Photo credit: Ethan Duran
Luke Vetter with the Wauwatosa Police Department speaks to Kimberley Motley, an attorney representing the families of Alvin Cole and Jay Anderson Jr.
In the summer of 2020, a series of demonstrations meant to highlight patterns of police misconduct brought national attention to the city of Wauwatosa. At the center of these concerns was the behavior of former Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah, who shot and killed three people—Antonio Gonzales (2015), Jay Anderson (2016), and Alvin Cole (2020)—while on duty. Yet many concerned citizens also took to the streets to decry the culture, created by Wauwatosa Chief of Police Barry Weber and supported by numerous rank-and-file officers, that allowed such behavior to go unchecked for so many years. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Wauwatosa Police Department responded to these demonstrations with displays of state-sanctioned violence and attempts to intimidate participants.
These tactics will be at the heart of an April 1 online forum (noon-1:30 p.m.), sponsored by the Milwaukee Turners Association, that attempts to answer one question: What’s Wrong with the Wauwatosa Police Department? Attorney Kimberley Motley will discuss the current work she is doing to draw attention not only to the acts of former officer Mensah and his superiors, but also to the day-to-day practices of officers charged to keep the peace in Wauwatosa. Motley’s work, for example, has helped uncover “ghost arrests” associated with individuals who participated in the summer demonstrations but were never charged. Motley will be joined in this discussion by criminal defense attorney Ramon Valdez of the National Lawyers Guild, and Sedan Smith of The People’s Revolution. Emilio De Torre, Executive Director of the Milwaukee Turners Association, will serve as event host.
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To De Torre, the moment is ripe for such a conversation. “The United States,” he notes, “is at a juncture where we are finally beginning to reconcile our racist past with our ideals. For centuries, law enforcement has been an unaccountable force for upholding a status quo that is not always in keeping with our ideals.” And the work of Motley and others, notes De Torre, continues the commitment to “liberty against all oppression and justice against all exploitation” that has guided the Milwaukee Turners since 1853. “Attorney Kimberley Motley,” concludes De Torre, “is shedding light on a many decades long story of seemingly extra-legal, and certainly unacceptable, activities by members of the Wauwatosa Police Department.” The forum will give these important voices a chance to reach more Milwaukee County residents.
Register for the online discussion here.
Interview with Attorney Kimberley Motley
Could you briefly explain the work you’re doing?
I have submitted several open records requests of arrests of activists to the WPD regarding the over seventy nonviolent noncriminal tickets that I am representing people on for peacefully protesting. In the documents that I received back, I discovered over 40 fabricated arrest records of various activists primarily in Milwaukee County.
In these documents, persons were given a date of arrest, an incident number, and assigned a booking number. This is immensely concerning as Wauwatosa police department has a sordid history of targeting black and brown drivers in the community. We know that, for instance, Wauwatosa is a community with about 6% black population from 2015-2017 but yet over 60% of the traffic stops were of black people according to what I have received. We also know that during that same time period black drivers were detained over two minutes longer than white drivers. The question is do these fabricated arrests come up when an officer is stopping someone in the community.
You’ve also stressed the role of culture in departments like Wauwatosa – and that way that culture ultimately provides justification for such abusive tactics. create to essentially support such tactics. How does such a culture come into existence?
I believe that a lot of the culture of the police starts from the top down. If upper management and police chiefs are willing to tolerate racially insensitive behavior within their police department then that undoubtedly trickles down to the way in which people police. The lack of accountability within the Wauwatosa Police Department largely comes down to the inept leadership of Chief Weber but it also is a reflection of Wauwatosa’s Fire and Police Commission as well as elected officials especially the mayor are willing to tolerate. There is a real lack of checks and balances of the WPD and Chief Weber that has resulted in the issues that we see today.
What will it take to make the Wauwatosa Police Department accountable?
An independent unbiased thorough investigation of the WPD that can be accomplished through a Federal Civil Rights Probe. Until WPD understands the issues that they have it would be irresponsible to pick a permanent Chief to address those issues and to make the department stronger moving forward.
