This story was originally published by The 19th.

MILWAUKEE — When Yessenia Ruano walks through the door of her home after work, her husband, Miguel, is in the kitchen, shredding chicken with two forks, and her twin daughters are in the living room, playing on an iPad. The sound of “Primer Impacto” fills the background. 

Ruano opens the fridge to keep the dinner prep going. On the top shelf, there are more than 150 corn tortillas lying flat in their plastic bags. On the bar counter, near unopened mail and trinkets, is a pack of zinnia seeds waiting for the last frost to pass before Yessenia and the girls plant them in the patio across the driveway. 

This doesn’t look like the home of a family on the verge of being uprooted, until Ruano and her husband — one rolling chicken into tortillas over hot oil, the other tending to a pile of dishes on the sink — start talking about the questions suddenly pressing on their everyday lives. 

In February, during a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agent told Ruano that the government would accelerate plans to deport her. Save for a change in her immigration status, the agent said, she should report back to ICE in two months with a plane ticket back to El Salvador set for 50 days out. 

It’s April now; her next appointment with ICE is coming up in just a few weeks. “She said I should buy just one plane ticket,” Ruano, 38, tells her husband, recalling a conversation with a colleague at the local public school where she works. Her colleague reasoned that if Ruano bought a fare for everyone in the family and her deportation was averted, they’d be throwing a lot of money in the trash.

“I’ve always thought we should buy four tickets,” Miguel tells her, hunched over the sink. A few months ago, Ruano went on a ladies’ retreat with her church for two nights and left him and their two children to fend for themselves. The girls cried and cried and barely slept. Their dog — a fluffy, white Bichon Frisé who was named Snowflake before the family adopted him and is now named Copito, short for snowflake in Spanish — barely ate. 

Ruano agrees that the family should stay together, but most days, she’s convinced they’ll never use any of the plane tickets in question. Ruano, for 14 years, has clung onto hope that the immigration powers that be will eventually see that she belongs in the United States. She has checked in with ICE 17 times, worn a GPS monitor. She’s also built the life she shares with her husband and their Milwaukee-born daughters, a job at a local school and volunteer work at her local Catholic parish. 

Through it all, she has searched for ways to create roots in the United States. Recently, she petitioned for a visa created for human trafficking victims, based on her experience of forced labor when she first entered the country. That petition is stuck in the growing backlog at the agency that handles visa applications, one that has accelerated since the start of the Trump administration.

“Of course, practically speaking, they can do whatever they want,” Ruano says. “If they’re a little human, then I can prove I belong here. If they just care about detaining people to meet a certain quota and deport them — if I’m just another number — then I can already hear them saying, ‘Ma’am, I don’t care about your case. We’re so sorry, but we’re going to send you back to your country.’” 

Ruano is among the millions of immigrants living in the United States who are facing deportation as the Trump administration ramps up the removal of people with no permanent immigration status. That includes immigrants who, like Ruano, have been in the country for more than a decade and have no criminal record, and whose ties to the country include young children — some of them U.S. citizens — and also careers and community. 

Ruano’s precarious situation isn’t entirely the product of Trump-era policies. Like millions of immigrants living in the United States, she entered the country at the southern border, lured by the promise of safety and stability. Like thousands of others, she asked for asylum and was allowed to stay as she waited for a resolution on her petition, as long as she followed the law. Even after her petition was unsuccessful, the U.S. government allowed her to remain in the country provided that she checked in regularly with immigration officials. 

Under the United States’ broken immigration system, one in which laws that haven’t been updated in decades no longer align with the reality of immigration patterns, the country’s reliance on the immigrant labor force or even the government’s ability to enforce such laws, immigrants like Ruano have always lived at the discretion — at the whim — of whoever is in power, from the president down to the ICE officer who is looking at their case that day. 

When President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January, that dynamic changed again, fueled by an agenda that seems to be taking shape day by day. 

Ruano remains in this limbo, bracing for her life to be upended while fighting for a different outcome. She follows the countless news stories about people who are in ICE detention, or who have been swiftly deported back to their home countries. Hundreds of thousands more are living just like her, navigating the shifting sands of American immigration policy. 

Ruano’s day usually starts early, and by 6:15 a.m., her daughters Paola and Eli, 9, are in the dining room, ready for their mom to brush their hair. Back in El Salvador, Ruano didn’t think she would ever have children. The world seemed dangerous and broken, and life was expensive. “With the cost of living, I always thought, how?” she said one morning while brushing Eli’s hair and finishing it with a braid.

Ruano and her husband went to high school together in El Salvador and reconnected again in Milwaukee at the frozen pizza manufacturing plant where they both worked. Eventually, they started dreaming of growing their family. Soon there were four of them. Juggling two babies was hard, but they both landed steady work and were able to buy the duplex they live in, an older home they’ve improved slowly. Here, they are watching Eli and Paola thrive. 

Eli loves art. She loves to take clay-like dirt from the backyard and shape it. In their living room, Ruano points to a little bowl made of coiled clay, brown and crumbly and beautiful. A bucket holds dozens of small figurines made with air-dry clay, detailed and complex. 

Paola is much more interested in building with Legos, and Ruano says proudly that she is ahead of her peers in math. Barely older than her sister, Paola has also taken on a caretaking role in the family that Ruano says came to her naturally.

Ruano’s daughters have been learning the violin and the viola. They’ve been debating whether to keep going with the string instruments or move on to another extracurricular activity.

“All of those special skills and talents, we can’t really tend to them in my country,” Ruano said. “It’s like they’re trying to rip away my dreams, and also those of my two girls.”

Eli and Paola are U.S. citizens. Their lives would be significantly different in El Salvador, where economic opportunity, gender-based violence and more could alter the course of their lives. Their father, Miguel, has no legal immigration status. The 19th is not publishing his last name to protect his privacy and employment.

Both times Ruano has appeared before ICE this year, agents have alluded to her daughters. During her February appointment, the agent said Ruano should buy plane tickets for her girls as well because she “would hate to see the family separated,” Ruano recalls. During her April appointment, Ruano’s lawyer at the time recalled that the agent scanned Ruano’s plane ticket and asked why she hadn’t bought plane tickets for the girls.

Ruano has spent time talking to each daughter about the different possibilities ahead for their family, including a new life in El Salvador. 

“I tried to focus on the positive things, things I liked as a girl,” Ruano said. Ruano explained that the school day in El Salvador would be shorter — the country has one of the shortest school weeks in the world. There would be more time for play. 

“I told them that they’d see mango trees, orange trees,” Ruano said. “Things we don’t have here.” 

They’d still get to sleep next to each other, as they do in Milwaukee.

Ruano has a trove of files documenting her immigration journey in the United States, but one piece of paper worn thin from years of use tracks every check-in she’s had with ICE since she entered the United States from Mexico in 2011.

At the time, Ruano petitioned for the only form of relief she was told she was eligible for, a form of asylum called “withholding of removal,” which requires immigrants to prove that there is at least a 51% likelihood of suffering persecution in their home country. 

When her case finally came up for review a decade later, a judge told Ruano that her petition would be denied and said Ruano could withdraw it to avoid having the denial on her record. During the hearing, the judge told Ruano through her then-lawyer that the U.S. government wasn’t actively deporting people like her, who had no criminal record. She could explore other avenues for legal status. 

By 2024, she was running out of alternatives and time. ICE placed her in a monitoring program called Alternatives to Detention, or ATD, and told that her deadline to file for a different path to legal status was near. 

ICE advertises the ATD program as having been designed for immigrants who were “thoroughly vetted” and deemed not a risk to public safety. To enroll someone in the program, ICE officers consider their ties to the community and status as a caregiver or provider. Ruano checked all of the boxes. 

Ruano’s participation in the program left a mark: She has a band of pale skin around her wrist, where ICE secured a GPS device. 

The device tracked her location, had facial-recognition software for regular check-ins with ICE, and had messaging capabilities between the agency and Ruano; “Please call your officer” was a regular prompt. Ruano could swap the batteries to make sure the wrist monitor was powered at all times. Sometimes the backup battery wouldn’t work, so she was left to plug the monitor — still attached to her wrist — directly into a wall outlet. When it became loose and couldn’t read her pulse, it would blare loudly. “I would be in the classroom with kids, trying to fix it,” Ruano said. 

At home, Ruano pored over the internet and eventually found a firm in Chicago that helped her file for a T visa as a victim of human trafficking. 

The application was almost complete when Ruano was asked to report to ICE for a check-in on Valentine’s Day. Ruano’s lawyer at the time told her that she feared there was a better-than-90% chance she would be detained. Ruano felt that the time she was promised to finish her application had been suddenly taken away.

She spent most of the week of the appointment working furiously to make sure her T visa application was in the hands of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that her personal documents were in order, that there was a care plan for the girls beyond Miguel. She did all of that while juggling calls with reporters and advocates from Voces de la Frontera, the local immigrant advocacy group supporting her. She watched herself get to the brink of an emotional breakdown. The voice inside her head begged for surrender: “I’m done. I can’t keep going. I’ll go back to my country and start over, from zero. The fight is over.”

It’s a shift from her default, a hope and belief that things will work out. 

“It’s been 14 years and I’ve suffered a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety. Every week before one of my hearings with a judge or a check-in with ICE, those are nights of no sleep,” Ruano said. “I’ll wake up at one in the morning needing to vomit.” She’s had 17 appointments over that time span, and 17 sleepless weeks.

Unlike many immigrants without authorization to permanently live in the country, Ruano has not and does not live in the shadows. The U.S. government knows exactly who she is, where she lives, where she works. Ruano said she was not — and is not — willing to defy a deportation order.

“It wouldn’t be worth it,” she said. “I would rather go back to my country, whatever may happen there. Because when I think about living in the shadows, not being able to use my real name, never being at peace … I don’t want to live in hiding, waiting for the day they knock on my door.” 

At the bilingual public school where she teaches, in Milwaukee’s heavily Hispanic South Side, the chaos of Ruano’s immigration limbo dials down. 

“I feel like I’m in my own world,” Ruano said. “My problems stay back home.” When she walks into a classroom full of kindergarteners, she tells herself, “Vamos a echarle ganas a este dia.” Let’s do this. 

It’s an easy place for her mind to wander to the version of the future she has dreamed for herself. She’s an assistant teacher supporting the youngest learners with the most challenging needs. “I’m always thinking about getting my teaching license,” Ruano said, “so I can have my own classroom.” 

Milwaukee has for years struggled with a shortage of teachers, falling victim to the nationwide teacher shortage. The district’s superintendent announced recently that the next school year would start with 80 vacant teaching positions, and that’s with a recent decision to thin the district’s central office by moving more than a fifth of its administrative staffers with teaching certifications into classroom positions. 

In El Salvador, Ruano graduated from high school and worked her way through college to become an upper-grade teacher. She looked for work in education and wound up cleaning houses instead, joining other teachers with training but no place in the workforce. “You just end up having to do other work,” Ruano said. “I got here and saw that there’s so much opportunity. Here, they need teachers.”

Ruano’s workday begins outside the school, where her job is to welcome kids getting dropped off by their parents. On a frigid April day — she does this same job on frigid January days, too, just with extra gear — most of the interactions are quick hellos and good mornings. One little boy in a Minecraft backpack is refusing to walk in. He’s sad, and he’s asking for his mom. Ruano leans down to chat with him for a minute, a hand on his shoulder, a warm smile beaming. Eventually, he decides to go inside. 

Ruano’s job at this public school has anchored her firmly in this community. As part of Ruano’s public plea to immigration officials, teachers and parents from her school have written letters about the value she brings to her community. One parent wrote that their child had been upset for days, worried about the fate of his favorite teacher. Ruano read one of these letters during a news conference before she walked into her February check-in, surrounded by TV cameras and supporters from Voces de la Frontera. Within 48 hours, they collected 2,800 signatures in an online petition supporting Ruano.

When Ruano walked out of the courthouse that day, she went to the school to drop off her girls. Students filled the hallways and stairwells, erupting in cheers, relieved that she had not been detained. 

“What was really sweet was that she led them in singing our school song. They’re usually quiet and shy when we sing it during our school assemblies. That day they were not,” said Brenda Martinez, who helped found the school and acts as its principal. Martinez has been worried about Ruano’s case and said the school can’t afford to lose her. 

“She has a lot of patience to work with the littlest learners. That’s who she is,” Martinez said. “To lose her is like losing a member of our family.” 

One of the most remarkable aspects of Ruano’s journey, she’ll say herself, is her own outlook in the face of so much upheaval. “La esperanza no se me quita,” Ruano said. For the most part, she can’t shake the hope that someday, things will inevitably work out. 

When she reached a point of desperation earlier in the year, she said the thought that pulled her out was a Bible verse she’d memorized. “I could hear Joshua 1:9 in my head: ‘Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.’”

Ruano and her family are devout Catholics and also involved with a local Evangelical church. Faith runs through their lives, though the urgency with which Ruano prays lately is new. 

During a recent Spanish-language Mass at the parish the family attends — the large hall filled quickly to capacity — the Rev. Javier Bustos opened the service with a prayer that asked God for “justice for the nation’s immigrants.” Bustos said in an interview that since the start of the Trump administration, fear has become palpable in his community, and Ruano’s family is just one of the many whom he prays for. 

In many ways, Ruano’s journey to the United States is not unique. She watched violence escalate in El Salvador, and grieved when her brother was kidnapped and later murdered. Her fear for her safety, combined with economic uncertainty, made a future in her home country look grim. 

