Latest news with #WisconsinNationalGuard
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
When George Floyd was killed, policing and diversity changes came. Five years later, is that change at risk?
Police violence had been captured on video before. But the video of George Floyd's final nine minutes of life was different. It captured Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, dying as Derick Chauvin, a White Minneapolis police officer, held him down with his knee on Floyd's neck. Video captured Floyd pleading for his mother, as onlookers were pleading for his life. Usually homicides by police officers involve a firearm, with the incidents captured over in a matter of seconds, minutes at most, said Reggie Moore, the Medical College of Wisconsin's director of violence prevention policy and engagement. 'This was a slow and methodical murder that would shake any caring individual to their core,' Moore said. 'Thankfully, millions across the globe, from all walks of life, were not only shaken but inspired to take to the streets and demand change.' Chanting Floyd's dying words, 'I can't breathe,' and "Black Lives Matter," thousands took to the streets of Milwaukee, at one point closing a section of Interstate 43, encircling a law enforcement building in Racine and setting it on fire. In Madison, long a liberal bastion for rallies, police began deploying tear gas, night-after-night, as crowds turned their anger to destruction, smashing windows and vandalizing businesses along State Street, tearing down two iconic statues on Capitol grounds and assaulting state Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee. Signaling a need to maintain safety, control crowds and protect businesses from looting, more than 1,400 Wisconsin National Guard troops were deployed to Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine and Kenosha, The rallies in the United States were replicated overseas, with thousands marching in cities like London, Berlin and Toronto. Not even the new, fast-spreading COVID-19 virus could keep people away from rallies. Millions took to the streets, masked, to decry racial injustices and hold Chauvin accountable. These forces were colliding with a presidential campaign already underway: President Donald Trump's first administration saw protests as a need for police crackdowns. Presidential candidate Joe Biden reached out to Floyd's family and said the moment was a call to social reckoning. Biden won and soon signed executive orders aimed at advancing equity, civil rights and racial justice. Now, five years after Floyd's death on May 25, 2020, Trump is back. A jackhammer was taken to the words "Black Lives Matter,' removing the phrase on the boulevard leading to the White House. Under the Trump administration, diversity, equity and inclusion policies are systematically losing funding and are viewed as no longer relevant. 'I ended all of the lawless, so-called diversity, equity and inclusion bullshit all across the entire federal government and the private sector,' Trump said at an April 29 rally in Michigan that marked his 100th day in office. The public is skeptical the period after Floyd created meaningful improvements for Black Americans, according to the Pew Research Center. In May, the organization released results of a survey that found 72% of respondents did not feel the focus on race after Floyd's killing led to improvements. And those who did feel progress was made fear it could be lost. 'Those battles won't stay won,' said William Sulton, a defense attorney and president of the American Civil Liberties Union Wisconsin. "You have to continue to talk about these issues because there can be a rollback, and that's what we're experiencing, a major rollback in gains that were made in 2020." Changes to police reforms have been swift during the first five months of Trump's second term. Five days prior to the five-year anniversary of Floyd's death the U.S. Department of Justice announced its plans to drop police-accountability agreements with Minneapolis and Louisville, Kentucky, where Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by police officers. The move abandons Biden-era attempts to reshape law enforcement in cities with high-profile killings by officers. Trump has deleted a federal database of police misconduct incidents, overturned executive orders signed by Biden, and canceled funding for programs or agencies that existed to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. In April, Trump issued an executive order directing the attorney general to use all legal remedies against state and local officials who engage in diversity, equity and inclusion policies in law enforcement, and he has done the same in "virtually all aspects of federal government.' Earlier this year, the president called DEI a 'tyranny' on the federal government, public sector and military. 'Our country will be woke no longer,' Trump said during a joint address to Congress in March. The corporate sector has followed Trump's lead. Wisconsin-based Kohl's Corp. dropped the term DEI from its annual report, replacing it with 'inclusion and belonging.' Harley-Davidson, a Milwaukee-based company, also backed away from diversity initiatives. Many in Trump's party support the changes. 'The words diversity, equity and inclusion, they all sound good, but what results from that mentality?' said state Rep. Bob Donovan, R-Greenfield. 'I wholeheartedly support merit-based promotions and hiring.' Tanya McLean is executive director of Leaders of Kenosha, a group that advocates for social and restorative justice and equal access to resources for Black residents of Kenosha and Wisconsin. It's been her experience that police are receptive to the idea of more diversity within the force. Police departments in Kenosha, Madison and Milwaukee became more diverse in the years since Floyd's murder, records show. Although the Trump agenda calls for rollback, local governments have passed laws already that 'reduced negative police encounters,' said Sulton, the state ACLU official. Sulton said he's optimistic that DEI policies and policing reforms he advocates for will remain. That's because people are simply putting in the work. 