipped their EV, but Rivian wanted to be the best EV in the future, not the first EV of the past,” he said. “That sounds a lot like Palo Alto to me because Palo Alto is a great place to live and work and shop and play and go to school and that isn’t enough. We’re always looking to be more innovative going forward and to make our place in Palo Alto even better.”
Other Police EVs
Palo Alto is far from the only city jumping on the EV police cruiser bandwagon. Several agencies in California have started adding electric vehicles to their fleets, but the transition hasn’t been without its challenges.
The South Pasadena Police Department has replaced its entire fleet with Tesla Model 3s and Model Ys, but some departments have complained about the lack of space offered by these two Tesla models. The Rivian R1S is much larger, but it’s also much more expensive, starting at $75,900 in base guise before any expensive upgrades are made.
There’s no word on whether police in Palo Alto plan to add more Rivian models to their fleet.
Micah Laureano with his mother, Phyllis, who filed a lawsuit after Micah's death | Photo courtesy Phyllis Laureno
Months after 19 year-old Micah Laureano was killed by his cellmate at Green Bay Correctional Institution, Laureano’s mother filed a lawsuit against officials in the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
On Friday, Secretary Jared Hoy and the warden of GBCI, Christopher Stevens, denied violating any of Laureano’s rights and engaging in any unlawful actions.
They denied that the plaintiff, Phyllis Laureano, “is entitled to any of the relief that she seeks” and called for the complaint to be dismissed.
The lawsuit alleged that “defendants’ willful and deliberate indifference to Mr. Laureano’s safety resulted in him being murdered by his cellmate.” It alleged that “based on Defendants’ actions, Mr. Laureano suffered cruel and unusual punishment when Defendants failed to protect him from harm.”
The lawsuit alleged that “defendants failed to protect Mr. Laureano when they placed a particularly aggressive, violent, and discriminatory inmate with a history of severe physical assault and mental health issues” in a cell with him.
Vogel reportedly said he attacked Laureano because he was Black and gay, according to a report the Examiner received from the Brown County Sheriff’s Office.
According to the report, Vogel had been issued conduct reports dated March 5 and 6, 2024, for language in inmate complaints and interview requests.
The complaints reportedly contained “obscene, profane, abusive and threatening language” and swastika symbols. According to the report, Vogel wrote “‘you all need and deserve Death! Hail Hitler!’” and mentioned the Aryan Brotherhood and “‘White Power (WLM).’”
The Post-Crescent reported that in May 2024, a judge and a prosecutor in Manitowoc County received death threats in the mail from Vogel, containing violent language detailing torture and cannibalism.
In an article about Laureano’s death at GBCI in August, the Examiner reported that court records showed Vogel had been found guilty of attempted first-degree intentional homicide, and Laureano had been found guilty of taking and driving a vehicle without consent and as party to a crime for substantial battery intending bodily harm, robbery with use of force and first-degree recklessly endangering safety.
A telephone scheduling conference will take place at 9:20 a.m. on Sept. 11.
Gov. Tony Evers speaks at a press conference about his budget proposal for the Department of Corrections. Evers vetoed a bill that would have deprived Wisconsinites who finished serving their time for felonies of voting rights if they hadn't paid all their court fees and other obligations.. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.
Gov. Tony Evers recently vetoed a Republican-sponsored bill, AB87/SB95, that would have suspended the right to vote for Wisconsinites convicted of a felony who have served their sentence until they fulfill outstanding court-order obligations, such as fines, costs, restitution or community service.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
In Wisconsin, people who have served their criminal sentence for a felony, including incarceration and community service, parole, probation and extended supervision, are eligible to vote.
But the proposed legislation would have required any outstanding requirements – “fines, costs, fees, surcharges, and restitution [and] any court-ordered community service, imposed in connection with the crime” – to be addressed in full before voting rights were fully restored.
State Rep. Shae Sortwell, (R-Two Rivers) a sponsor of the bill, offered support in writing at the March 4, 2025 Assembly public hearing, saying the bill would “ensure justice is entirely served and full accountability is given to those that still owe a debt to their victims, especially those that are trafficked.” (The legislation also required restitution for victims of human trafficking as a condition.)
State Sen. Dan Feyen, (R- Fond Du Lac), a co-sponsor of the bill, said he supported the legislation “to make sure crime victims are justly compensated and the perpetrators of these crimes are held accountable for their action.”