Her first attempt to enter the United States resulted in her immediate removal. She tried again less than a year later, paying a group of coyotes to guide her way into the country safely. Once in the United States, Ruano said, she became trapped in a filthy home and forced to work for her captors. She was eventually released after they extorted more money from her family back home. This forms the basis for her claim for a T visa, which requires her cooperation with law enforcement. 

Bustos, Ruano’s priest, said in an interview that every immigrant’s story is different, but that losing closely knit members of this church community feels the same: “Like losing an arm, or a limb.” 

Ruano is an active member of the church’s prayer group and volunteers during Mass. This Sunday, she was tasked with a Bible reading in front of the several hundred gathered, including her husband and daughters, who smiled watching her walk up to the lectern. 

Later, she attended a training for members hoping to work with young children, focused on keeping them safe. Ruano is part of a group of members who have committed nearly every Saturday for the next two years to walking a group of children through an intense curriculum in the Catholic faith, up to their First Communion. 

Ruano already started the rigorous curriculum with her group of students. She hopes to be around to watch them reach the rite of passage.

There’s a single Salvadoran restaurant in Milwaukee. Its owner, Concepcion Arias, says business has changed since Trump was elected. Fewer customers are coming through the doors, and even some of the regulars are asking for their meals to go. “People don’t want to be out and about,” she said. 

But Ruano and her family are here on a Sunday after church, one of their regular spots for a meal after Mass. Paola orders a plate of fries with ketchup, while Eli goes for traditional pupusas. 

On the cover of the menu is a picture of a beach in El Salvador. “That’s where my uncle lives,” Ruano says. The girls glance at the small photo of the sunny tropical landscape. When Ruano was a teenager, she moved to this coastal town to work at her uncle’s hotel, a job that helped her pay for school. The girls agree the beach looks beautiful, but then Paola chimes in: “I’m really scared I’m going to die on a plane.” She’s thinking about the prospect of ever traveling to El Salvador, a place she only knows through her parents’ stories. 

Little moments like this one remind all four that the threat of removal hangs heavily over their lives. When lunch is over, the family heads back home, and then Miguel goes out to meet with a contractor. Their home’s roof is overdue for a replacement — one of dozens of to dos that are suddenly urgent. Miguel is worried about leaving their home in less than good shape if Yessenia is removed to El Salvador.

Under the Biden administration, a pending T visa application would typically halt removal proceedings, but that guarantee no longer exists under the Trump administration. At the end of the Biden administration, the wait time for USCIS to confirm it had received a visa application averaged about four weeks. On the day of Ruano’s February check-in with ICE, the Trump administration fired 50 employees from USCIS. Within a few weeks, immigration lawyers were reporting that the wait time for visa application receipts had started to grow. When Ruano called USCIS to check on her case in early April, an agent said the average wait time was 10 weeks. When she checked in with USCIS in early May, they told her the wait had grown to four months.

Her lawyer, Marc Christopher, who has spent years working on immigration cases in the Milwaukee area, said he’s not sure why ICE hasn’t fast-tracked her deportation, but that in a multi-tiered system where so much is up to discretion, it’s not clear who will have the final say on her case.

She is due back for another appointment with ICE at the end of May. In an interview Tuesday, Ruano said she remains hopeful. She’s also started to sell household items they no longer use on Facebook Marketplace, a small step toward resignation. She hasn’t bought flights for her husband or daughters and hopes she won’t have to. The zinnia seeds are now one-inch sprouts.

Ruano’s daughters will turn 10 in early June. This year, they’re most looking forward to celebrating their birthday at school, with cupcakes in class, surrounded by their friends, their mom nearby. 

Ruano’s flight is scheduled to leave the United States the next day.

This story was originally reported by Mel Leonor Barclay of The 19th. Meet Mel and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Fourteen years in Wisconsin. A one-way ticket to El Salvador. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Protesters gather in Kenosha the second night of protests on August 24th, 2020. This was before the clashes with police later that night. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Imagine you hear about a protest in your community and,  curious, you join your neighbors who are marching in the street. Although the protest is loud and slows down  traffic, it appears peaceful and non-violent. Then suddenly, someone throws a rock or spray-paints a building, and now you find yourself among those apprehended for felony rioting, regardless of whether you committed an act of vandalism or  know who did.

Civil rights advocates fear such a scenario if under a Republican bill that defines a riot as a public disturbance, an act of violence or a “clear and present danger” of property destruction or personal injury involving at least three people. A similar bill was introduced in 2017 by Rep. John Spiros (R-Marshfield). A new version is  (AB-88), authored by Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) and Sen. Dan Feyen (R- Fond du Lac). 

People who say their property was damaged or vandalized during what the bill defines as a “riot” would also be able to seek civil damages from people or organizations that “provided material support or resources with the intent that such support or resources would be used to perpetrate the offense,” under the bill. It also prohibits government officials with direct authority over law enforcement agencies from limiting or restricting those agencies’ ability to quell vandalism or rioting, as defined by the bill.

Jon McCray Jones, a policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin is concerned that the bill’s definition of a “riot” is too vague. “Using that definition, a riot could be three teenagers driving around in a car knocking off mail boxes,” McCray Jones told Wisconsin Examiner. “Technically, with this definition, a riot could be a food fight.” The bill’s language concerning people who “urge, promote, organize, encourage, or instigate others to commit a riot” is also vague according to McCray Jones, who says this aspect of the bill would open protest leaders and organizers up to criminal and civil liability, regardless of their involvement in rioting.

Sortwell and Feyen did not respond to requests for comment for this story. In written testimony before the Assembly Committee on Judiciary on May 7, both lawmakers said that riots have become more common in recent years. “We saw the destructive riots a few years ago in several metropolitan areas, including right here in Madison and Kenosha,” said Sortwell, referring to George Floyd-inspired protests and unrest in 2020. “Taking a walk down State Street, one would see busted doors and windows of businesses, products stolen, and a smashed statue of a Civil War hero. Several business owners, employees, and citizens had their lives upended.”

Feyen said that “peaceful protests are a cornerstone of our public discourse and will always be protected under the First Amendment, but a line needs to be drawn when those protests go from being peaceful to being destructive and violent.” Although the bill does not  mention specific protests, Feyen wrote, “stricter penalties are needed to deter protesters from crossing that line from protest to property destruction, vandalism, arson, and physical violence.” 

Although scenes of burning buildings and looted stores received a lot of news coverage in 2020, studies suggest that at least 96% of Black Lives Matter protests during the movement’s peak in May and June of 2020 were peaceful. Reports by TMJ4 found that 74.3% of the nearly 200 people who’d been placed on an intelligence list by police in Milwaukee county that year had never been charged with a misdemeanor or felony. Some reports, however, using data derived from insurance claims, estimate that as much as $2 billion in damage nationally occurred due to protests in 2020. 

Some residents of Kenosha – a city referenced by the bill’s authors – recall how months of non-violent protest in Kenosha after Floyd’s death were overshadowed by the unrest that  occurred in August 2020. The shooting of Jacob Blake by Kenosha officer Rusten Sheskey, which paralyzed Blake, led to days of protest and unrest, millions of dollars worth of property destruction, and ended when  then-17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse fatally shot two people and wounded another, in what a jury later ruled was an act of self-defense. 

During committee hearings on May 7, Sortwell said that the bill seeks to punish not only people who commit vandalism but also “those people who put together the riot.”

Several groups have either lobbied or spoken out against the bill. The Wisconsin Civil Justice Council submitted written testimony opposing the bill on the behalf of “16 business associations working together on civil liability matters.” The council said that the bill would allow for civil compensation for emotional distress stemming from property destruction, noting that emotional damages are generally limited. AB-88 would also allow for any civil compensation to include attorneys’ fees, which would be another departure from current law, the council wrote. Others spoke against the bill in person on May 7, pointing to the bill’s broad language and the chilling effect it could have on political movements. 

“This bill is just a blatant attempt to stop people from protesting,” said McCray Jones. “This is a way to silence organizers from fighting for political change and threatening the status quo in power.” Organizers could potentially be sued for anything that happens at a protest, or even just for transporting someone to a protest that later turns into a riot, as defined under the bill. 

What counts as urging or promoting a riot is broad enough to include common protest chants, like “no justice, no peace,” McCray Jones said. “And if you have ambitious or politically motivated district attorneys…politically motivated prosecutors, the vagueness of this bill could be weaponized … free speech now gets criminally turned into inciting a riot.” 

McCray Jones added that he wonders what a police figure like former Milwaukee PD Chief Harold Breier — notorious for targeting and surveilling Black, brown and LGBTQ communities — would have been able to accomplish had such a law been at his disposal. 

As police departments develop their social media surveillance capabilities, it’s possible under the bill that making posts encouraging people to attend a protest could be seen as an attempt to “urge, promote, organize, encourage, or instigate” a riot under the bill. After the protests of 2020, some agencies that monitored protesters enacted new intelligence-gathering policies to help prevent broad, ideology-based surveillance.  

“I think that right now this moment gives us a very opportune chance to highlight the importance of protecting the privacy of protesters here in Wisconsin,” McCray Jones told Wisconsin Examiner. McCray Jones said he hopes debate about the bill  will become “a jumping off point to talk about not just data privacy for protesters, not just privacy from law enforcement for marginalized communities, but what does it look like to re-think our position on surveillance in the midst of this regime in D.C. that is blatantly ignoring due process, the rule of law, and civil rights.” 

A Wisconsin judge pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges accusing her of helping a man who is illegally in the country evade U.S. immigration authorities seeking to arrest him in her courthouse.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan entered the plea during a brief arraignment in federal court. Magistrate Judge Stephen Dries scheduled a trial to begin July 21. Dugan’s lead attorney, Steven Biskupic, told the judge that he expects the trial to last a week.

Dugan, her lawyers and prosecutors left the hearing without speaking to reporters.

She is charged with concealing an individual to prevent arrest and obstruction. Prosecutors say she escorted Eduardo Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer out of her courtroom through a back door on April 18 after learning that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were in the courthouse seeking to arrest him for being in the country illegally. She could face up to six years in prison if convicted on both counts.

Her attorneys say she’s innocent. They filed a motion Wednesday to dismiss the case, saying she was acting in her official capacity as a judge and therefore is immune to prosecution. They also maintain that the federal government violated Wisconsin’s sovereignty by disrupting a state courtroom and prosecuting a state judge.

A public backlash

Dugan’s arrest has inflamed tensions between the Trump administration and Democrats over the president’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse ahead of Thursday’s hearing, with some holding signs that read “Only Fascists Arrest Judges — Drop the Charges,” “Department of Justice Over-Reach” and “Keep Your Hands Off Our Judges!!” The crowd chanted “Due process rights,” “Hands off our freedom,” and “Si se puede” — Spanish for “Yes, we can” — which is a rallying cry for immigrant rights advocates.

One man stood alone across the street holding a Trump flag.

Nancy Camden, from suburban Mequon north of Milwaukee, was among the protesters calling for the case to be dismissed. She said she believes ICE shouldn’t have tried to arrest Flores-Ruiz inside the courthouse and the Department of Justice “overreached” in charging Dugan.

“How they handled this and made a big show of arresting her and putting her in handcuffs, all of that was intimidation,” Camden said. “And I’m not going to be intimidated. I’m fighting back.”

Esther Cabrera, an organizer with the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, said the charges against Dugan amount to “state-funded repression.”

“If we are going to go after judges, if we’re going to go after mayors, we have to understand that they can come after anybody,” she said. “And that’s kind of why we wanted to make a presence out here today is to say that you can’t come after everyone and it stops here.”

According to court documents, Flores-Ruiz illegally reentered the U.S. after being deported in 2013. Online court records show he was charged with three counts of misdemeanor domestic abuse in Milwaukee County in March, and he was in Dugan’s courtroom on April 18 for a hearing in that case.

According to an FBI affidavit, Dugan was alerted to the agents’ presence by her clerk, who was informed by an attorney that the agents appeared to be in the hallway. Dugan was visibly angry and called the situation “absurd” before leaving the bench and retreating to her chambers, the affidavit contends. She and another judge later approached members of the arrest team in the courthouse with what witnesses described as a “confrontational, angry demeanor.”

After a back-and-forth with the agents over the warrant for Flores-Ruiz, Dugan demanded they speak with the chief judge and led them from the courtroom, according to the affidavit.

After she returned to the courtroom, witnesses heard her say something to the effect of “wait, come with me” before ushering Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out through a door typically used only by deputies, jurors, court staff and in-custody defendants, the affidavit alleges. Flores-Ruiz was free on a signature bond in the abuse case, according to online state court records. Federal agents ultimately detained him outside the courthouse after a foot chase.

The state Supreme Court suspended Dugan last week, saying the move was necessary to preserve public confidence in the judiciary. She was freed after her arrest.

How the case might play out

John Vaudreuil, a former federal prosecutor in Wisconsin who isn’t involved in Dugan’s or Flores-Ruiz’s cases, said the Trump administration seems to want to make an example out of Dugan. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi or Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, rather than the U.S. attorney in Milwaukee, are likely making the decisions on how to proceed, making it less likely prosecutors will reduce the charges against Dugan in a deal, he said.

Her attorneys will likely try to push for a jury trial, Vaudreuil predicted, because they know that “people feel very strongly about the way the president and administration is conducting immigration policy.”

Dugan is represented by some of Wisconsin’s most accomplished lawyers. Biskupic was a federal prosecutor for 20 years and served seven years as U.S. attorney in Milwaukee. Paul Clement, meanwhile, is a former U.S. solicitor general who has argued more than 100 cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Both were appointed to jobs by former Republican President George W. Bush.

