MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Two court-appointed prosecutors declined Wednesday to rate a Wisconsin sheriff’s deputy within the 2016 deadly taking pictures of a person sound asleep in a park, announcing they didn’t consider they might defeat a self-defense argument.
The verdict echoes a district legal professional’s discovering years in the past that Joseph Mensah had acted in self-defense when he shot Jay Anderson Jr., one in every of 3 other people he fatally shot over a five-year span.
Mensah was once a Wauwatosa police officer on the time however has since change into a Waukesha County deputy.
The particular prosecutors, Milwaukee legal professional Scott Hansen and L. a. Crosse County District Lawyer Tim Gruenke, spent months reviewing the case, consulting judges and lawyers or even undertaking a ridicule trial with a jury and time and again discovered they couldn’t conquer the self-defense argument. Moral issues save you prosecutors from charging circumstances they know they may be able to’t end up past an affordable doubt, Hansen stated.
“We’re sorry there’s not anything we will be able to do to assist heal the ones wounds, however there isn’t and that’s our conclusion,” Hansen advised Pass judgement on Glenn Yamahiro as Anderson’s circle of relatives regarded on from the court docket’s gallery.
Mensah found out Anderson, who was once 25, sound asleep in a automotive after hours in a Wauwatosa park in June 2016. Mensah stated he fired after Anderson reached for a gun at the passenger seat, and Milwaukee County District Lawyer John Chisholm declined to rate Mensah later that yr. Chisholm additionally selected to not rate Mensah within the deaths of both of the opposite two other people he killed.
Anderson’s circle of relatives disputed that Anderson had reached for the gun. Their legal professional, Kimberly Motley, used a difficult to understand felony maneuver very similar to a grand jury inquiry to influence Milwaukee County Circuit Pass judgement on Glenn Yamahiro that there was once sufficient possible purpose to give a boost to charging Mensah. I n December, he appointed Hansen and Gruenke as particular prosecutors to study the case and document fees in the event that they noticed have compatibility.
Motley argued Wednesday that Gruenke and Hansen have been required through regulation to document fees since Yamahiro dominated sufficient possible purpose existed to give a boost to a criticism.
“This regulation was once put at the books… in order that the courts may just take care of this energy to rate other people… and offer protection to people who find themselves sufferers if the chief department refuses and doesn’t do its elementary process to give protection to sufferers,” Motley stated.
Yamahiro stated he believes the statutes required him most effective to search out possible purpose and release a evaluation. He stated that self-defense is tricky to triumph over and Hansen was once proper when he stated prosecutors can’t ethically rate circumstances they know they may be able to’t end up.
He sympathized with Anderson’s circle of relatives however stated he by no means idea a case in opposition to Mensah was once a “a slam dunk.”
“I perceive individuals are dissatisfied,” the pass judgement on stated. “I’m sorry from that point of view this isn’t a extra pleasant result for them.”
Mensah joined the Wauwatosa Police Division in 2015. That yr, he fatally shot Antonio Gonzales, who prosecutors stated had refused to drop a sword. Mensah killed Anderson the next yr. In 2020, he shot and killed 17-year-old Alvin Cole as Cole fled from police following a disturbance at a mall. Mensah stated he fired as a result of Cole pointed a gun at him. That taking pictures sparked months of protests.
In explaining his rationale for no longer charging Mensah in Cole’s demise, Chisholm stated proof confirmed, amongst different issues, that Cole fled from police sporting a stolen handgun, fired a shot whilst fleeing and refused police instructions to drop the weapon.
Mensah is Black, as have been Anderson and Cole. Gonzales known as Local American.
Mensah resigned underneath force from the Wauwatosa Police Division in 2020 and joined the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Division.