However, in vetoing the proposed legislation, Evers said, “This bill would create additional barriers to make it harder for individuals who have completed their sentences to have their right to vote restored. My promise to Wisconsinites has always been that I will not sign legislation that makes it harder for eligible Wisconsinites to cast their ballot. I will continue to keep that promise.”
Mark Rice, Wisconsin transformational justice campaign coordinator at WISDOM, a faith-based organization that works to advance the rights of immigrants and formerly incarcerated people, said the issue is personal to him because he had his voting rights removed when he was sentenced for a felony.
“I couldn’t vote for several years after serving my prison sentence,” he said.
For those coming out of prison, said Rice, it is often difficult to secure employment and have the funds to pay off outstanding fees and restitution, and he doesn’t believe those struggling to integrate into society should face yet another obstacle to participate in civic life.
“We here at WISDOM have been organizing to expand voting rights for formerly incarcerated people for many years, and we thank Gov. Evers for vetoing a bill that would have amounted to voter suppression,” said Rice.
Marianne Oleson, operations director for Ex-incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO) of Wisconsin, also celebrated Evers’ veto.
“Governor Evers’ veto is a tremendous victory for EXPO, for the people we serve, and for democracy in Wisconsin,” Oleson said in a statement. “This bill would have imposed a modern-day poll tax, silencing thousands of Wisconsinites who have already completed their sentences simply because they could not afford to pay court costs or restitution.”
She added, “At EXPO, we believe the right to vote should never depend on the size of your bank account. Justice means restoring full citizenship and dignity to those who have paid their debt to society — not creating new barriers that keep them from participating in our democracy.”
The ACLU of Wisconsin has opposed the legislation since the March 4, 2025 public hearing.
“This proposal would create a modern-day poll tax in Wisconsin,” said the ACLU, and compared the proposed legislation to a controversial Florida bill, SB 7066, that passed in 2019, which required “outstanding legal obligations” to be met before even allowing ex-felons the ability to register to vote.
The ACLU also warned that the state does not have a “centralized database” to accurately identify all outstanding obligations that would have to be met before voting is regained.
“This would make it nearly impossible for some individuals to determine what they owe, if anything, and whether they would be eligible to vote,” an ACLU spokesperson said..
Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause of Wisconsin, an organization supporting open and responsive government, also supported Evers’ veto.
“This measure had as its goal to make it more difficult for long marginalized communities in Wisconsin who are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, as well as people living in poverty and those with disabilities, to be able to exercise their right to vote,” Heck said in a statement.
He added, “This legislation didn’t make whole people who have survived crime; it just would have weakened democracy and put the right to vote out of reach through a poll tax – an outrageous and deeply unfair price tag on the freedom to vote.”
President Donald Trump holds up an executive order after signing it during an indoor inauguration parade at the Capital One Arena on Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Wednesday overturned a lower court’s ruling that had required the Trump administration to spend foreign aid dollars approved by Congress.
But instead of addressing the central argument of the lawsuit — that a president cannot refuse to spend money approved by lawmakers, who hold the power of the purse — the Circuit Court in a potentially significant decision said the organizations that filed the case didn’t have the authority to do so.
Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote in her 33-page opinion that only the comptroller general, who leads the Government Accountability Office, has the power to bring lawsuits when a president impounds, or refuses to spend, congressionally approved funds. The GAO is an independent, non-partisan watchdog agency that works for Congress.
“Because the grantees lack a cause of action, we need not address on the merits whether the government violated the Constitution by infringing on the Congress’s spending power through alleged violations of the 2024 Appropriations Act, the ICA and the Anti-Deficiency Act,” Henderson wrote. The ICA is the Impoundment Control Act, which is the legal mechanism through which the president can delay or withhold funds.
Henderson was nominated to the Circuit Court in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, a few years after President Ronald Reagan nominated her as a federal district judge in 1986.
Henderson wrote that she and Judge Gregory G. Katsas, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, concluded “the district court abused its discretion in granting a preliminary injunction” for several reasons.
Both Republican and Democratic state attorneys general filed amicus briefs in the case, with Republicans siding with the Trump administration. The case originated when Trump signed an order on Inauguration Day freezing certain foreign aid spending.
Henderson wrote that “within weeks, the State Department and USAID suspended or terminated thousands of grant awards.”