Associated Press reporters Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Laura Bargfeld contributed to this report.

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

Milwaukee judge pleads not guilty to helping man evade federal immigration agents is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Protesters gather to support Judge Hannah Dugan. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Judge Hannah Dugan appeared at her arraignment Thursday in Milwaukee’s federal court and pleaded not guilty to charges that she helped a man elude federal agents in the Milwaukee County courthouse earlier this year. 

Dugan was arrested in April and was indicted Tuesday by a grand jury on two counts, concealing a person from arrest and obstruction of proceedings. The charges could carry penalties of six years of prison, years of supervision, and at least $350,000 in fines. 

Dugan appeared with three attorneys, and did not comment to reporters after the hearing was over. Attorneys mentioned in court that a small number of video excerpts have been shared with the defense, but discovery is still ongoing. 

Judge Lynn Adelman has been assigned to preside over Dugan’s jury trial, which was set to start on July 21, with a pretrial hearing July 9. Jury selection is expected to be lengthy and complicated. A motions hearing was set in Judge Nancy Joseph’s court on May 30.

Dugan is accused of escorting a man into a public hallway with access to elevators after federal agents arrived outside her courtroom, where the man, a Mexican immigrant, was having a routine hearing in a misdemeanor battery case.

The agents had an administrative warrant for his arrest, which was not signed by a judge and did not give agents the authority to enter the courtroom. While the agents waited in the hallway outside, Dugan directed the man and his attorney out a side door that exited into the same hallway. The agents saw him leave the room and one rode down the elevator with him before he was arrested later on the street. 

Outside the Milwaukee federal courthouse on Thursday, a crowd of about 200 people gathered, including elected officials, activists and local residents showed up early in the morning to support the circuit court judge. Speakers led chants through a microphone on the courthouse steps.

One person at the rally, Erik Fanning, said that the charges against Dugan feel “preposterous,” and argued that a judge would be knowledgeable about what the law would and would not allow her to do in courtroom situations. 

“As many people in this country have found out, the law can be manipulated in order to serve an interest that’s sometimes more powerful than the law, as we’re seeing right now in this country,” Fanning told Wisconsin Examiner. “And so that’s the fear here with me.”

After her arrest, Dugan was suspended by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and protests erupted in Milwaukee County calling for the charges against her to be dropped.

If the case against Dugan succeeds, “That’s a powerful statement,” Fanning said. “That’s a powerful move in this game that they’re playing with our justice system.”

Shortly after Dugan’s arrest, FBI Director Kash Patel posted on social media praising her detention, then deleted the post. 

For Fanning, Dugan’s arrest felt like a “made-for-TV” moment created by the Trump administration. More press attention on Dugan’s arrest and trial validates his own instincts that “this is a watershed moment,” he said.  

“The media should be interested, because it’s a frightening, very important moment,” Fanning said. “Remember who this administration’s leader is. It’s a TV guy. It’s a manipulating the press, and propaganda guy…So everything they do is a TV show.”

When he leaves the office at the end of the week, James Hutchinson, captain of the Milwaukee Police Department’s Homicide Unit, can’t wait for Monday so he can get back to work solving murders.

“I could have retired six months ago,” he said. “But I know that the work we do really makes an impact on people’s lives.”

That work doesn’t always go as planned. Last year Milwaukee homicide detectives cleared 78% of the 132 murder cases they investigated — the highest rate in years. From 2020 to 2023, when murder rates soared during the pandemic, clearance rates fluctuated between 50% and 59%, leaving many families without closure.

For those awaiting justice, Hutchinson said he wants them to know that his team of 33 investigators remains committed to solving their case.

“From the first two weeks to a month, or months or years down the line, we’re equally as committed to solving a murder as we were today.”

That work begins as soon as a homicide is reported, he said.

Homicide investigations in Milwaukee

Typically, said Hutchinson, uniformed officers are the first to arrive on the scene. They work to establish an incident command area, set parameters using police tape, control crowds and prevent any disruption of evidence.

Patrol officers are also the first to seek out witnesses and spot cameras.

Detectives are not far behind. As soon as a homicide is reported, Hutchinson said, a team of detectives and supervisors will immediately head to the scene and start their investigation.

Once they arrive, they assemble the information that’s already been collected, gather more clues, find additional witnesses and hopefully identify suspects. Investigations take place in homes, city streets and hospitals or even at the medical examiner’s office.

Critical, Hutchinson said, is the early stages of that investigation.

“Those first moments, those first hours, those first minutes are very important. Evidence starts to disappear. People go to different places. It could be as simple as video evidence being recorded over. We focus and attack an investigation very fast, very intensively,” he said.

When homicides happen in bunches, as was often the case during the pandemic, resources are pulled from other units to help.

The team approach

Hutchinson said MPD investigates homicides differently from any other large city in America, using a team approach rather than dedicating detectives to specific cases. Homicide investigators working that shift will begin the investigation and then debrief the next shift before handing off the case.

“They brief the incoming shift on what occurred, what was accomplished and what still needs to be done,” Hutchinson said. “That cycle continues until we run out of things we need to do right now.”

Utilizing this method allows for a continuous investigation, but it also creates some problems, acknowledges Hutchinson.

“Because there is this team concept, you have a potential for having not as much accountability per person,” he said. 

He said his division works to alleviate that problem by relying on sergeants and others, including himself, to oversee investigations and follow-ups.

Communication challenges

Another issue with not dedicating specific investigators to specific cases is communication.

“We love to get information, but we are not good at checking back in with the family and letting them know we haven’t forgotten,” he said. “We acknowledge that we have room for improvement.”

Not receiving regular updates from homicide investigators is a common complaint among family members of victims, especially those whose cases remain unsolved.

Brenda Hines, whose son Donovan was murdered in 2017, tracked down officers in person when they wouldn’t respond to her calls. 

“It’s a bad process,” she said. 

She founded the Donovan Hines Foundation in honor of her son and to help other families by providing grief support, mental health and other resources to residents. 

Hines said she believes police can still solve her son’s murder if anything should come up.

“They just don’t have enough evidence yet,” she said.

Janice Gorden, who created Victims of Milwaukee Violence to help families access funeral support and other services, said she believes police are doing what they can to solve homicides and work with families.

But families, she said, will not be satisfied until they have answers. Often it gets to the point where they become focused on investigating the case themselves.

“They have way more information than sometimes the detectives do,” Gorden said. “They drive themselves crazy trying to find answers to who killed their loved one.”

Both Hines and Gorden have worked with mothers to arrange meetings with police and the district attorney’s office to get information about homicide cases.

Hutchinson said two new victim support positions were created recently to help improve communication with families.

Notifying the family

Hutchinson worked his way up the ranks of MPD, first as a patrol officer, then gang squad, detective, robbery and vice squad, and as a homicide detective from 2008 to 2020.

Before becoming captain, he has often taken on the grim task of letting a family member know a loved one was killed.

“Making a death notification is one of the hardest parts of this job. It’s incredibly heartbreaking,” he said. “The range of reactions, you can’t even anticipate. There are completely stoic people that accept what you’re telling them, to some incredibly violent reactions.”

A much better feeling, he said, is when they are able to notify a family that an arrest has been made. But even that’s a struggle.

From investigation to charges

Although police might make an arrest in a homicide case, that doesn’t mean that charges will be filed.

Police, Hutchinson said, only need probable cause to make an arrest. The burden of proof at the district attorney’s office, which files homicide charges, is higher.

“The DA’s office has to be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said. “Many times we will make an arrest for probable cause, but we can’t get to that level.”

What often happens, Hutchinson said, is that officers will bring a case to the DA’s office or discuss what evidence they have and then talk about whether more is needed to file charges.

While that does bring some frustration, admits Hutchinson, it’s better than arresting the wrong person.

“My worst nightmare I would have in the world is to have the wrong person held accountable for a crime,” he said.

Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern acknowledges that the work to hold someone accountable for murder can be burdensome on families seeking justice.

“Obviously, there is a significant gap between the evidence needed to make an arrest versus the evidence needed to successfully prosecute a case,” Lovern said.

The reason for caution and continued dialogue with officers in hopes of building a strong case is because there’s no room for error.

“We really have one opportunity with a particular suspect to bring forward charges and we want to get it right. Not only for the person charged, but the victim’s family and the integrity of the system,” he said.

‘We never forget about the victims’

Depending on the time of year and other circumstances, homicide investigation units can get extremely busy, Hutchinson said. Even when pulling resources from other units, it can still impact the amount of time investigators have for each case.

On the flip side, he said, sometimes they’ve hit the point where they don’t have anything left to do at the moment. But, he said, he wants families to know that victims are more than just a name to them.

“They are someone’s family member or friend, and the day they died is probably the worst day of many people’s lives,” he said.

Whether it’s been days, months or years, he wants family members to know his unit remains committed to solving their murder.

“Everyone can be assured that we never forget about the victims,” he said. “There is no replacement for their loved one, but it feels great to be able to notify the family that we have made an arrest.”

How you can help

Anyone with information on homicides is asked to contact Milwaukee police at 414-935-7360, or to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 414- 224-TIPS.

What happens when someone is murdered in Milwaukee? An inside look at homicide investigations is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The state of Wisconsin is rescinding the Social Development Commission’s status as Milwaukee County’s community action agency, a move that puts the SDC’s ability to offer critical services to the community in jeopardy.

The anti-poverty agency has held that designation for over 60 years. Without the status, SDC is not eligible for key federal block grant funding for its services.

In a letter sent Friday to the SDC board, Wisconsin Department of Children and Families Secretary Jeff Pertl wrote that as of July 3, SDC’s status as Milwaukee County’s community action agency will end and that the agency will no longer be eligible for federal Community Services Block Grant funding.

“SDC has been a beloved institution in Milwaukee, positively impacting community members through a long history of programs and services,” Pertl said in a statement. “As such, the decision to de-designate them as a community action agency was not taken lightly, but it is clear that we must turn the page to resume these vital services.”

The decision comes after representatives of Milwaukee County said earlier this month that they planned to move from SDC as its community action agency.

However, SDC board members had seen maintaining the community action status as a vital part of keeping the agency open and resuming social services.

“The most important thing is to make sure that Milwaukee County residents are served, and this missive from DCF ensures that they will not be served,” said William Sulton, SDC’s attorney.

Now, the SDC board can request a review with the federal government within 30 days or choose to voluntarily de-designate.

The decision

The department decided to terminate SDC’s designation because it believes SDC has not been operating anti-poverty services since it abruptly shut down in April 2024, despite reopening in December.

According to the letter, SDC has not completed its federally required audit, verified sustainable funding sources, addressed outstanding financial obligations or corrected other deficiencies the department identified.

Board members and current and former employees of SDC advocated for the agency to keep its community action status at a hearing last month.

SDC was created by state, county and city governments but functions outside of them.

Pertl acknowledged the commitment of former staff members who performed unpaid service in support of SDC’s work and the board’s desire to restore SDC in his letter.

“There is also an array of community members and leaders who contend SDC is unable to carry out its vital mission in light of the financial mismanagement, pending foreclosures, outstanding debts, eroded infrastructure and lack of urgency in finding resolution to these practical service delivery challenges,” Pertl wrote in the letter.

SDC provided a range of services to help low-income residents, such as tax support, career advancement, senior companionship and rent assistance.

What happens next?

Going forward, SDC has the option to request a review by the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services within 30 days.

It could also voluntarily relinquish its community action status, which would allow the department and Milwaukee County to more quickly find an interim service provider to use SDC’s allocated funds for the year.

The letter noted that President Donald Trump’s administration proposed eliminating block grant funding to community action agencies in his fiscal year 2026 budget, making the program’s future uncertain.

The Department of Children and Families can now start conversations with other eligible entities, but cannot take over the funds intended for SDC until SDC’s de-designation is effective, according to Gina Paige, communications director for the department.

Sulton said the board will have to meet to determine SDC’s next actions, but he is concerned that the state, Milwaukee County and the city will choose to stop funding anti-poverty services.

“Really what this act amounts to is a withdrawing of their commitment to pursue anti-poverty programming,” he said.

Board members could not be reached for comment.

SDC faces more funding upheaval after state removes its Milwaukee County community action status is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Milwaukee Police Administration Building downtown. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

A $6.96 million settlement — the second largest in Milwaukee’s history — stems from a federal civil lawsuit which accused Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) detectives of fabricating evidence against Danny Wilber, framing him for a 2004 homicide. Wilber spent 18 years in prison for a crime he always asserted he didn’t commit. 

Wilber’s homicide conviction was ultimately overturned after he was found to have had an unfair trial in a federal appeals court. On May 8, the city’s Judiciary and Legislation Committee recommended approving the settlement. Yet before it was approved, elected leaders expressed discontent that taxpayers in Milwaukee would be footing the bill. 

Further approvals will be needed from the Common Council and Mayor Cavalier Johnson. In a statement, Wilber said that the settlement “clearly establishes what I have truthfully maintained at all times — that I was completely innocent and that it was physically impossible that I committed this murder.” 

Ald. Mark Chambers Jr. called the judge in Wilber’s case “incompetent”, while Ald. Robert Bauman said the judge made “some pretty bad decisions,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Council President Jose Perez said the city was “paying the price for some bad judgement and it’s inexcusable.” Yet it was city of Milwaukee police detectives, not a judge, who manipulated evidence in the case, and laid the groundwork for the settlement nearly 20 years after they arrested Wilber. 