'You're going to have swings from Democrats being in power to swings of Republicans being in power, which is why I think it's important for people stay on the job every day,' he said. The Floyd protests led to change across every sector, but no profession came under more scrutiny and change than law enforcement. Underscoring it all was the way police engaged with people of color, with Floyd's murder underscoring what many believed to be indicative of racial bias. 'Defund the police' became a common refrain, alongside "re-envision policing," as people advocated for funding to go to communities directly and for dollars to be funneled to things meant to prevent crime, rather than to police departments responding to it. Policy changes soon followed. Milwaukee's Fire and Police Commission passed policies that tightened use-of-force, banned chokeholds and banned no-knock warrants. Three months after Floyd was killed, police in Kenosha shot Jacob Blake, Black man, in the back as he got into a car. A neighbor caught the incident on video, which went viral. Blake's shooting, which left him paralyzed, reignited protests and led to body cameras being mandated for Kenosha police officers. In Madison, police adopted dozens of changes after undergoing an external review through University of Pennsylvania. Fred Royal, a former president of the local NAACP, called the Fire and Police Commission's changes part of one of the 'most progressive use-of-force policies currently being employed or discussed' when they occurred. "All of these different processes got us to where we are now," said Milwaukee activist Vaun Mayes, who organized one of the first protests in the city in 2020. "Clearly we're not where we want to be completely." At the state level, bills were passed that banned chokeholds in most instances, required reporting of no-knock warrants (a response to Breonna Taylor's death in Louisville, Kentucky), and tracked use-of-force incidents. Wisconsin's legislative changes were 'in the middle' for states that did make changes, said Brandon Garrett, a law professor at Duke University and director of its Wilson Center for Science and Justice. The Wilson Center tracked police reform changes nationally in the years that followed Floyd's death. He cited Colorado as a state that took more steps than Wisconsin by removing qualified immunity for police officers accused of wrongdoing. 'You don't want to make policy because of one case and one incident,' Garrett said. '(But it was) a catalyst to reexamine some kind of policies that people had known for a long time weren't great.' While the emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion at the federal level didn't see real backlash until Trump's second term, the pushback came swiftly in Wisconsin, due in large part to GOP control of the Legislature. Take the passage of Act 12 in 2023. Milwaukee was on the brink of a fiscal crisis. Lawmakers agreed to help out the state's largest city, but the help came with stipulations: among those were DEI restrictions and policing requirements. Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said at the time the city's fiscal situation was effectively used to strip away DEI efforts made by the city. The law prohibited Milwaukee from using tax money to fund 'any position for which the principal duties consist of promoting individuals or groups on the basis of their race, color, ancestry, national origin, or sexual orientation." It also prohibited local governments in Wisconsin from using preferences in hiring or contracting. "Milwaukee's fiscal cliff opened the door to Republican demands that would have never passed muster for me or at the city's Common Council," Johnson said in 2023. "No matter how loudly I said no, the steamroller of political reality moved forward." When Wisconsin Act 12 passed, it came with hefty stipulations on policing in the city as well. The Fire and Police Commission lost the power to create policy for the departments, with that responsibility moving to the chiefs of both departments. Act 12 also dictated the oversight commission have two members from lists provided by the police and firefighter unions. The current executive director of the Fire and Police Commission previously told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the law's FPC provisions were passed in backlash to policy changes. "Where the board diverged from what the Police Department and, more importantly, the police union wanted ... that's what led to the Act 12 changes," director Leon Todd said in late February. The ACLU's Sulton said DEI and policy backtracking was a direct result of conservative backlash. 'I think (Trump) and the Republicans, even before summer of 2020, really resisted and took steps to undo anything that would address past discrimination and current discrimination,' he said. Changes to law enforcement policies have taken hold in Milwaukee. Nate Hamilton continues pushing for more. Hamilton is the brother of Dontre Hamilton, whom Milwaukee police shot and killed in 2014 after they responded to a report of a sleeping man in a public park downtown. Police officers were fired, but ultimately not charged in the incident. It sparked years of activism for him and his family. Hamilton now is chair of a city commission meant to offer community input on police reform. The group helped craft the the Milwaukee Police Department's community policing policy and is working with the department on updating it. Hamilton is optimistic progress will continue, in part, because the department has improved the way it listens to the community under Police Chief Jeffrey Norman. 