Group seeks to oust prosecutor after Wisconsin parade crash
Dec 20, 2021, 3:27 AM | Updated: 5:45 pm
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Wisconsin’s governor received a complaint Monday seeking the removal of Milwaukee County’s district attorney because one his prosecutors recommended $1,000 bail for a man who authorities say later drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in a nearby county, killing six people.
Darrell Brooks is being held on a $5 million bail for the six homicide charges he faces in the Nov. 21 parade deaths in Waukesha, a Milkwauee suburb that is in Waukesha County. He was released on bail just days earlier after allegedly running over the mother of his child with his SUV.
Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm has been under intense criticism for the bail recommendation. Chisholm has called it “inappropriately low” given the circumstances of the crimes Brooks was facing and his prior history.
A group of people who say they are Milwaukee County taxpayers filed the complaint Friday asking Evers to remove Chisholm to prevent similarly low bail recommendations in future cases involving violent offenders. The governor’s office confirmed it received the complaint Monday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“The devastation resulting from Chisholm’s dereliction of duty to protect the public has reached outside the borders of Milwaukee County,” the complaint says.
It was signed by Orville Seymer and six people who did not list their addresses or return phone calls from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Seymer has long been affiliated with a local group called Citizens for Responsible Government that formed in the wake of a 2002 Milwaukee County public pension scandal.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has not yet had a chance to review the complaint, a spokeswoman said.
A spokesman for Chisholm, who is also a Democrat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Under state law, a governor may remove an elected district attorney for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, official misconduct, or malfeasance in office.”
Earlier this year, Evers launched an investigation into Eau Claire County District Attorney Gary King, also a Democrat, over alleged sexual harassment in the workplace after receiving a complaint from King’s former colleagues. King resigned before the investigation concluded.
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