In January 2004, Wilber was at an after-hours party when, according to a federal complaint, he got into an argument with another party guest. As more people got involved the argument became a physical altercation which was being watched by another guest, David Diaz. At some point during the fight, someone standing behind Diaz shot him in the back of the head at close range. Diaz died instantly, and everyone who’d been in the kitchen panicked and left. 

The complaint states that physical evidence from the scene showed that Diaz had been shot from behind. One of the named defendants in the civil action, Milwaukee police detective Thomas Casper, collected measurements from the scene and recovered bullet fragments that showed that Diaz had been shot from behind. Diaz’s autopsy corroborated those findings. “It was and is undisputed that, at the time of the shooting, Plaintiff Wilber was inside the kitchen and in front of David Diaz,” the complaint reads. 

Despite the ballistic evidence, MPD detectives honed in on Wilber as the main murder suspect. Detectives didn’t look into multiple other plausible suspects, and went as far as to fabricate witness statements, the complaint states. Two other detectives, Randolph Olson and Louis Johnson, interrogated a witness to the shooting, Richard Torres, who was wanted for probation violations and turned himself in for questioning. Olson and Johnson used “threats and intimidation” to compel Torres to give a false statement by threatening to charge him with murder, and making clear that they were interested in Wilber as the shooter. Around the same time, another detective, Gregory Schuler, interrogated another witness, Jeranek Diaz. The complaint accuses Schuler of fabricating “substantial parts of a statement” from Diaz, including that at the time of the shooting, David Diaz had just turned around and was about to leave the kitchen when he was shot. Jeranek Diaz never said those statements, and was not allowed to review the typewritten version of his statement. Notes that Schuler allegedly took during the interview were never presented either to the prosecution or to Wilber’s attorneys. 

Other detectives interviewed witnesses who had a learning disability and said after the shooting that she saw her brother pat himself down to check if he’d been shot. The detectives, Timothy Duffy and Joseph Erwin, wrote that the witness ducked her head and when she looked back up, everyone was running out the door and she hadn’t seen her brother. Duffy and Erwin did not read the witness’s statement back to her, and she signed the statement without knowing what it said. 

One witness who was detained overnight without food, water or access to showers was told after interviews by detectives that he was “not telling us what we need to hear”, before being returned to a cell. Eventually, the exhausted witnesses agreed to make false statements if he was allowed to go home. Detectives also manipulated scene diagrams, and Wilber was charged with first-degree intentional homicide with a dangerous weapon in February 2004. Prosecutors heavily relied on evidence compiled by detectives, as well as false witness statements. 

Wilber spent 18 years in prison, with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office formally dismissing his case in May 2022. In order to carry out what the complaint describes as a “conspiracy,” the detectives would have needed to act alongside other MPD investigative, supervisory and command personnel, as well as “other unknown co-conspirators.” Casper would eventually go on to become one of the first commanders for the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT), a network of detectives that focuses on civilian deaths by police, and which has been criticized for conducting problematic death reviews. MAIT selected a different commander in 2020, and Casper died by the time Wilber’s lawsuit reached its conclusion.

“The evidence that came out in this case showed that this was not a series of mistakes by a squad of incompetent detectives,” Wilber said in a statement. “No, it was a conscious plan to construct a false case against me with manufactured witness statements in order to put me behind bars. It was a plan that they have used again and again against Black, Indigenous and other poor people of color. In this case, like in many others, the prosecutors and the Court system were, from beginning to end, vindictively complicit in my wrongful conviction and incarceration. This settlement delivers a measure of justice against the police who framed me, but what about the prosecutor who presented the false evidence at trial? What about the Judge who allowed it and violated my constitutional rights? What about the Assistant Attorney General who fought for years to keep me in a cage after my conviction was overturned and took the case all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States? They’re all complicit and because of the corrupt system, they get to walk away, free to repeat the egregious misconduct under the guise of due processes.”

Attorneys Ben Elson and Flint Taylor of the People’s Law Office in Chicago, who represented Wilber, said that the city would be paying him nearly $7 million because its detectives framed an innocent man. The attorneys addressed statements made by local elected officials, who were quick to blame the judge and other non-city government figures in the case. “Instead of passing the blame onto others, the City should publicly acknowledge its role in Danny Wilber’s wrongful conviction and make a sincere apology.”

The Milwaukee County Courthouse (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Update: ICE spokespeople directed Wisconsin Examiner to a post made on X (formerly known as Twitter) announcing the arrest of Kevin Lopez, 36, a Mexican citizen, who the post said is facing state charges of sexual assault of a minor, and sexual assault of an unconscious victim. The post states that Lopez had been previously arrested by local authorities for cannabis possession. Online court records confirm the charges against Lopez.

Another Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest was made at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on May 7. Chief Judge Carl Ashley said he was told the arrest occurred after a court hearing. Since March, at least four people have been arrested for immigration enforcement in or near the courthouse. Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was charged with obstruction after escorting a man sought by ICE into a public hallway outside her courtroom. 

The identity of the person arrested Wednesday has not been released. ICE officials have been unable to provide information at this time to Wisconsin Examiner.

In late March, Marco Cruz-Garcia, 24, a Mexican citizen, was arrested in the courthouse as he appeared in family court on a domestic violence restraining order. In a statement, ICE accused Cruz-Garcia of being a known member of the “Sureños transnational criminal street gang,” and cited his 2020 deportation order by a judge.  

Edwin Bustamante-Sierre, 27, a Nicaraguan citizen, was arrested days after Cruz-Garcia on April 3. ICE said in a statement that Bustamante-Sierre had been charged with reckless driving, endangering safety, reckless use of a firearm, use of a dangerous weapon and cocaine possession in Fond du Lac County and Milwaukee County.

On April 18, agents arrested Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 30, a Mexican immigrant lacking permanent legal status, who faced three misdemeanor domestic battery charges. 

The arrest of Flores-Ruiz led to Judge Dugan’s arrest. On April 25, Dugan was arrested outside the courthouse, with agents leading the judge to an unmarked squad car in handcuffs. Protests erupted that day and over the weekend at the FBI Milwaukee office, which conducted a speedy investigation into Dugan, after right-wing media outlets claimed to have broken a story about Dugan helping the man evade ICE by leading him out a side door in  her courtroom.

A bipartisan letter from judges around the country objected to the unusual, high-profile arrest and “perp walk” of Dugan. 

Local officials in Milwaukee have spoken out against the ICE arrests at the courthouse, saying they are disrupting proceedings as community members seek crucial services and are discouraging people from coming to court.

Kristen Payne, a member of Lead Safe Schools MKE. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Update: The Milwaukee Health Department announced Thursday that 22 children were screened at the clinic, and two needed follow-up blood tests. The department said in a statement the turnout was lower than officials had hoped for, but that the department will host additional school-based screening clinics. The department also is advising families to visit pop-up clinics at Children’s Wisconsin hospital’s Next Door Clinic and the Sixteenth Street Health Center Community Outreach program.

As a lead screening clinic was being set up inside Milwaukee’s North Division High School Wednesday, a coalition of parents, teachers and locals gathered outside to voice their frustrations about the response to lead contamination in Milwaukee Public School’s (MPS). The group had gathered to “demand that lead contamination in our schools, our city and our state, be urgently and effectively addressed in a manner consistent with health science data,” said Kristen Payne, a member of Lead Safe Schools MKE, during a press conference outside the high school. 

The press conference brought together several groups including Lead Safe Schools MKE, Freshwater for Life Action Coalition, Get the Lead Out and Metcalfe Park Community Bridges. Inside North Division, the  Milwaukee Health Department set up a clinic in the cafeteria and prepared to screen up to 300 children. Concern over lead in MPS buildings has grown since January, after a student was reportedly poisoned. Just under 400 MPS students have been tested and several schools temporarily closed due to lead hazards so far this year.

“Testing our kids for lead poisoning is important, and it’s also not nearly enough,” Payne said. “Until the district, city and state work proactively to address root causes of lead exposure, these testing clinics will do little to prevent exposure of a harmful toxin.” Every year, more than 1,200 children in the city of Milwaukee test positive for lead poisoning, with an average age of 3 years old. With over 70,000 MPS students among the tens of thousands of children in the city, ensuring that enough children are getting tested can be challenging.

Katie Doss is the grandmother of one of those children who tested positive. “She was hospitalized,” said Doss, and  received a blood transfusion. The experience led  Doss to work with the Coalition on Lead Emergency (COLE) and city officials to help get as many children tested as possible. She eventually became a lead program coordinator. “Since then, I’ve got over 400 children tested,” said Doss.

Doss wasn’t alone. “I believe that my grandchildren have the right to go to school without the threat of exposure to lead,” said Maria Beltran, a local resident, grandmother and member of Freshwater for Life Action Coalition. “Lead exposure in children, like my entire family and myself — I have seven kids, seven grandchildren, and married — lead exposure in children can damage the brain and nervous system, cause developmental delays, learning challenges, behavioral issues, [and] hearing loss. Also in adults, lead exposure and lead poisoning can cause high blood pressure, kidney damage, brain damage, miscarriage, and infertility that I have experienced in my entire family as well.”

The group of parents and residents that joined Payne expressed their feeling  that MPS and the Health Department have been more reactive than protective when it comes to addressing lead contamination. Some questioned why only elementary schools, and not middle and high schools, are the focus of current testing and remediation efforts. Others felt that they’d been left in the dark as to how lead poisoning affected their loved ones, or felt that school officials were sending out last-minute warnings to parents about lead hazards. Such notifications often came as emails, sent in the evening hours or  near weekend days, parents at the press conference said. 

The coalition demanded that MPS test all buildings for lead in dust, paint, water and soil. Additionally, the group called on the school district to follow the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations for lead-in-water readings <1.0 (parts per billion), and for better lines of communication to be established between school officials and parents. The group further demanded that the MPS Board of Directors pass a recently introduced lead-safety resolution, that city departments implement more proactive measures and that Gov. Tony Evers and the Legislature help remediate lead in schools statewide. 

Melody McCurtis, deputy director and lead organizer of Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, said that city officials are concerned with “growing the city without repairing the past harm that the current residents in this city is facing, especially in terms of lead.” McCurtis added,  “This city is prioritizing policing in our schools, prioritizing more than half of our city budget going to the police, but not going to prevention of crises like the lead crisis. It is going to take more than the Milwaukee Public School, the Health Department, and the city elected officials to come together to not just treat the issue, but to prevent it from happening.”

Inside the high school’s cafeteria, Health Department Commissioner Mike Totoraitis and Deputy Commissioner of Environmental Health Tyler Weber were helping oversee the final preparations for the screening clinic. They said  lead dust and paint are a target and the city’s youngest children are being prioritized for lead testing. “That’s not to minimize that there are other hazards here at the schools and potentially in the homes,” said Totoraitis. 

Although older children and adults will need to be included in testing eventually, it’s unclear how long that might take. The city is still re-grouping after plans to send specialized lead teams from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to Milwaukee were cancelled by the Trump Administration. The teams would have helped with blood screening analysis to detect trends and gather more information. Totoraitis said that the health department has monitored citywide data for screenings, and has not noticed any new trends. Milwaukee is  also working with partners in other states including Ohio and Michigan. More parents have been taking their children to pediatricians to get tested, which is encouraging, Totoratis said. “That is the best way for parents to know if their child has been poisoned,” he said.

MPS assumes that lead paint exists in any building built before 1978, and the school district has 54 schools built before 1950. Addressing the full scale of the problem will take creativity, dedicated effort and time, health officials say. Weber said that although it’s good that positive tests since January have been relatively low, many more children still need to be evaluated. 

“Oftentimes, the children that we see tested aren’t always the children that need to be,” said Tyler, noting that although more than 1,200 children test positive annually, only 40-50% of children are tested who need to be.

Doss told Wisconsin Examiner that it can be difficult to convince parents to get their children tested. “It’s extremely challenging,” said Doss. “There are a lot of parents that’s lost hope and faith in the community as far as getting the children tested. They want to know what’s going to happen on the reaction. If they get their child tested, will they be actually judged if the child comes back with lead and they don’t know where the lead is coming from?” 

Doss said some parents fear that a positive lead test will lead to their homes being visited by authorities, or even that their children could be taken away. “So that’s why it’s very important to let the parents know that it’s nothing that they did. It’s in our environment, it’s in our water, it’s in the paint…The only way that you can help your child is to get your child tested to know if your child has it. And you need to get your child tested once a year. It’s very important.”

The scale of the problem, and a lack of capacity within the health department, creates stubborn obstacles. “And our old housing stock, the red-lining that’s happened over time, the disinvestment in communities, and so it’s a lot for a single department to get to the point where we get ahead of this,” Weber said.  “‘Cause it is devastating to have to see every day the results that come in from different children, and respond to those.” 

Weber added that ideally lead levels in soil, homes, water and human bodies would be zero. “We’re an old city with a lot of deeply rooted challenges, and there’s a lot of work that we have to do collectively.”

The crime scene around King Park in Milwaukee, where Sam Sharpe was killed by out-of-state police from Ohio. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday that five officers from the Columbus, Ohio, police department will not be charged in the fatal shooting of Sam Sharpe, a man who was killed by the out-of-state officers during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16. 