'We just need to stay steady. We don't need to overwhelm the system,' he said. McLean, executive director of the advocacy group Leaders of Kenosha, said it seems as though the country is in an endless cycle of police killings that may not get a lot of attention but continue to happen. She believes the best way forward is open communication with law enforcement and lawmakers. "The powers that be need to be addressing the root causes of why and how we got here," she said. "That is most important and that work still needs to continue. Those conversations still need to be had.' Dr. Christopher Ford, an emergency medicine doctor in Milwaukee, was doing his residency in Minneapolis when a police officer was found not guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of Philando Castile. Castile was killed by a police officer in a Minneapolis suburb in 2016, four years before Floyd. Castile, 32, was in the car with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old son. Talk quickly circulated in the media regarding what he had done — was he intoxicated, how did he provoke the officer? The questions about Castile's alcohol consumption were enough to make Ford, now 39, change his own behavior. He quit drinking. He added it to the list of behaviors to alter when encountered by police — don't make any sudden movements, show your hands, if you have a weapon, have a permit — that his grandfather had taught his dad and both had taught him. 'I can't have any wiggle room when I am out or that could happen to me,' said Ford, who identifies as African American. For all that has changed since Floyd, and for all that has been rolled back, some things haven't changed at all. Ford says he speaks to his two sons, ages 5 and 7, every day the same way his father and grandfather did to him. Unfortunately, that is the way it is, he said. 'That's something that my kids are going to have to live with for the rest of their lives," Ford said. "The society that they grow up in sees them differently than mom and dad does." David Clarey is a public safety reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at dclarey@ Drake Bentley is a general assignment and breaking news reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at dbentley1@ Jessica Van Egeren is a general assignment reporter and assistant breaking news editor with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She can be reached at jvanegeren@ This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Will changes driven by George Floyd's murder five years ago stay?
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Evers declines review in case of fired Wisconsin National Guard officer cleared in four investigations
This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. It was made possible by donors like you. For Col. Leslie Zyzda Martin — who was fired from the Wisconsin National Guard despite four investigations failing to substantiate allegations against her — the language in Wisconsin's military justice law is clear: Any members of the National Guard who think they have been wronged by a commander can make a complaint that must be reviewed and resolved as soon as possible by a superior officer. Yet more than a year after making such a complaint, Zyzda Martin says she is still waiting for some kind of justice. The commander whom she has accused of unceremoniously firing her, Brig. Gen. David May, is still interim head of the Wisconsin National Guard and may be retiring soon. And his boss, Gov. Tony Evers, informed Zyzda Martin in August he's declining further review, but didn't provide records of any proceedings related to the particular review she requested. Military legal experts who reviewed the provision in Article 138 of Wisconsin's military justice code agreed it compels the Guard and the governor, as commander-in-chief, to review such complaints, especially because the complaint involves an adjutant general. Whoever reviews the complaint must also provide documentation of the proceedings of that review. A lawyer who advises the Legislature agreed the law allows Zyzda Martin to appeal to the governor, but doesn't appear to provide recourse if the governor declines to act. Guard spokesperson Bridget Esser emphasized the state Department of Workforce Development Equal Rights Division determined in 2023 that the Guard did not discriminate against Zyzda Martin. That finding responded to a sex discrimination complaint Zyzda Martin filed in June 2022. She withdrew her appeal in January 2024, but continued to pursue the Article 138 complaint. The Guard said while four investigations didn't substantiate three complaints against Zyzda Martin, information gleaned from those investigations caused May to lose confidence in her ability to command. The Guard did not provide a detailed explanation for her firing when Wisconsin Watch asked, saying it was protecting Zyzda Martin's privacy even after she signed a waiver for the Guard to release her personnel records to the news outlet. Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback said the Guard 'has provided legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons' for demoting and firing Zyzda Martin. 'In order for a wrong to be remedied a wrong must be identified,' Cudaback said. 'Based on a review of Zyzda Martin's complaint, supporting documents, and investigatory files of the three inspector general complaints made against her, there is no indication of any wrongful action against her.' After her firing in November 2021, Zyzda Martin worked for the South Carolina Guard, but the disciplinary letters May put in her military record from her time in Wisconsin prevented her from being promoted. Because of that, she retired in October, ending her 34-year military career. 'I still don't know what I did wrong,' Zyzda Martin said. 