‘It is our responsibility to check the president’
Judge Florence Y. Pan, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, issued a 46-page dissenting opinion, arguing the ruling from her two colleagues was “procedurally and substantively flawed.”
“It is our responsibility to check the President when he violates the law and exceeds his constitutional authority,” Pan wrote. “We fail to do that here.”
Pan wrote she disagreed with the majority’s opinion that Trump withholding certain foreign aid funding was “a mere violation of the Impoundment Control Act that should be addressed by the Comptroller General.”
“In this case, the President’s violation of the Impoundment Control Act is a sideshow,” Pan wrote. “That statute provided a mechanism for the President to lawfully attempt to impound the funds, and his failure to follow its prescribed procedures is evidence that he was, in fact, refusing to obligate the funds in defiance of Congress.”
Public media funding targeted
The Trump administration has used the Impoundment Control Act one time this year, when it requested Congress cancel $9.4 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and various foreign aid programs.
Senate Republicans approved the bill in July after preserving full funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.
House GOP lawmakers then cleared the bill for Trump’s signature just before a 45-day clock ran out.
Trump administration sees ‘big win’
Several members of the Trump administration, including Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought and Attorney General Pam Bondi, cheered the Circuit Court’s ruling in social media posts.
“In a 2-1 ruling, the DC Circuit lifted an injunction ordering President Trump to spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars on wasteful foreign aid projects,” Bondi wrote. “We will continue to successfully protect core Presidential authorities from judicial overreach.”
Vought wrote the ruling was a “Big win!”
An OMB spokesperson wrote in a statement the ruling represented a victory for the White House.
“Radical left dark-money groups have been using the court system to seize control of U.S. foreign policy,” the spokesperson wrote. “Today’s decision stops these private groups from maliciously interfering with the President’s ability to spend responsibly and administer foreign aid in a lawful manner and in alignment with his America First policies.”
Lauren Bateman, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel on the suit, wrote in a statement that the court’s ruling represented “a significant setback for the rule of law and risks further erosion of basic separation of powers principles.
“We will seek further review from the court, and our lawsuit will continue regardless as we seek permanent relief from the Administration’s unlawful termination of the vast majority of foreign assistance. In the meantime, countless people will suffer disease, starvation, and death from the Administration’s unconscionable decision to withhold life-saving aid from the world’s most vulnerable people.”
Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
“I will say whether I’m glad to be here after the questions,” said Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) Chief Jeffrey Norman in a joking tone on Tuesday morning, during his opening remarks at a Milwaukee Press Club Newsmaker Luncheon. As he spoke, Norman glanced at the media panel, including David Clarey of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jessica McBride of Wisconsin Right Now and Jenna Rae of TMJ4 News.
As Norman predicted, the panelists proceeded to keep him on the defensive throughout the contentious luncheon. Before he was peppered with questions about safety in downtown Milwaukee, police surveillance and whether officers should return to what courts have ruled were racially discriminatory and unconstitutional stop and frisk practices, Norman presented his own perspective on public safety in Wisconsin’s largest city.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
“I always like to start off by saying that I am proud to be the leader of the Milwaukee Police Department,” said Norman, thanking the men and women of MPD “who protect our city through challenging times, through good times, 365 days a year, seven days a week — holidays included.” Norman also thanked the community for supporting MPD after the killing of Officer Kendall Corder, who was shot while responding to a call about a subject with a gun.
Corner was one of at least two officers who have been shot this year. Norman said of the killings that it’s important for MPD officers to feel that “even though we have challenging times, we know that we have a community that’s behind us, and who understands the challenges that we’re going through, in regards to the work of public safety in our community.”
Tremaine Jones (who has pleaded not guilty) was arrested for the slaying with MPD compiling witness statements, and locating a backpack on-scene containing Jones’ social security card, employee I.D., birth certificate, debit cards, and a receipt for the lower receiver of the gun police say was used in the shooting. Since 2018, there have been six MPD officers killed in the line of duty.
As Norman moved on to the latest crime statistics, he cautioned that “the numbers are numbers, they’re data sets, but they’re not the reality of what you feel from a personal feeling, your perspective…Never will I ever say that what you feel is not your reality, or the truth. And we have to work to continue to address those concerns.”