Sharpe, 43, returned to Milwaukee’s King Park, where he was living in a tent for the last time to gather his belongings and his dog Ices to avoid a man who’d allegedly begun harassing and threatening him, according to Sharpe’s family. Sharpe, who was remembered as positive and well-liked by other King Park residents, shared a fragile sense of shelter and community with numerous other unhoused locals. But when he encountered his alleged harasser that summer day, a confrontation ensued which ended in a volley of gunfire from police officers deployed to Milwaukee as part of the security force for the RNC. 

The day before the shooting, a group of housing rights activists, who had slept in King Park overnight, marched on the RNC. Law enforcement officials said after the shooting that the prior day’s protest had drawn the officers to King Park. Body camera footage showed the officers standing together just before the shooting, then noticing a fight occurring in the distance. The officers immediately unholstered their weapons and sprinted over, yelling commands before unleashing a torrent of gunfire. 

The district attorney’s May 5 letter detailing the decision not to issue charges states that five officers fired a total of 23 times. Each of the officers — identified as Sgt. Adam Groves and officers Nick Mason, Austin Enos, Karl Eiginger, and Canaan Dick — told investigators that they feared that Sharpe, who was armed with knives, was an imminent threat to the other person in the confrontation, identified only as “AB” in the district attorney’s letter. 

Within hours people gathered at the scene to mourn Sharpe, who was known and beloved by housing outreach advocates and his family. Body camera and surveillance footage leaked online, and people were already beginning to discuss the fact that Sharpe had been the Columbus PD’s eighth fatal shooting so far in 2024. Milwaukee police Chief Jeffrey Norman held a press conference, saying that the officers had acted to save a life. 

The investigation found that the officers’ use of deadly force was justified under Wisconsin law, to prevent imminent harm to a civilian, that Sharpe ignored commands to drop the knives he was carrying and that the officers had a reasonable fear for the civilian’s safety.

Milwaukee PD officials said prior to the convention that their intent was to have out-of-state officers placed in positions “where they’re not necessarily forward facing”, and that outside officers were to be accompanied by Milwaukee officers, and were not to make arrests unless in urgent circumstances where local officers weren’t available.

The investigation of Sharpe’s killing was led by the Greenfield PD as part of the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT), a local task force which investigates officer-involved deaths. Angelique Sharpe, Sam’s sister, recounted the day that detectives came to her mother’s home, escorted by Milwaukee officers. The department was already receiving criticism for not having accompanied the Columbus officers at King Park. 

“They didn’t really care,” Angelique Sharpe told Wisconsin Examiner. The detectives had few answers to the family’s questions, she said. After Sharpe’s death, his family said that he had been living in the park doing street preaching for the unhoused community, when he began getting harassed by a man who allegedly threatened to destroy his tent and harm his dog. Sharpe was generally in good spirits, his family said, but he suffered from illness including multiple sclerosis. Sharpe had returned to the park to gather his things and leave that day, his sister said, armed with knives because he was worried about his safety. 

Angelique Sharpe told Wisconsin Examiner that MAIT detectives seemed uninterested in what she feels is important context. “I feel like nobody has really investigated this case fully for what it was. The only thing that they cared about was the actual shooting itself. Not anything that led up to it. Not why any of them were in the street, what led up to that, or what happened, or verifying that he was robbed and beat up,” Angelique said. “Nobody checked any of that stuff or cared about any of that stuff. All they cared about was the police [were] justified in the few seconds … and I just don’t feel like they was justified, because they should’ve never been there.”

Angelique blames the Columbus officers, who she feels acted in haste, as well as Milwaukee officials who assured residents ahead of the RNC that out-of-state law enforcement would not patrol neighborhoods unsupervised. “The whole case was handled poorly,” she said. 

The fallout from the shooting continues to weigh on the Sharpe family. Sam’s dog Ices was taken by animal control, much to the dismay of Sharpe’s family. Ices was eventually returned, and later found a new owner. 

Shortly after Sam died, someone mailed what appeared to be online court records of people with the last name “Sharpe” to the family, with a mocking letter saying “another criminal off the street,” Angelique told Wisconsin Examiner. Months passed before the family was able to obtain a death certificate, and organize a proper funeral for Sam, because of the ongoing investigation. Angelique said their mother’s health declined as  the whole ordeal took a toll. 

In a press release put out by the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Angelique Sharpe stated that her brother was found to have been shot 23 times, yet sustained 34 wounds. “The math ain’t matching,” she said. “It’s a miscarriage of justice and gross neglect of oversight on the part of MPD, who lied to the public to let killer cops run loose in one of the most vulnerable communities in our city. My brother’s blood is on your hands regardless of the law continuing to support murderers behind badges.”

After the district attorney received MAIT’s investigation for review, prosecutors met with Sharpe’s family members and their attorneys at the Greenfield Police Department. It became clear to the family that prosecutors were leaning toward not charging the officers, and that the shooting officers had retained lawyers. All of the involved officers refused to have their interviews recorded. 

Attorney Nate Cade, who represents the Sharpe family, said that a lack of recorded interviews is a common frustration, as police investigated by MAIT have the option to forego them. “They don’t record, they dictate what they think they hear,” Cade told Wisconsin Examiner. Cade agrees with the Sharpe family that the lack of a Milwaukee police escort for the Columbus officers led to an avoidable escalation.

The Sharpe family is considering bringing a civil case. Protest actions are planned in the coming days.

“From the moment it was announced that the RNC would be held in Milwaukee, the community was clear,” the Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression said in a press release, “we do not want outside law enforcement agencies unleashed on our community.” The Alliance blamed local officials, including Mayor Calvalier Johnson and Chief Norman, for welcoming  the RNC to  Milwaukee. 

Protesters gather to march in Milwaukee on May Day, voicing opposition to President Donald Trump's policies. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

A massive May Day protest stretched along multiple city blocks in Milwaukee, as marchers walked from the South Side to Zeidler Union Square Park in downtown. The annual protest brought union organizers, immigrant rights advocates, Indigenous community activists, students from across Wisconsin and other members of the public together to make a stand against the policies of President Donald Trump.

Despite rainy weather, hundreds of participants turned out for Milwaukee’s May Day march, with another protest planned in Madison on Friday. Prior to the march, the morning began with prayers and words from community leaders. Mark Denning, a member of the Oneida Nation, said to the crowd on Thursday that “all prayer goes to the same place” and that “all creation stories are true.” Denning said, “as we stand here together under this sheltering sky that’s giving us this beautiful rain…I want to share that your ancestors are forever. Your future is forever.” 

“Natives stand as a lesson to each and every one of you that the injustices of the past cannot be the injustices of the future,” said Denning, calling himself “a remnant of the wars that have been done on my people” and the May Day marchers “a remnant of the wars that must be corrected.” Denning went on to tell the crowd “you are now of this place! You are now of this land, and of these waters! And you will not be denied because this is where your children will be born and have a future!” The crowd cheered in response.

Although the May 1 march for immigrant workers’ rights is an annual tradition in Milwaukee, this year brought with it a new sense of fear buffered by local determination. Waves of arrests have swept communities nationwide, populating social media feeds with images of immigrants and  international students detained by masked, plain-clothes federal agents.

In Milwaukee, local advocates recently learned that agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been paying visits to the homes of sponsors of unaccompanied immigrant minors, causing fear of possible deportations. After ICE raids at the Milwaukee County Courthouse provoked outrage, Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested and accused of obstructing federal agents who arrived outside her courtroom to arrest a man appearing for a hearing. Protests erupted the weekend after Dugan was arrested, building momentum leading up to the May Day march.

Milwaukee marchers  joined a larger network of groups organizing May Day protests in at least 32 states. Rain showers came and went as the marchers traversed the city. People of all ages came out, including  high school students and their young siblings and grey-haired elders. Different sections of the march had different chants and atmospheres. Palestinian flags waved in the breeze alongside American flags (some of which were upside down), Mexican flags, LGBTQ+ flags, and numerous other banners. Milwaukee police officers escorted the demonstration on motorcycles and bicycles, while unmarked surveillance vans patrolled  the perimeter. 

Within an hour, the marchers arrived at Zeidler Union Square Park in the downtown area. Gathering around a central pavilion, the crowd listened to Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, who said people had come from as far away as Arcadia in Trempealeau County to be part of the event. “We know that when we unite we are stronger, and we can achieve what seems impossible,” said Neumann-Ortiz.

Speakers called for the charges to be dropped against Dugan, for ICE to stay out of local courts, for constitutional rights to be defended and for people to take a stand against fear. Missy Zombor, president of the Milwaukee Public School Board, said that the school district is ready to honor and fight for the ideals and sense of hope that her own grandparents sought when they immigrated to America. 

Zombor said that the school district will honor its safe haven resolution. “Our schools are and will always be safe havens for children,” she said, “regardless of their background, their immigration status, their identity, or their circumstance.” The Milwaukee Public School District, Zombor said, is strengthened by the diverse languages, cultures and backgrounds of  the student body, which includes many student activists. “Our schools are going to continue to promote a curriculum that gives students the knowledge and power to question the world in a way that helps students uproot the causes of racism and inequality,” said Zombor. “Our schools are going to teach the next generation of change-makers.” 

Former Milwaukee judge Jim Gramling Jr. called Dugan’s arrest “a very unfortunate and very dangerous thing.” Gramling said that the unusual, public arrest of a judge at the courthouse “was clearly designed to intimidate other judges and those who seek justice in our courts.” He added  that federal authorities had a week to invite Dugan into the U.S. Attorney’s Office to discuss the case. Instead, Gramling said, “they wanted a public display to embarrass her, to humiliate her, and to intimidate others in the justice system from resolving immigration matters.” 

Gramling stressed that judges need to be free of pressure from outside influences, so that they can decide cases based on the facts before them. “And yet we have a president who’s threatening the firing of judges, because of decisions that he doesn’t like,” said Gramling. “And now we have a judge treated like a common criminal by that president’s agents.” Dugan is a long-time and respected member of the community, Gramling said, having served in  leadership roles at local non-profits  and that she doesn’t deserve what’s happened to her. 

Milwaukee student activists also spoke, saying that student voices should not be stifled, and that free speech means little when young people fear retaliation. The students called for Milwaukee police officers to be taken out of Milwaukee Public Schools. Removing school resources officers was a decision made by the school board after years of student organizing. But the state Legislature has demanded that Milwaukee return police to schools as a condition of state aid.  

Immigration operations add a new layer of fear for students who already dread the return of school resource officers. Milwaukee police have a standard operating procedure which limits the department’s  involvement in immigration matters, stating that “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.” 

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) students joined the May Day march, denouncing ICE and encouraging people to stand in solidarity with immigrants. “Don’t let fear imprison you in the shadows,” one student said from the stage. “Join us. We will keep each other safe.”

The recent arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan – who is accused of obstructing a federal immigration arrest inside the Milwaukee County Courthouse – has intensified concerns over immigration enforcement and sparked questions about what rights individuals have when encountering federal agents.

Here’s what to know.

What is obstruction?

Obstruction occurs when a person prevents or makes it more difficult for officers to perform their duty – a definition that covers a broad range of actions, said Benjamin Van Severen, a Milwaukee-based criminal defense attorney and founder of Van Severen Law Office.

Obstruction can include physically interfering with an arrest, such as refusing to comply during a traffic stop.

“Let’s say you’re in a vehicle, and law enforcement does a traffic stop and then you refuse to unlock the doors – that could be obstruction,” said Van Severen.

Obstruction also includes providing false information to law enforcement.

According to the criminal complaint, Dugan obstructed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents by escorting the individual they intended to arrest into a nonpublic area of the courthouse after requesting the agents go to the chief judge.

A related but distinct offense from obstruction is known as harboring.

Harboring generally refers to knowingly assisting someone to remain in the United States unlawfully – typically by hiding, transporting or supporting the person in order to help avoid detention.

Knowledge and intent are critical components of the charge.

“You have to be acting with the conscious purpose of aiding their intention to remain here illegally,” said Ronald Kuby, a civil rights attorney familiar with similar cases.

“If, let’s say, Ahmed says to his neighbor, ‘Look, I need $150 to get a bus ticket to go to Canada because ICE is going to arrest me,’ it’s perfectly fine to give Ahmed that 150 bucks to go to Canada,” he said. “He may not buy that bus ticket to Canada. He may buy a bus ticket to, you know, Indianapolis, but that’s not on you.”

Different types of warrants

Understanding the difference between types of warrants is crucial in understanding immigration enforcement, particularly when it comes to where these warrants permit officers to go.

An administrative warrant permits immigration officers to arrest someone in a public place, such as a sidewalk or bus station. However, it does not allow entry into a private residence without consent.

Judicial warrants, by contrast, are signed by a judge and can authorize arrests in both public and private spaces.

Despite the differences, both administrative and judicial warrants are lawful tools that permit arrests in immigration cases, Van Severen said.

However, there are different rights that can be asserted depending on the type of warrant.

If law enforcement presents an administrative warrant, people inside a private residence have the right to refuse entry.

“If it’s not signed by a judge, they can’t come into your home without permission,” said R. Timothy Muth, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, of Wisconsin. “Ask to see the warrant. Have them slip it under the door or show it to you at your window. Look at the signature line – does it say ‘magistrate judge’?”

Other rights

Regardless of citizenship status, everyone in the U.S. has certain constitutional protections, including the right to remain silent and to speak to an attorney.

However, if the arrest is for an immigration violation and not a criminal offense, the government does not have to provide a lawyer, explained Ruby De León, staff attorney at Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant advocacy organization in Milwaukee.

Documenting activities related to immigration enforcement, such as filming and noting names and badge numbers, is also legal so long as it does not interfere with law enforcement actions, said Muth.