'I have no idea.' Last year, a Wisconsin Watch investigation highlighted Zyzda Martin's case. It was notable because the Wisconsin National Guard has been plagued for years by allegations of sexual harassment and a culture that hasn't supported women in uniform. Previous reporting on those allegations led to Evers firing former Adjutant General Donald Dunbar, but commanders who served under him, including May, have remained. Zyzda Martin suspects her termination relates to how she handled a sexting case at Volk Field and other changes she made there, including updates to the airfield's safety program after a technician died while changing light bulbs on a runway. An independent investigation into the death later found that Volk Field, at the time under May's command, was not properly staffed and had 'significant voids in safety program management, training, and compliance.' Because of the broad discretion military commanders have, retribution can be swift for those who report wrongdoing. Service members have few avenues for recourse, but Wisconsin provides one legal remedy: the Article 138 complaint. The law entitles 'any member of the state military forces' who believes they've been wronged by a commanding officer and is refused redress to 'complain to any superior commissioned officer, who shall forward the complaint to the officer exercising general court-martial jurisdiction over the officer against whom it is made.' According to the statute, which mirrors the one in the federal Uniform Code of Military Justice, the superior officer 'shall examine the complaint and take proper measures for redressing the wrong complained of; and shall, as soon as possible, send to the adjutant general a true statement of that complaint, with the proceedings.' Zyzda Martin filed an Article 138 complaint over her firing with Evers' office in November 2023. She argues Evers is the proper person to review the complaint because, as commander-in-chief of the Guard, he oversees May. Zyzda Martin also already sought redress with May and Maj. Gen. Paul Knapp, making Evers next in the chain of command. In January 2024 Evers' chief legal counsel Mel Barnes said Evers was deferring a decision on whether to look into Zyzda Martin's case to 'allow for the completion of an inquiry by the Governor's Office,' according to a letter Barnes sent to Zyzda Martin. Eight months later, Evers' office sent a letter saying it reviewed the record of her removal and was 'declining to take further action on the complaint.' But the office has produced no record of any correspondence or proceedings related to either an Article 138 review or the inquiry the governor's office said it was undertaking. The Guard confirmed there were no records of any proceedings related to any reviews or inquiries in a November email to Zyzda Martin. The Guard and Evers did not respond to Wisconsin Watch's requests for records of any proceedings. 'If there was that inquiry, I should have documents showing that,' Zyzda Martin said. 'The governor has the responsibility, law or not, to do the right thing and look into it.' Though military legal experts said Wisconsin's military justice code requires the Guard and the governor to review Article 138 complaints, there are no specifics in the statute of what the proceedings must look like. 'I don't think that the resulting reporting has to be a seven-volume magnum opus,' said Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School and co-founded the National Institute of Military Justice. 'But I think there has to be an effort to apply the mind and find the facts and explain what, if anything, the governor is going to do.' Often Article 138 complaints go nowhere, but they are a necessary step if a service member plans to take a case to court, Fidell said. 'The complaining party has a right to an up-or-down vote on a complaint and there has to be a meaningful investigation and there has to be a report generated,' Fidell said. But Wisconsin's law does not provide guidance on how such a review should be conducted, a key departure from how such complaints are handled on the federal level, said retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Chip Hodge, a military attorney, who now represents service members globally in legal cases. 'Usually the services provide procedural guidance and on implementing the law,' he said. 'I haven't seen that in Wisconsin … which leads to that ambiguity. It seems like they could be taking advantage of the ambiguity.' Lt. Col. Ryan Sweazey, a retired F-16 pilot and former inspector general in the U.S. Air Force who has worked with Zyzda Martin on her complaint, suspects that is the case. 'The governor's office said, 'We're not taking further action, you lose,' essentially, which is a violation of the Wisconsin state statute,' said Sweazey, who founded the Walk The Talk Foundation, an advocacy group helping service members navigate the military judicial system. 'The law is nice but if there is no accountability for violating the law or circumventing it, what is the point?' But David Moore, an attorney with Wisconsin's Legislative Council, a nonpartisan agency of the Wisconsin Legislature, said the law is not clear on what it compels the governor to do. 'It's not clear to me that Article 138 envisions a process for filing a complaint with the governor, but even if it does, that tees up that tricky question of 'you can take it to the governor, but does he really have to do anything?'' Moore said. 'And if he doesn't do anything, is there any recourse to that?' Although Evers is commander-in-chief of the Guard, Moore said that does not make him an officer in the context of the Article 138 statute. Also no court has clarified exactly what the law means. The investigations against Zyzda Martin were the result of complaints made through the Air Force's Office of Inspector General. In one case, even after the initial complainant voluntarily withdrew the complaint, May pushed for an investigation to continue, but the allegation still wasn't substantiated. In the end, May issued two letters of admonishment to Zyzda Martin on Nov. 8, 2021, the day she was fired. May and Knapp used information from the investigations as the basis for discipline. This 'effectively railroad(ed) her honorable career,' Zyzda Martin's attorney Toni O'Neill wrote in her Article 138 complaint. One letter said that although one