Citing the MPD’s mid-year crime statistics report, Norman told the audience at Milwaukee’s Newsroom Pub that there has been:
A 17% violent crime reduction
7% property crime reduction
11% reduction overall for serious crimes
“And let me put that in the proper context,” Norman said, “this is on top of reductions in 2024.” According to MPD’s crime statistics dashboard, since this time last year Milwaukee has seen an 18% decline in non-fatal shootings, a 44% decline in car jackings, a 24% decline in robberies, and another 21% decline in aggravated assaults. “Now, the elephant in the room, yes homicides are up,” said Norman. In 2024, there were 132 people who lost their lives to homicide incidents in Milwaukee. A little over half way through 2025, there have been 93 deaths.
I do know that we’re not going to be able to arrest our way out of this.
– Jeffrey Norman, Chief of the Milwaukee Police Department
At the time of the mid-year report, homicides were up 13%, though the most recent numbers on the online dashboard show a 9% increase. “I always say this, anything [more] than zero is unacceptable,” said Norman. The dashboard also shows a 32% increase in human trafficking since last year, and a 52% increase since 2023. Norman didn’t address this increase, and the panelists and audience members didn’t ask about it.
Norman focused on the homicide increase, highlighting what he called “the undercurrent of what these homicides are about” — inter-personal conflict and violence that escalates into harm or death. “Poor conflict resolution,” he said, “availability of firearms to our youth. These are things that we can work together to impact, to intervene, to intercede.”
The Milwaukee Press Club news panel with David Clarey of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jessica McBride of Wisconsin Right Now and Jenna Rae of TMJ4. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
While MPD is adept at finding high-level offenders in the community, with the department boasting a nearly 80% clearance rate for solving homicides, Norman emphasized that “it’s not enough to have somebody in custody for such a horrible crime. It’s more important to prevent it.” Collaboration has been a key asset for MPD including working with community groups, elected officials and partnerships with other law enforcement agencies including the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office and State Patrol. “When we work together we are better, together, said Norman. “Leaning into the collaboration, leaning into the partnerships truly is where the rubber meets the road, so that we’re able to address when we have a flare-up of crime on Hampton Avenue, or during Cinco de Mayo, or during Juneteenth, or during Water Street, or during the Puerto Rican Fest.” Although Norman said that his own legacy has never motivated his service, he hopes to be remembered as a chief who was there, and who cared, he said, when the Milwaukee Bucks celebrated winning the NBA championship, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Republican National Convention and the historic floods just days ago. “He was there,” Norman said of himself. “He cared.”
A grilling by the media panel
The first media panel question came from Clarey of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about MPD’s use of surveillance technology. The department’s use of facial recognition software, drones and other technologies have raised concerns about privacy and due process.
Norman said that some public safety investigations and interventions have been “wrapped up in a more quick and efficient manner by utilizing the technology.” He mentioned Flock cameras the department uses to monitor license plates and identify vehicles taken in car jackings. He also noted facial recognition technology used in repeat sexual assault and homicide cases. “These are what is going on with this particular technology,” said Norman. “I am very sensitive to the concerns about surveillance, abuse, but I say this, as any tool that can be utilized by law enforcement, has the ability to be abused. It’s about what are the bumper rails? What are the expectations? What is the oversight?”
Norman said his department is committed to oversight and dialogue with the community about the technology. Yet, he also feels that the fears that he’s heard about surveillance technology are often “speculative.” By contrast, the chief said he could describe numerous concrete examples of carjacking suspects and people who committed violent crimes who were apprehended because of the technology. “That is what is going on,” said Norman, “and if there’s any tools that the Milwaukee Police Department can utilize to ensure that there is direct, serious and quick accountability, we shall use it.”
McBride, a journalism lecturer at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and contributor to the right-wing website Wisconsin Right Now, asked if Norman would support calling on the city to end its obligations under the Collins settlement, the result of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, which found that MPD had utilized racially motivated and unconstitutional stop and frisk practices for decades.
McBride said that she’s heard from officers who feel that the agreement, which mandated changes to MPD’s practices, has made it “difficult if not impossible” to do “proactive policing.” McBride cited a decline in “field interviews,” or officers talking to and gathering information from people, as well as traffic stops. She connected those changes to the rise of reckless driving in Milwaukee. Norman said that officials have focused on checks and balances to ensure that MPD is compliant, but that he also agrees that the Collins settlement should be “heavily modified.”