Tangible steps

Voces and the ACLU advise against signing any documents without a lawyer.

If people are not citizens but have documentation that permits them to stay in the country – such as a green card – they are required to keep that documentation with them, Muth said.

Muth recommends carrying documentation showing continuous presence in the country for more than two years, such as a lease agreement, pay stubs or utility bill in the person’s name.

Individuals who cannot prove they’ve been physically present in the U.S. for at least two years may be subject to expedited removal – a process that allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, to deport someone without a hearing before an immigration judge.

Advocates recommend ensuring documentation is current, applying for passports for U.S.-born children and pursuing citizenship or legal status if eligible, perhaps through an employer or family member.

Voces suggests completing power-of-attorney forms to prepare for potential family separation. If a person is detained or deported, these forms allow a designated individual to make medical, financial or child care decisions on the person’s behalf.

Forward Latino, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the civil rights of Latinos throughout the country, has created a tool kit regarding potential family separation.

Other resources

A city of Milwaukee municipal ID can serve as a form of identification for city residents who cannot get state identification.

Voces maintains a list of immigration, workers’ rights and family attorneys it deems trustworthy.

Voces also provides various workshops and clinics, including Know Your Rights training, citizenship classes and legal clinics. For citizenship classes, call (414) 236-0415 or email newamerican@vdlf.org. For other services or questions, call (414) 643-1620.

Organizations like Catholic Charities Refugee and Immigration Services, International Institute of Wisconsin and UMOS offer free or low-cost legal assistance regarding immigration and citizenship.

Immigrant Legal Resource Center provides a downloadable card listing people’s rights and protections.

What are your rights when encountering federal agents? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

In any community, the role of the medical examiner is vital. 

Medical examiners — or coroners, in the nearly half of Wisconsin’s 72 counties that have them as an alternative — determine the cause and manner of death, support the criminal justice system and track data to identify trends that can impact public health and safety.

For me and other Milwaukee-area journalists, the insights provided by the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office are integral to our coverage, providing crucial details and important context. Among the recent examples where the level of openness has played a key role are the COVID-19 pandemic, the tragic deaths of three men due to extreme cold last January and the high-profile case of D’Vontaye Mitchell last June.

Traditionally, the office has supplied “demographic reports” as well as “narrative reports.” Demographic reports include information such as the name of the deceased, where the death occurred, and the name of a family member who was notified. Narrative reports, in contrast, delve into the circumstances surrounding each case. 

“Narrative reports are particularly illustrative when compared to other available public information,” wrote David Clarey in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in March. “Contextual information, such as whether a driver ran a red light or if a homicide resulted from a heated argument, is often missing (from demographic reports) and requires time-consuming requests from media and families alike.”

The media in Milwaukee were pleased with the level of openness we experienced from Karen Domagalski, the longtime operations manager for the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office. But when Domagalski retired on Feb. 19, the county’s medical examiner, Dr. Wieslawa Tlomak, announced a change in policy. Henceforth, she said, the office would stop sharing narrative reports until investigations were concluded and cases closed. She acknowledged that this shift represented a significant change in past practices.

Concerned by the change in policy, several news executives, including me, sent Tlomak a letter on April 4. It read, in part:

“The decision to curtail access to these preliminary findings poses a troubling scenario for our news organizations and, more importantly, for the residents of Milwaukee County. Withholding this essential information may leave the public waiting weeks, months, or even longer for basic insights into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of community members. This delay not only hampers our ability to keep the public informed but also undermines trust in the transparency of governmental processes.”

The letter noted that having access to narrative reports helps “clarify the circumstances” surrounding deaths and fosters “a better understanding among citizens about the events that impact their safety.”

Tlomak replied to our letter nearly three weeks later on April 23. Her response read, in part:

“I recognize that this shift in operational policies and procedures is new to members of the media that cover death investigations and public safety matters in Milwaukee County. After an internal review of operational policies and procedures, it became apparent that it is not within the ME’s Office mission and purpose to provide inaccurate and/or incomplete information to the public, as the disclosure of these draft details have the potential to cause significant harm to family members most affected by a death.”

Here’s my response to that: Dr. Tlomak, if your concern is releasing inaccurate information, the appropriate next step would be to correct the information rather than stopping its release altogether. I urge you to work with the journalists who rely on the reports provided by your office to develop a solution that ensures timely access to vital information without compromising the integrity of ongoing investigations. 

Transparency is crucial for maintaining public trust.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Tim Vetscher, a council member, is news director at TMJ4 in Milwaukee. 

Your Right to Know: When people die, openness matters is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

Wisconsin’s constitution gives the Legislature two methods for removing judges from office.

Impeachment starts with a majority Assembly vote based on “corrupt conduct in office” or commission of a crime. A two-thirds Senate vote following a Senate trial would result in removal.

“Removal by address” occurs through a two-thirds vote of each chamber, based on misconduct. The judge would have an opportunity to make a defense. 

Wisconsin judges run in nonpartisan elections. Both chambers of the Legislature have a simple Republican majority. 

Republicans called for the Legislature to remove Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan after the FBI arrested her April 24. She is charged with two crimes for allegedly obstructing Immigration and Customs Enforcement from arresting a criminal defendant in her courtroom.

Democrats criticized the arrest.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court temporarily suspended Dugan. The Supreme Court can also remove judges for misconduct, based on a state Judicial Commission investigation.

Judges can also be removed by recall election.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• State of Wisconsin: Wisconsin Constitution (Article VII)
• Wisconsin Legislative Council: Removal of Elected Officials: Recall, Impeachment, Expulsion, and Removal
• Wisconsin Legislature: Wisconsin State Senate
• Wisconsin Legislature: Wisconsin State Assembly
• X: Scott Walker post
• Wisconsin Watch: Arrest of Milwaukee judge echoes Massachusetts case — with one key difference
• WisPolitics: Dems condemn Milwaukee judge's arrest; Republicans call for her removal
• Wisconsin Supreme Court: In re the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, Hannah C. Dugan, Judge
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Republicans want to remove Judge Hannah Dugan. Here's how that may work
• Wisconsin Watch: Impeach Justice Janet Protasiewicz? Here’s what’s missing from debate
• State Bar of Wisconsin: Legal Research 101: Understanding Judicial Misconduct and Disability in Wisconsin
• WPR: Wisconsin Republicans now have impeachment power. Here’s how the process works

Could the Wisconsin Legislature remove Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan from office over her ICE case? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Want to understand the levers of power in Wisconsin? Our statehouse team writes a weekly preview of what’s on the agenda in state politics and why it matters. It’s called Forward. The analysis below is an example of what you can expect in your inbox every Monday if you subscribe here. (Our newsletters are free, like all of our journalism).

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested on Friday for allegedly helping a man living in the United States without legal status evade federal immigration authorities. Dugan faces two federal felony counts — obstruction and concealing an individual.

Dugan’s case is similar to a 2019 case brought by federal prosecutors against Massachusetts Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph. In that case, Joseph was accused of helping an unauthorized immigrant avoid an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent after a court appearance.

In both cases, federal officials alleged the state judges allowed the defendants to exit their courtrooms through alternative routes to avoid federal immigration officials waiting outside the courtrooms in publicly accessible areas.

In a criminal complaint filed last week, federal officials alleged that Dugan confronted immigration enforcement officials outside of her courtroom as they waited for a defendant who was scheduled to appear before her finished his court business. Witnesses reported that Dugan “was visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor,” according to the complaint. Dugan asked to see the warrant the immigration officials were acting upon and then referred them to see the county’s chief judge.

After returning to the courtroom, Dugan then escorted the man and his attorney through a door that leads to a “nonpublic area” of the courthouse, the complaint states.

A similar series of events unfolded in the Massachusetts case. After learning that an ICE agent was waiting to arrest a defendant, Joseph eventually had the man exit the courtroom through a nonpublic exit, federal authorities alleged in a 2019 indictment. A separate court official then helped him exit the building through a back door.

The Massachusetts case was dismissed in 2022. In exchange, Joseph referred herself to the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct, per The New York Times.

One key difference between the two cases: Joseph was indicted. Dugan was served a criminal complaint. To secure an indictment, prosecutors have to present evidence to a panel of everyday Wisconsin residents and convince them there is probable cause a crime has been committed. For criminal complaints, officials only have to get the sign-off of a federal judge, but then later have to secure an indictment from a grand jury, two former federal prosecutors told Wisconsin Watch.

Now, the federal government has 21 days to seek an indictment, according to Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University and a former federal prosecutor. 

“It is unusual that this happened with an arrest and complaint because there really is no indication that the Judge was a flight risk or danger to the community,” she told Wisconsin Watch in an email. “They easily could have gone to the grand jury first and summoned her in IF the grand jury wanted to indict.”

Stephen Kravit, a Milwaukee area attorney and former federal prosecutor, said criminal complaints are rare in the Eastern District of Wisconsin and are usually reserved for “an exigent situation where the defendant’s whereabouts aren’t specifically known or the presence in this area is temporary.”

“None of that applies to a sitting Circuit Court Judge,” he added in an email.

Instead, Kravit said, “this was done in a hurry to make a political point.” He added, “Normally, a person charged even with felonies aged 60+ with no record and no chance of fleeing would be summoned to show up at an appointed time for booking and arraignment. Not here. And that was the point.”

🚘 Budget road trip. The Joint Finance Committee will hold a pair of hearings on Monday and Tuesday this week, stepping away from the Capitol in Madison to hear from Wisconsin residents in Hayward and Wausau about what they want included in the state’s next two-year budget.

It will be the third and fourth time so far that the committee has heard from the public on the spending plan. But as the GOP-controlled committee continues to go through the motions of crafting the budget, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, indicated last week that Republican lawmakers could punt on passing a new budget altogether.

Vos was reacting to a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that left intact a move from Gov. Tony Evers that provided for annual public school funding increases for the next 400 years. “It’s certainly a possibility if we can’t find a way for us to get to a common middle ground,” Vos said of spiking the funding plan last week on the “Jay Weber Show.” “But that’s not the goal.”

“It’s something we’re talking about, but it wouldn’t be the first go-to,” Vos added, noting that it has never happened before. The state has passed a budget every two years since 1931, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.

But even if the Legislature were to pass on sending a new spending plan to Evers, things in the state wouldn’t shut down. In Wisconsin, the state continues operating at the existing spending levels until a new budget is approved. 

📈 Student homelessness rising. Homelessness among K-12 Wisconsin students reached a new high in 2024, increasing 9% over the previous year despite total enrollment declining slightly.

That’s according to a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum, which found that a little more than 20,000 Wisconsin students were homeless in 2023-24. If that figure seems high, it’s because it is. Homelessness among students is counted using a definition that is more expansive than the one employed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The federal McKinney-Vento Act defines homeless children and youth as those “who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.”

It’s the third straight year that student homelessness increased in Wisconsin, the report found, reaching a new high since the state Department of Public Instruction started keeping data in 2019.

“The number of students affected by homelessness has grown and is likely to continue to remain high in the near future as an insufficient supply of affordable housing remains a lingering problem throughout the state,” the report concludes. “Addressing the needs of this high-risk group of students could benefit not only them but also Wisconsin’s educational outcomes overall.”

Wisconsin Watch’s Hallie Claflin has been documenting the state’s rural homelessness crisis, including in her latest report about police departments transporting homeless people outside their jurisdiction. We’ll be watching the budget process closely to see if lawmakers address this issue or similarly treat it as out of sight, out of mind.

Arrest of Milwaukee judge echoes Massachusetts case — with one key difference is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The FBI on Friday arrested a Milwaukee judge accused of helping a man evade immigration authorities, escalating a clash between the Trump administration and local authorities over the Republican president’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan is accused of escorting the man and his lawyer out of her courtroom through the jury door last week after learning that immigration authorities were seeking his arrest. The man was taken into custody outside the courthouse after agents chased him on foot.

President Donald Trump’s administration has accused state and local officials of interfering with his immigration enforcement priorities. The arrest also comes amid a growing battle between the administration and the federal judiciary over the president’s executive actions over deportations and other matters.

Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, in a statement on the arrest, accused the Trump administration of repeatedly using “dangerous rhetoric to attack and attempt to undermine our judiciary at every level.”

“I have deep respect for the rule of law, our nation’s judiciary, the importance of judges making decisions impartially without fear or favor, and the efforts of law enforcement to hold people accountable if they commit a crime,” Evers said. “I will continue to put my faith in our justice system as this situation plays out in the court of law.”

Dugan was taken into custody by the FBI on Friday morning on the courthouse grounds, according to U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson Brady McCarron. She appeared briefly in federal court in Milwaukee later Friday before being released from custody. She faces charges of “concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest” and obstructing or impeding a proceeding.

“Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety,” her attorney, Craig Mastantuono, said during the hearing. He declined to comment to an Associated Press reporter following her court appearance.

Court papers suggest Dugan was alerted to the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the courthouse by her clerk, who was informed by an attorney that they appeared to be in the hallway.

The FBI affidavit describes Dugan as “visibly angry” over the arrival of immigration agents in the courthouse and says that she pronounced the situation “absurd” before leaving the bench and retreating to her chambers. It says she and another judge later approached members of the arrest team inside the courthouse, displaying what witnesses described as a “confrontational, angry demeanor.”

After a back-and-forth with officers over the warrant for the man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, she demanded that the arrest team speak with the chief judge and led them away from the courtroom, the affidavit says.

