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

Another potential riot at the Milwaukee County Jail was quelled by guards in April, Wisconsin Examiner has learned through open records requests. On April 12, correctional officers were notified of a “mass refusal,” with jail residents refusing to enter their cells. One occupant was placed on administrative segregation for attempting to incite a riot, according to emails obtained by Wisconsin Examiner. 

This marks the second known instance this year that unrest has occurred within the jail. Emails sent by Sgt. Tiawana Thompson indicate that at about 12:30 pm on April 12, Officer Brenden Zollicoffer radioed the jail’s master control to report the mass refusal. According to the email exchange, Thompson arrived with Officer Billy Howled and saw that additional Milwaukee County Sheriff Office (MCSO) personnel were already responding to POD 5D, where the refusal was occurring. 

“I noticed occupants either running to their cells, laying down, or standing at their cells,” Thompson wrote in the email, adding that personnel advised that occupant Corey Kirkwood had “incited a riot by closing all cell doors not allowing inmates to get into their cells.” Kirkwood, who was charged in January with sexual assault and trafficking of a minor, was one of several jail residents who appear to have been transferred to other parts of the facility after the April unrest. 

Thompson’s email also reported that “due to this action, occupant Kirkwood will be placed on administrative segregation (Ad-seg), pending discipline as well as being an ongoing investigation.” Another officer was tasked with completing a rules violation report, the email stated.

The Milwaukee sheriff did not respond to questions about the incident and whether Kirkwood remains in administrative segregation, or how he was able to control whether cell doors were open or closed. 

Ten days after the mass refusal, MCSO Correctional Captain Kerry Turner emailed Sgt. Thompson and asked whether paperwork for those moved to administrative segregation had been finished. Turner asked, “Also, have all violations been completed and signed off on by a supervisor? Have the occupants all received a copy of their violation? Please let me know the status of these concerns of mine.” 

It’s unclear what triggered this particular mass refusal incident. Another potential riot was quelled by jail staff in mid-February after one jail occupant, 49-year-old Keenan Brown, allegedly attempted to incite a riot by “shouting to the entire housing unit that the inmates needed to stick up for themselves and that they would not be taken seriously until they started assaulting staff.” Jail staff had learned that Brown used his jail-issued tablet to contact his mother, urging her to reach out to Fox6. When jail staff talked to Brown, he said jail residents weren’t being let out of their cells enough, and that their rights were being violated. At least 20 people were transferred to other parts of the jail after that incident as well. 

During the late summer of 2023, nearly 30 jail residents were charged with disorderly conduct after they barricaded themselves in a library area and refused to return to their cells. The mass action was done to protest “dissatisfaction with their gymnasium time coming to an end and expressing that, generally, they wanted more ‘open’ recreational time,” according to an MCSO press release issued weeks after the unrest occurred. 

The jail has come under increasing scrutiny under multiple sheriffs in recent years. Over a 14-month period from 2022 to 2023, six people died in custody at the jail. In late May, 33-year-old Gabriel Muniz-Jimenez became the second person to die in 2025.  A third party audit detected severe problems with the physical condition of the jail’s booking areas, housing units, use of force policies and practices for monitoring people placed on suicide watch. A recent review by the auditor, the Texas-based company Creative Corrections, found the jail to be in compliance with 71.2% of  proposed corrective actions, with another 28.8% being in partial compliance.

Protesters gather to march in Wauwatosa alongside the families of Antonio Gonzales, Jay Anderson Jr., and Alvin Cole in 2020. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Update: Rep. Shae Sortwell issued a statement Wednesday morning disputing claims from Democratic Reps Ryan Clancy and Andrew Hysell that the riot bill was taken off the Assembly’s executive agenda. Sortwell accused Clancy and Hysell of “spreading misinformation” regarding the bill.

“To be clear, the chair never pulled the bill because he has not officially scheduled a vote on it yet after receiving a hearing two weeks ago. I am in discussions with colleagues on the committee, which is standard practice for bill authors after a public hearing. I ask both Democrat representatives to brush up on legislative policy on how bills actually move.”

Wednesday afternoon Rep. Ron Tusler, who chairs the assembly committee, which held public hearings on the riot bill, wrote in an email statement to Wisconsin Examiner that the riot bill needs work before it can be scheduled.

Tusler wrote that the bill “is not on the agenda because, in its current form, it fails to be good legislation. I wanted to give the bill author a chance to explain the bill out of respect for Representative Sortwell and the victims of riots. But in its current form, this bill has constitutional, common-sense, and enforcement issues. Assembly Bill 88, as it exists now, was never going to be scheduled for an executive session until those problems were/are addressed.”

A Republican-sponsored bill that would have defined a riot as a gathering of at least three people that could pose a threat of property damage or injury has been removed from the Assembly Judiciary Committee’s executive session agenda. The bill has been criticized for being overly broad, and potentially chilling First Amendment protections of protest and free speech. Besides defining a riot, the bill also exposed accused rioters and riot organizers to felony charges and civil liability including restitution for attorneys’ fees and property damage, and carried a prohibition on government officials with authority over law enforcement from limiting an agency’s response to quell unrest. 

Rep. Andrew Hysell (D- Sun Prairie), a member of the Assembly Committee on Judiciary, said that he criticized the bill because it “actually weakens existing law for the very people it was supposed to help.” The committee held a public hearing on the bill on May 7, at which  a large number of Wisconsinites voiced opposition to the bill. Rep. Shae Sortwell (R- Two Rivers), one of the bill’s authors, testified in favor of the bill, saying that it’s needed to prevent protests from spinning out of control into riots, property destruction, and injury. Sortwell and other republican supporters of the bill referenced protests and unrest in 2020 in Kenosha and  Madison. 

Among those who testified against the bill was Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee). Like other critics, Clancy said the bill was written vaguely in order to be applied broadly to crack down on protest movements. “While myself and many of my Democratic colleagues are tired of wasting our time and our constituents’ resources on badly written, unconstitutional bills like AB-88, I’m ecstatic that Republicans have abandoned this one for now,” Clancy said in a statement after the bill was shelved by the Assembly committee. “It’s clear that passionate, thoughtful testimony from the public, free speech advocates and civil rights experts – along with excellent technical critiques from Rep. Andrew Hysell – has stopped this so-called ‘anti-riot’ bill dead in its tracks.”

Clancy added that “in reality, however, this isn’t an ‘anti-riot’ bill: it’s a threat to free speech, expression and assembly disguised as a public safety measure. Thankfully, it’s now unlikely to move forward this session.” 

During the May 7 committee hearing where people spoke either in favor of or against the bill, one person wore a hat which used an expletive to denounce President Donald Trump. Committee Chair Ron Tusler (R- Harrison) demanded that the man remove the hat because it was offensive. Tusler threatened to have law enforcement remove the man, and called the hearing into recess. Later, when the hearing continued, the man was allowed to continue wearing the hat. Clancy told  Tusler his emotional reaction to the hat and his impulse to call for police was an example of how a broad, penalty-heavy bill for protests like AB-88 is a bad idea.

In his statement, Clancy urged his colleagues to spend “less time trying to dismantle our rights and getting angry at rude hats” and more time “addressing the actual needs of Wisconsin residents. Until that changes, we must all remain vigilant to fight back their next, terrible idea.” 

This article has been updated to add a statement from Rep. Shae Sortwell accusing Reps Ryan Clancy and Andrew Hysell of spreading misinformation about why the bill was taken off the executive session agenda. The article was updated again Wednesday afternoon with Committee Chair Rep. Ron Tusler’s statement regarding the riot bill. It has also been edited to correct Rep. Ron Tusler’s last name.