investigation into Zyzda Martin's work was unsubstantiated, 13 of 26 Guard members interviewed 'noted some level of concerning conduct or negative connotations' about her approach. But Zyzda Martin says she was never told about any complaints and had little direct interaction with employees at Volk Field because everyone worked separately during the COVID-19 pandemic. The letter also said there was evidence in one investigation of an unhealthy command climate, but Zyzda Martin noted the Guard never opened a separate inquiry into those allegations as required by military law. May and Knapp fired her before their third investigation into her conduct was complete. That violates military guidance on such investigations, which directs commanders to defer discipline until an investigation is done. Zyzda Martin said May told her years ago he planned to retire in March 2025. Another source granted anonymity to share internal Guard information confirmed that's still the case and that May didn't apply to become the permanent adjutant general. Zyzda Martin now works for a defense consulting firm and said she is considering her next move to clear her name. 'If this is how the leaders of our defense treat their subordinates, can you imagine what is happening to the structure of our defense department?' Zyzda Martin said. 'If governors are going to be in charge of the military they need to be held accountable and follow their procedures.' This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Evers declines review in case of fired Wisconsin National Guard officer
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Hearing helicopters in northern Illinois or southern Wisconsin this week? Here's why:
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — If you've heard the sound of helicopters buzzing overhead at night, that's because the U.S. Army is conducting training this week. According to the Wisconsin National Guard, members of the Army's Special Operations Aviation Command are conducting nighttime training between Madison and Sparta, Wisconsin, and Bloomington, Indiana areas from Monday, February 24th and Friday, February 28th. 'Citizens may hear a higher level of noise associated with military aircraft,' officials said. 'This training has been fully coordinated with local government and law enforcement officials and is not in response to any real-world event. Extensive safety precautions are in place to protect the service members and local citizens and to limit inconvenience to the communities,' the Wisconsin National Guard said in a Facebook post shared by the Beloit Police Department. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Hearing helicopters in the Wisconsin skies this week? Here's why:
(WFRV) – Wisconsinites could be hearing an increase of helicopters flying throughout the Wisconsin skies this week. According to a post on social media by the Wisconsin National Guard, parts of the United States Army Special Operations Aviation Command are conducting nighttime training from February 24 through February 28 in the Madison, Spartan (WI), and Bloomington, Indiana areas. Barn in Wisconsin a total loss following late night fire, cause is under investigation The training will include 'aviation assets' meaning residents in the named communities could hear a higher level of noise from military aircraft. Officials say the training has been fully coordinated with local government and law enforcement agencies and is not in response to any real-world event. They add that Extensive safety precautions are currently in place to protect the service members involved as well as local citizens and the training is being done in an attempt to limit any inconveniences to the affected communities. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
DC plane crash; retired Black Hawk pilot weighs in
The Brief Authorities have yet to determine the official cause of the passenger jet and Army Black Hawk helicopter collision over the Potomac River. There were no survivors among the 67 people on board an American Airlines passenger jet and a military helicopter. A retired Wisconsin National Guard pilot who has flown a Black Hawk helicopter weighed in on the fatal incident. WEST BEND, Wis. - There were no survivors among the 67 people on board an American Airlines passenger jet and a military helicopter, which collided midair over Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night, Jan. 29. What we know Authorities have yet to determine the official cause of the passenger jet and Army Black Hawk helicopter collision over the Potomac River. It is considered the worst U.S. aviation disaster in almost 24 years. What we don't know There are a lot of unanswered questions, but one many might be turning to now is how did this happen? SIGN UP TODAY: Get daily headlines, breaking news emails from FOX6 News Local perspective After serving for 39 years as a pilot with the Wisconsin National Guard, Bill Richey knows the ins and outs of what it takes to fly a Black Hawk helicopter. Like many people across the world, Richey said the plane crash in D.C. came as a major shock. "To have something like this happen – it's kind of a big surprise," Richey said. "The crews that operate in that environment in D.C., if you are a pilot in command, and that's a pretty high designation. Those guys are pretty top-notch to fly in that environment because their responsibility is huge." FREE DOWNLOAD: Get breaking news alerts in the FOX LOCAL Mobile app for iOS or Android Richie said the three soldiers who died in the crash were very high in the ranks. In addition, they were also on a helicopter that flies high-ranking people from the Pentagon and Congress. "To fly in that environment – those guys go through pretty significant training," he said. While the National Transportation Board works to figure out how this happened, Richey hopes it doesn't happen again. The Source The information in this post was produced by FOX6 News and utilized prior FOX coverage of the crash.