After directing the arrest team to the chief judge’s office, investigators say, Dugan returned to the courtroom and was heard saying words to the effect of “wait, come with me” before ushering Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer through a jury door into a non-public area of the courthouse. The action was unusual, the affidavit says, because “only deputies, juries, court staff, and in-custody defendants being escorted by deputies used the back jury door. Defense attorneys and defendants who were not in custody never used the jury door.”

A sign that remained posted on Dugan’s courtroom door Friday advised that if any attorney or other court official “knows or believes that a person feels unsafe coming to the courthouse to courtroom 615,” they should notify the clerk and request an appearance via Zoom.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the man was facing domestic violence charges and victims were sitting in the courtroom with state prosecutors when the judge helped him escape immigration arrest.

The judge “put the lives of our law enforcement officers at risk. She put the lives of citizens at risk. A street chase — it’s absurd that that had to happen,” Bondi said on Fox News Channel.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat who represents Wisconsin, called the arrest of a sitting judge a “gravely serious and drastic move” that “threatens to breach” the separation of power between the executive and judicial branches.

“Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a Democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by,” Baldwin said in an emailed statement. “By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this President is putting those basic Democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line.”

The case is similar to one brought during the first Trump administration against a Massachusetts judge, who was accused of helping a man sneak out a back door of a courthouse to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent.

That prosecution sparked outrage from many in the legal community, who slammed the case as politically motivated. Prosecutors dropped the case against Newton District Judge Shelley Joseph in 2022 under the Democratic Biden administration after she agreed to refer herself to a state agency that investigates allegations of misconduct by members of the bench.

The Justice Department had previously signaled that it was going to crack down on local officials who thwart federal immigration efforts.

The department in January ordered prosecutors to investigate for potential criminal charges any state and local officials who obstruct or impede federal functions. As potential avenues for prosecution, a memo cited a conspiracy offense as well as a law prohibiting the harboring of people in the country illegally.

Dugan was elected in 2016 to the county court Branch 31. She also has served in the court’s probate and civil divisions, according to her judicial candidate biography.

Before being elected to public office, Dugan practiced at Legal Action of Wisconsin and the Legal Aid Society. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981 with a bachelor of arts degree and earned her Juris Doctorate in 1987 from the school.

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

FBI arrests Milwaukee County judge accused of helping man evade immigration officials is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Throughout his life, Robert Miranda has served many roles.

Some know him as a motorcyclist. Having been vice president of the Latin American Motorcycle Association’s Milwaukee chapter, Miranda has crossed the country several times on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Others know him as a leader and innovator in the community. Aside from working as executive director of Esperanza Unida, a nonprofit labor organization that served Milwaukee’s South Side for decades, Miranda has also been recognized by the United Migrant Opportunity Services, or UMOS, with a Community Service Award and as Hispanic Man of the Year.

Many more see him as a leader – Miranda served as the first Latino student body president at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, helping establish programs such as U-PASS, in which students can access free transportation on Milwaukee city buses.

But even with a lifetime of accolades and achievements, Miranda prides himself most on fighting for his community, having dedicated himself to causes such as Milwaukee’s decades-old lead contamination problem.

His passion for these issues, Miranda said, stems from a belief that change can happen and that it is worth fighting for.

“We’re all in this together, and we all share the same ground,” Miranda said. “All we can do is to improve things so that we can improve our quality of life.”

‘The importance of community’

Miranda credits his instinct for activism to his upbringing. Growing up in Chicago and attending a Catholic school, Miranda said, cemented many of his views.

“Social issues and social justice were ingrained in me,” he said. “This helped me build an understanding of the importance of community.”

Manny Perez, who formerly served as secretary of the state Department of Workforce Development, has worked with Miranda numerous times over the years.

He described Miranda as dedicated, honorable and forward-thinking.

“Robert, as an individual, has been a true leader,” Perez said. “His primary interest and priority has always been the improvement of conditions for the community at large.”

Serving in the Marines taught him many of his ideals, Miranda said. What he did there “was about protecting the community.”

The Marines provided a cause and a fighting energy, Miranda said. Now he seeks to “fight to improve what is going on in the community.”

Since then, his advocacy has largely featured issues that impact the people and community around him, extending to advocacy for incarcerated people, education and the environment.

“For me, if things in the community improve, my quality of life improves too,” Miranda said. “Safer streets, better schools, clean water – all of this is a part of the quality of life that I can see and that I can enjoy.”

A focus on lead

For nearly a decade, Miranda served as a Marine at Camp Lejeune, a military base in North Carolina. Camp Lejeune, later designated a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency, was found to have dangerous water contamination, exposing an estimated 1 million Marines and their families to chemicals causing cancer and other health conditions.

“From 1980 to 1987, I was on that base drinking that water,” Miranda said. “A lot of people were getting cancer. A lot of people were going home.”

Drinking the contaminated water caused him health problems that live on to this day, he said. But knowing what happened at Camp Lejeune also brought him an awareness of issues with pollution in other parts of his life.

After hearing about lead poisoning issues in cities like Washington, D.C., Miranda started researching and looking into the problem closely.

“It really piqued my interest because of what I was going through,” Miranda said. “I started looking into it and I started seeing a lot of correlations between my experiences.”

Over a decade after Miranda started researching the lead issue, he remains a staunch advocate for clean water and clean-living environments.

Miranda’s work has put him at the front lines, leading efforts with the Freshwater for Life Action Coalition and the Get the Lead Out Coalition.

He has been an outspoken critic of Milwaukee’s abundant lead hazards, having called for lead-free drinking water and living environments years before citywide efforts to address the lead problem.

“He anticipated conditions before his time,” Perez said. “He sees many things before other people.”

Fighting for a clean environment means more to Miranda than himself or his own past.

“It’s about community,” Miranda said. “This is about our babies, our children – the future of this city.”

Future generations

Among the most important aspects of a community are its future generations, Miranda said. Ending lead poisoning is such a focus for him because of how much it could help children and young people.

Miranda cites research studies about lead’s negative effects, especially on the harm that it can bring as a neurotoxin. Eliminating lead, he said, could help improve children’s education and eventually lower violence levels.

In doing this work, Miranda also hopes to lift up others in the community and encourage them to use their own voices.

His advice to the next generation?

“Watch out for yourself, but also watch out for your community.”

Miranda acknowledges that this isn’t always an easy task.

“If you want to make real change, get ready to be challenged,” he said. “You have to stand strong on your own merits and realize that it’s not about you, but it’s about lives in our community and improving things for families, neighborhoods and schools. These are the things that make our city stronger.”

Milwaukee’s Robert Miranda on a life of activism, community and doing what’s right is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

After two days of testimony about a traffic stop that ended in a drug arrest, a Milwaukee County judge had heard enough.

“You can stop,” Judge Paul R. Van Grunsven said last fall, interrupting the defense attorney who was still cross-examining a West Allis police officer.

The judge recounted inconsistencies in the officer’s testimony and body camera footage shown during an evidence suppression hearing.

“This witness has lost any credibility with this court,” Van Grunsven said. “I find none of his testimony to therefore be truthful.”

The officer, Michael Lazaris, left the stand. 

He had been found untruthful by a judge, yet he does not appear on a list of officers with credibility concerns, findings of dishonesty or bias, or past criminal charges.

He’s not the only one. 

The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office has strict criteria to place officers on the list and only does so if officers have a pending criminal charge, a past conviction or an internal investigation “that brings into question the officer’s integrity.”

Legal experts who reviewed the policy suggest it is improperly narrow, depriving defendants of crucial information for a fair trial. 

The list omits officers whose testimony has been found not credible by judges and who have cost taxpayers millions in misconduct lawsuits, an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 News and Wisconsin Watch found.

Experts said any one of those officers could be included on a “Brady/Giglio” list, so named for two landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings. Such lists are maintained to help prosecutors fulfill their legal obligations to share information favorable to the defense.

In practice, the decision about who gets on — and taken off — the list often comes down to one person: Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern.

Lovern has maintained his office is fulfilling its legal obligations while striking “the appropriate balance” with adding officers to the list.

Lovern took office in January. Prior to that, he served for 16 years as the top deputy to his predecessor, John Chisholm, and was responsible for maintaining what is formally known as the “officer status list.”

“I respect that other jurisdictions may apply different parameters to their respective Brady lists,” Lovern said. “At the same time, we know many jurisdictions do not even maintain a list.”

It’s dishonesty, he said in an interview, that gets officers on the list. He has drawn a distinction between overt deception and credibility rulings, when a judge determines an officer’s testimony does not match the evidence.  

Those rulings most often occur in suppression hearings with judges finding officers did not meet their legal burden for obtaining evidence, he said.

Veteran defense attorneys say judges can and do throw out evidence when an officer cannot articulate reasonable suspicion or probable cause, but that it is different — and rare — for a judge to plainly call an officer’s testimony not credible.

“It’s the reason the judge found them not credible: It’s testimony that didn’t line up with physical evidence or what the evidence was in the case,” said Jeremy Perri, deputy trial division director for the State Public Defender’s Office.

An officer’s placement on the Brady list does not guarantee his or her past will come up in court. It’s up to the prosecutor to disclose it, the defense attorney to raise it and a judge to find it relevant to a specific case. 

At least two dozen people on Milwaukee County’s list remain employed in law enforcement, an investigation from the Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 News and Wisconsin Watch found.

“Brady is not designed to punish the officers,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former federal prosecutor.

“Brady is designed to ensure people get fair trials,” she said.

A wrongful homicide conviction

William Avery’s homicide conviction hinged on the word of other people.

Jailhouse informants and two Milwaukee police detectives said he had admitted to killing 39-year-old Maryetta Griffin.

Avery always maintained his innocence. In 2010, he was exonerated after DNA evidence linked Griffin’s homicide to serial killer Walter Ellis. Avery had served six years of a 40-year sentence and was one of three people charged in homicides later attributed to Ellis.

Avery filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and seven Milwaukee police detectives. This time, a jury believed Avery’s word and awarded him $1 million in damages.

Jurors considered reams of evidence, including a handwritten report from then-detective Gilbert Hernandez. Hernandez and Daniel Phillips, another detective, interviewed Avery soon after Griffin’s homicide in 1998.

Hernandez wrote that Avery admitted selling drugs to Griffin and later fighting with her after he woke up to her going through his pockets.

Hernandez asked Avery how he had killed Griffin.

“Subject states, ‘I’m responsible, I just don’t remember,’” according to the report, which Avery had refused to sign.

The next day, Hernandez filed another report that said during further questioning, Avery had denied killing Griffin. 

Avery was not charged with homicide then but was convicted of a drug offense. Years later, after the jailhouse informants came forward, Avery was charged with Griffin’s homicide. At the criminal trial, Hernandez and Phillips testified that Avery implicated himself, and Hernandez’s report was admitted into evidence. 

The federal civil jury not only found in Avery’s favor but concluded Hernandez and Phillips had falsified reports saying Avery admitted to the homicide. The jury found the other detectives named in the lawsuit had not engaged in improper conduct.

At the time of the federal verdict, Phillips was retired, but Hernandez was still working as an investigator at the Wisconsin Department of Justice. 

Lovern, the district attorney, said the state agency never referred the well-publicized jury finding to his office for potential inclusion on the Brady list.  

“Our office has determined not to add him to our database,” Lovern said in an email, responding to follow-up questions from the Journal Sentinel. 

Avery’s Chicago-based civil attorney, Ben Elson of the People’s Law Office, was stunned to learn Hernandez and Phillips were not on the list.

“They sent an innocent man to prison based on a fabricated confession,” Elson said. “If they don’t belong on a Brady list, who does?”

The state Department of Justice said Hernandez resigned as a sworn special agent for the Division of Criminal Investigation in February 2016, after the civil jury finding. He continued working in a series of non-sworn office roles at the department until his retirement in December, an agency spokesman said. 

The state would share any Brady/Giglio information about Hernandez with district attorneys or other law enforcement agencies “upon request,” Riley Vetterkind, the spokesman, said in an email.

Hernandez declined to comment recently when reached by a Journal Sentinel reporter. In the federal civil trial, he denied any wrongdoing, as did Phillips. 

Hernandez remains on a witness list for prosecutors, identified as a “DCI investigator,” in at least one pending homicide case: Maxwell Anderson, who is charged with killing and dismembering Sade Robinson.

A traffic stop ends in a search without cause

Lewis Moore went to prison, accused of a crime never proven in court.

On March 2, 2019, Moore got pulled over while driving. A Milwaukee officer, Chad Boyack, told Moore he had been “flying” and asked him to step out of the car. 

Moore, then 22, did so and raised his arms.

He was sure he had not been speeding. His license was valid. The car was not stolen or wanted. It was his girlfriend’s car, he told the other officer, Anthony Milone, as he sat in the back of the police squad.

She has her concealed-carry permit, he said, and her gun might be in the car.

Boyack did find a gun in the center console. Moore maintained he did not know it was there. He was on probation for a low-level felony and legally barred from having a gun.

Boyack and Milone arrested him. A prosecutor charged him with being a felon in possession of a firearm. As a result, Moore was revoked from probation and put behind bars — his first experience in prison.

“I don’t deserve this,” Moore said he remembered thinking at the time. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

His case got stuck in the court system during the COVID-19 pandemic. He even considered pleading guilty just to get it over with. 

But his public defender, Caitlin Hazard Firer, had reviewed the reports and officers’ body camera footage. She believed the officers had conducted an illegal search. So she filed a motion to try to get the evidence from the search thrown out.