The agreement carries “a number of administrative burdens,” Norman said, stressing that he wholly supports constitutional policing. “There is really no wiggle room,” said Norman. “At the end of a shift, reports need to be filed. Some of our officers have done two shifts. They’re tired…There’s a cost associated with this, that’s overtime being used.” Norman said that MPD no longer sees the sort of constitutional violations which led to the Collins settlement, and that the department has shown itself to be responsible, and that things will never “backslide” on his watch.
Rae of TMJ4 asked about an incident involving a car that crashed through a police barrier in downtown Milwaukee, severely injuring two women who were crossing the street. She pushed Norman to explain why “no detectives interviewed the victims or any of the bystanders to follow up on the investigation after that crash?”
The Milwaukee Police Administration Building downtown. A surveillance van, or “critical response vehicle” is in the background. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Norman said that the investigation went as far as it needed to go, and that it culminated in “accountability measures,” which included issuing citations. Rae, unsatisfied, pushed back saying Norman didn’t answer her question, but the chief reiterated that officers were on scene, interviews were done, and that nothing more was required. An awkward silence followed as the microphone passed back to Clarey, who asked about Norman’s support of city ordinances related to so-called “street takeovers”, where people noisily gather in intersections and do tricks with their cars. Later, Rae pressed Norman further on the car crash. He said he was unprepared to focus on the specific details she wanted him to discuss.
McBride asked Norman about his $65,000 raise, bringing his salary to $243,000, and added that MPD officers have gone without a raise for over two years. She asked Norman why he accepted the raise, whether he’d suspend his raise until other MPD officers receive one, and whether he supports officers getting back-pay from the city. Norman said that he earned his raise not only through his credentials, which include a law degree, but also through the amount of hours he puts in as chief.
“I sometimes work maybe 12-14 hours, work Saturdays and Sundays, I’m actually really never off,” said Norman. “It is important to understand that no one has given me anything for free, the work that I do is earned.” In 2022, CBS58 reported that over a dozen officers made more money than the chief due to overtime pay.
Norman said he supports contract negotiations that could include back pay for officers, and that the process is in the hands of the Milwaukee Police Association and the mayor. McBride pressed again about how his raise hurts officer morale and whether he supports officers getting back pay.
A Milwaukee police squad in front of the Municipal Court downtown. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Norman was also asked about officers being sent away from their own districts to work downtown and whether “broken windows” policing — a strategy that favors tight control of even small infractions to create an overall climate of safety — should be brought back. McBride suggested he did not have “an articulable policing strategy.”
Norman was asked how he defines reckless driving; how a driver could crash into people after driving through a police barrier and “not see a day in court”; why reckless drivers without insurance retain their vehicles; how MPD retains recruits; whether prosecutors and judges should mete out tougher charges and penalties; how the Black Lives Matter protests and media reporting of policing hurts the profession and how MPD has achieved declines in carjackings. He expressed disappointment that reporters were focusing on certain incidents rather than others — including a deceased 13-year-old who wasn’t claimed for over a week, another 13-year-old who shot and killed people with an extended magazine firearm and crime on the South Side. Norman said in those cases “I wish you had the type of reporting as you have right now.”
Norman responded to a question from Wisconsin Examiner about inter-personal violence in the community and whether arresting more people and bringing more serious charges is the most effective strategy.
“When you’re talking about inter-personal conflict, how or why does it rise [to] a level of firearm violence is perplexing,” he said. “The other day we had a situation where a person was inappropriately touched. She sees the individual who inappropriately touched her, wants to confront that person, and [in] that particular confrontation someone dies, because a firearm was used.” It would have been better to call the police than to try to resolve things with a firearm, he said.
Milwaukee police officers at a crime scene in the summer of 2024. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Therapists and social scientists might have better answers to questions about violent behavior, he said. But, he added, he is committed to strengthening community partnerships with public health and safety teams, mental health specialists and other non-law-enforcement experts to try to resolve conflicts before they become violent. Many situations that escalate into homicides and firearm violence are “emotional,” he said. MPD embraces violence intervention and encourages people to be more introspective instead of “going zero to 90.”
“I do know that we’re not going to be able to arrest our way out of this,” Norman said of social conflict that can turn violent. Solving Milwaukee’s homicide cases is important but, he said, the community should ask, “How do we prevent it from happening, to where we don’t even have those numbers? That’s the real question.”
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