Moore finally had his day in court in 2021. Inconsistencies piled up from the officers. 

Boyack and Milone gave different estimates of his speed that day, the highest being 60 mph. Video footage showed the officers turning on their squad’s lights and driving 32 mph to pull him over.

The officers said Moore took a while to stop, which factored into their decision to get him out of the car. Video showed Moore stopped within 30 seconds, spending much of that time navigating the busy intersection of North 27th Street and West Capitol Drive.

The officers differed on whether they smelled burnt marijuana from the car. Boyack testified that he did, though he did not mention the smell when he first spoke with Moore during the stop. Milone testified he did not smell it.

Boyack also testified he did not see marijuana until he searched the car, turning up the equivalent of a few grains of rice. Milone testified he did not see or smell it when he approached the car.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Glenn Yamahiro heard the testimony, reviewed the video footage and determined the evidence had been unlawfully seized. He also noted there was no independent evidence of speeding, like a radar gun.

“So bottom line here is I don’t find these officers credible in this case,” Yamahiro said, according to a transcript.

“I do not find the reasoning here for why he got put in the squad car legitimate,” the judge said later in the hearing, adding: “I do not find the actions of the officers here lawful.”

Moore’s attorney had been practicing law for decades. It was the first adverse credibility ruling against an officer in any of her cases.

“This is incredibly rare,” Firer said. “In my experience, judges will find another reason to suppress the evidence.”

“A judge has found them not credible, and that is Brady material,” she said.

Lovern, the district attorney, disagreed. He said the prosecutor on the case did not tell him about the judge’s finding and did not need to do so.

Lovern said the judge’s decision related to a specific set of circumstances at a suppression hearing and did not find the officers had been dishonest.

Chief Judge Carl Ashley echoed his comments, saying: “The judge didn’t say they were lying.”

Yamahiro declined to comment to the Journal Sentinel. 

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said he was unaware of the judicial ruling. The department did not investigate the circumstances of Moore’s arrest because no one made a complaint, he said. 

Norman praised the two officers, saying they had earned many meritorious awards for their service. In a follow-up email, the department said the chief agreed with the district attorney and chief judge that the judge’s credibility finding was only for testimony at a suppression hearing, “which is different than the integrity or credibility of an individual.”

Boyack and Milone did not respond to interview requests from TMJ4 News. The Milwaukee Police Department declined to make them available for an interview.

Years later, Moore still finds it difficult to capture how that traffic stop upended his life.

“You guys took time away from me and my family and my business,” he said in an interview with TMJ4 News.

Milwaukee County’s policy appears ‘improperly narrow,’ expert says

Prosecutors in other states do things differently.

The Cook County State’s Attorney Office in Chicago tracks judicial rulings on officer credibility. So do prosecutors in New York. When Brooklyn prosecutors first released a Brady list in 2019, local media reported it included 53 cases involving similar judicial findings.

These judicial rulings do not mean an officer purposefully lied or committed perjury. 

Last year, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis expanded the type of conduct that may qualify as Brady material and created a new tracking system for judicial orders related to witness credibility.

In Milwaukee County, there is no comprehensive tracking of such decisions. Asked if such a system should exist, the county’s chief judge said, “there’s always a transcript of the proceedings.”

Attorneys cannot ask for a transcript if they do not know a ruling was made in the first place. Legal experts say such rulings should be disclosed and underscored that Brady protections help prevent wrongful convictions. 

Official misconduct has played a significant role in about 54% of wrongful convictions, according to a 2020 study from the National Registry of Exonerations.

“It is a staggering number that runs the gamut of witness tampering, misconduct in interrogations, fabricating evidence, concealing exculpatory evidence and perjury at trial,” said Rachel Burg, director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project.

Most cases involving misdemeanors and lower felony offenses are rarely reviewed after conviction.

Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, has extensively studied Brady lists. 

She reviewed Milwaukee County’s policy and said it appears to have an “improperly narrow reading of what types of misconduct could count as Brady evidence.”

The district attorney’s Brady list included 191 officers, as of late February. Thousands of officers have worked in the county since the list was started 25 years ago.

“The fact that the list dates back so many years and has relatively few officers suggests that it is probably missing a lot of Brady material,” Moran said.

Levenson, the Loyola Law School professor, said when a system fails to track officers with credibility problems, patterns get missed.

“The real concern is it’s not an isolated mistake, it becomes part of the culture,” she said.

A drug charge dismissed after officer found not credible by judge

The 22-year-old man stopped by Lazaris, the West Allis police officer later scolded by a judge, faced a felony drug charge.

The man’s attorney, Justin Padway, looked at the body camera footage.

In the video, Padway saw his client being polite and cooperative with the officer who had pulled him over. Lazaris peppered the driver with questions, including if he had guns or marijuana in the car. The man said no and kept his hands visible during the encounter. Lazaris got him out of the car and frisked him anyway.

Padway believed the officer had unlawfully searched his client and extended the traffic stop. He filed a motion to suppress the seized evidence, which included cocaine.

At the suppression hearing, Lazaris contradicted himself and the body camera footage, according to a transcript. 

In court, Lazaris said he pulled the man over for window tint. He said he believed he had thwarted a drug transaction and that the driver was involved in drug trafficking. In response to Padway’s questions, he admitted he saw no evidence of drug trafficking or a drug transaction.

Padway asked him to confirm his earlier testimony in the hearing, that he saw cocaine in the car. The officer said yes.

Padway played body camera footage in court. Lazaris could be heard telling another officer there may or may not be “shake” in the car. “Shake” typically refers to leftover, loose marijuana.

Lazaris, on the witness stand, said the term could be used for either marijuana or cocaine. Soon after, the judge, Van Grunsven, interrupted the questioning and said he was ready to rule.

“This guy testifies under oath he saw ‘shake’ in the vehicle,” the judge said. “That’s what he tells the K9 officer. That’s what’s truthful. That’s what’s honest. That’s what’s credible. The fact that he tries now to say that it was cocaine shake is incredible.”

The judge cited the other inconsistencies and ruled the search was unlawful, meaning the seized evidence could not be used. Prosecutors dismissed the charge against Padway’s client, who had no prior criminal convictions and has not been charged with any other offense.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel requested an interview with Lazaris or a West Allis Police Department official. In an email response, West Allis Deputy Chief Chris Marks defended the officer and said the department does not believe the judge’s finding should be considered Brady material.

“An officer losing a motion hearing can occur during the course of an officer’s career but is not indicative of deceit,” Marks said in an email. “The officer is a highly valued member of our department. We support the officer’s actions.” 

Lovern, the district attorney, said the case illustrates why his office generally will not add officers to the Brady list for credibility determinations made in court hearings.

The judge’s finding stemmed from what he thought the term “shake” meant, Lovern said.

“In fact, the term ‘shake’ has long been used to refer to both particles of marijuana and cocaine, particularly by law enforcement investigators,” Lovern said in an email.

Lovern did not address other inconsistencies cited by the judge. The Journal Sentinel left several messages for the judge but did not hear back.

To Padway, placing such an officer on the Brady list is “essential for maintaining the integrity of the justice system.”

“It ensures that both defense attorneys and prosecutors have access to crucial information about an officer’s credibility, protecting the defendant’s right to a fair trial and upholding public trust in law enforcement,” he said.

This story is part of Duty to Disclose, an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 and Wisconsin Watch. The Fund for Investigative Journalism provided financial support for this project.

Falsifying reports. Found ‘not credible.’ Why aren’t they on Milwaukee’s list of police officers with integrity issues? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Social Development Commission’s property corporation faces a foreclosure lawsuit for owing nearly $3 million in mortgage payments on its North Avenue buildings in Milwaukee, according to court records.

SD Properties Inc. is the tax-exempt corporation that owns the buildings of the Social Development Commission, or SDC.

Forward Community Investments Inc., a community development financial institution with Madison and Milwaukee offices, filed a complaint March 27 against SD Properties and SDC with the Milwaukee County Circuit Court.

SD Properties owes Forward Community Investments approximately $2.3 million in principal and interest for a 2020 construction mortgage and about $679,000 for a 2023 mortgage, for a total of just under $2.98 million, according to the complaint.

“FCI would be thrilled to see the critical services provided by CR-SDC return to the community,” said Ryan Zerwer, president & CEO of Forward Community Investments, in a statement. “However, the past 12 months, communication from SD Properties, Inc. has failed to provide sufficient information on actionable plans to fully resume operations and start meeting their financial obligations.”

SDC has been in turmoil since last April after it abruptly stopped operations and laid off staff. The agency reopened in December and is now preparing for a public hearing on its community action agency status.

William Sulton, SDC’s attorney, confirmed that SD Properties is in default on its mortgage payments.

“SDC has been in discussions with FCI about what kind of remedies they intend to pursue, so I guess it’s not a complete surprise,” Sulton said.

“I think the impact of the foreclosure case is it puts the North Avenue building at risk, and if there is no North Avenue building, then that is the majority of programs that SDC had in ’23.”

SDC also is listed on the lawsuit as a defendant as a guarantor for SD Properties.

Background and timeline

Forward Community Investments has been a lender to SD Properties since 2015 through its Community Development Loan Fund, which provides “financing to nonprofit organizations and community organizations for mission-focused projects that will work to reduce racial and socioeconomic disparities across the state of Wisconsin,” according to the complaint.

SD Properties entered into a construction mortgage on Jan. 22, 2020, of approximately $1.98 million plus interest, and then modified the agreement on July 22, 2020, to increase the total amount to $2.36 million.

In March 2023, SD Properties entered into a separate agreement in which it would owe about $665,000 and interest for a mortgage of five property parcels, which include the main office at 1730 North Ave., a warehouse at 1810 North Ave. and parking lots, according to court documents.

SD Properties defaulted on a “significant loan” in April 2024, according to Zerwer.

SD Properties also defaulted because it did not pay the entire amount of debt and interest owed for 2020 mortgage by the end date, or maturity date, of Dec. 22, 2024, according to the complaint.

Forbearance action stalled

Before the legal filing, Forward Community Investments presented SD Properties in the fall with a forbearance agreement, in which it would refrain from immediately collecting the obligations due from SD Properties, and revised it several times. 

However, Zerwer said revisions on the agreement reached an impasse in March.

SDC board members discussed a “time-sensitive” resolution related to SD Properties at an emergency meeting on March 24 and decided to postpone taking action.

“We’ve been doing many strategic moves to prevent the foreclosure of this building and possibly a deficiency judgment against our Teutonia (location),” said Vincent Bobot, an SDC commissioner and chair of the SD Properties board, at the meeting.

“If there’s not a foreclosure, it means it’s still going to be drawn out and still take quite some time, but nevertheless, we want that time,” he said.

Board members planned to return to the item at a later meeting so they could discuss it directly with Sulton, who was not at the meeting.

The forbearance agreement would allow SD Properties to keep the North Avenue main office and the 18th Street warehouse, Sulton said, but SDC’s main issue now is having no funding.

“Even if we win the lawsuit, without any funding, we’ll just end up with another lawsuit down the road,” Sulton said.

Legal proceedings

SD Properties has retained attorneys from Kerkman & Dunn to represent it in the foreclosure case, Sulton said.

SDC and SD Properties have 20 days to respond to the summons and complaint before the case proceeds in court.

“We feel we have been patient and extended every opportunity to the leadership of SD Properties, Inc. to work in partnership with us to resolve the loan default,” Zerwer said. “In fact, we call upon SD Properties, Inc. to once again work with us on a forbearance plan.”

Public hearing Friday on SDC

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families is hosting a public hearing on SDC’s designation as a community action agency from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, April 4.

The hearing will be held in the Milwaukee State Office Building, 819 N. 6th St., in Conference Rooms 40 and 45 on the first floor.

Milwaukee Social Development Commission buildings face foreclosure risk is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

City of Milwaukee election officials process absentee ballots at one location on Election Day, which sometimes means ballots are still being fed into tabulators late that night or early the next morning. Results are reported once processing finishes.

Conservative Brad Schimel, who faces liberal Susan Crawford in the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, suggested the late counting was malfeasance, a long-debunked claim.

Schimel on March 18 urged supporters to vote early “so we don’t have to worry that at 11:30 in Milwaukee, they’re going to find bags of ballots that they forgot to put into the machines, like they did in 2018, or in 2024.”

Schimel lost his attorney general re-election bid in 2018. Republican Eric Hovde lost to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., in the Nov. 5, 2024, election.

State law prohibits municipalities from preparing absentee ballots before Election Day. A bill that would allow an earlier start has stalled.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Watch: Did a late night ‘ballot dump’ in Milwaukee cost Eric Hovde the US Senate election?
• Reuters: Fact Check: Late-night Wisconsin election update for senator is not proof of fraud
• Votebeat: https://wisconsinwatch.org/2025/01/wisconsin-election-vote-ballot-absentee-clerks-milwaukee-republican-democrat/
• Associated Press: Schimel resurfaces debunked concerns about ballot counting in Milwaukee
• PolitiFact: No, an early morning influx of Milwaukee votes doesn't prove the Wisconsin Senate race was stolen
• WISN radio: Jay Weber Show – 3-18-25 Brad Schimel joins Jay and Past comments from Demo
• Milwaukee County Clerk: Milwaukee County 2024 General Election – Unofficial Results
• Wisconsin Watch: Does Wisconsin state law prohibit counting absentee ballots before Election Day?

Did Milwaukee election officials at the end of ballot counting ‘find bags of ballots that they forgot’? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.