Police takedown costs Milwaukee $150K; lawsuit followed FOX6 investigation
MILWAUKEE - A FOX6 investigation found police used force against an innocent man, then failed to make any record of it. Now, the city is cutting that man a check for $150,000.
The out-of-court settlement puts an end to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed in August 2022, four months after FOX6's story first brought the incident to light.
"I'm just ready to move forward with my life," said Michael Poe, the plaintiff in the lawsuit.
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FOX6 Investigators obtained video-recorded depositions of five Milwaukee Police officers and one (now-retired) sergeant taken by Poe's attorney in the months after our investigation.
"You saw it on FOX6?" Attorney James Gende asks James Terrell, one of the officers involved in the forcible takedown.
"I remember seeing it on FOX6, yeah," Terrell answered.
Their testimony sheds new light on what led up to the use-of-force and the role our investigation played in shining a spotlight a supervisor's decision not to document what happened.
"You knew what was going to happen, something bad was going to happen after that report," Gende said.
"Well, we all figured there was going to be a lawsuit," Terrell replied.
Read the deposition transcripts
- Sergeant Chance Bamba
- Officer William Mauch
- Officer Olivia Ohlson
- Officer Nora Burlo
- Officer James Terrell
- Officer Daniel Schaefer
"Just a miscommunication," Poe said.
"Mr. Poe was the victim of that miscommunication which resulted in a violation of his civil rights," said his attorney, Gende.
It all started in April 2021 in a private, Riverwest neighborhood cigar lounge where Poe and his friends were watching basketball.
"We seen a big spark come from the ceiling," Poe recalled.
A bullet came through the ceiling into the lounge and struck a man seated in a chair.
"Blood is just gushing out of his leg," Poe said of the injured patron.
Poe and another man, Daniel Beard, helped their injured friend into a car and rushed him to St. Mary's Hospital. There, police separated the two witnesses to find out what happened.
"There’s a hole in the ceiling," Beard told one officer.
"Larry’s like, '[expletive], I’ve been shot!’" Poe told another officer on the other side of the hospital lobby.
"He said, ‘I’ve been shot!' We’re like, ‘What?'" Beard said.
"And blood is just pouring out of his leg," Poe continued.
For nearly an hour, the two men sat and answered officers' questions and engaged in light conversation.
"He's, you know, real relaxed, calm," recalled Chance Bamba, the Milwaukee Police sergeant in charge of the St. Mary's scene that night.
Bamba said he had no reason to suspect Poe had done anything wrong. Until another man from the same location showed up at a different hospital with a gunshot wound.
20-year-old Cameron Lee initially claimed he'd been struck with a bullet in a drive-by shooting, but eventually confessed to accidentally firing his gun in the apartment above the cigar lounge.
Cameron Lee accidentally discharged a gun in the apartment above a private cigar lounge in April 2021, injuring himself and a patron in the lounge below. He left the scene before police arrived.
"I'm like, ‘I’m shot, I'm shot, what the [expletive] am I supposed to do?'" Lee told detectives in an interview obtained by FOX6.
"There’s got to be another way out," Lee recalled thinking just before he went outside, jumped from a second story balcony, and ran away.
"That was a pretty big jump," Lee said. "I don’t know how I did it, but I just did."
"Nobody had prior knowledge of the second victim," testified Officer William Mauch, who heard about it over the radio while standing guard at St. Mary's. That is when suspicion turned to Poe, as captured in a cellphone video recorded by a civilian bystander in the hospital lobby.
"We have reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed," Mauch told Poe.
"To me?" Poe replied, incredulous.
"Yes," Mauch answered.
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Mauch said a decision to detain Poe at that point came as an order from his direct supervisor.
"I received a call from Sgt. Bamba who had ordered me to place him in the back of the squad," Mauch said.
Officer Olivia Ohlson was standing next to Mauch, attempting to enforce the same order.
"It was just the order I was given by my sergeant," Ohlson said. "It was an order from a boss."
Bamba now says the officers misunderstood.
Sergeant Chance Bamba (since retired) says officers misunderstood his instruction to have Poe questioned in a squad car. The officers considered it an order. He says it was a "simple ask."
"I don't know if they were orders. I refer to them as simple asks," Bamba said. "I mean, it wasn't, 'You better or there's consequences.' It was, 'For purposes of investigation, I would like you to place him in the back of a squad car."
Ohlson said even though they were acting on an order to detain, they gave Poe a "choice."
"It's either you stand up and you go to our car or you can do it in 'cuffs," Mauch said in the citizen recording.
"I'm not standing up and I'm not doing it in cuffs either," Poe replied.
"Why not?" Mauch answered.
"'Cause I'm not. I’m not," Poe stated.
"And when he said I don't want that choice, who escalated it from there?" Gende asked Ohlson.
"I don't know," Ohlson replied.
The citizen video shows Ohlson and Mauch move in toward Poe and reach for his hands.
"I’m not going out like that!" Poe exclaimed -- the tension in his voice quickly rising, as three more officers rush into assist.
"Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir!" exclaimed Officer Nora Burlo, who had been monitoring the situation form outside the emergency room.
"I’m not going out like that!" Poe repeats, becoming irate.
Looking back, Poe said he never expected to respond that way.
"When fingers are getting pointed at you for something you didn't do," Poe said, his words trailing off.
With five officers surrounding Poe, they lift him up from a seated position, then force him to the ground to be handcuffed.
"It's just basic physics," Terrell testified. "I mean, we guided him up with our force and guided him to the ground."
Officer Mauch described it as a trained technique known as decentralization.
"The decentralization was a pull and push down. Basically, you secure the head and bring him to the ground," Mauch said.
But Sgt. Bamba, who was not among the officers involved in the hands on contact, testified Poe fell down on his own.
"Mr. Poe kind of caught [the officer] off guard and stood up, and he lost balance, and they fell to the ground," Bamba said.
At least three of the officers disagree with Bamba.
"Mr. Poe didn't just fall to the ground on his own, did he?" Gende asked.
"No," Terrell replied.
"No, he definitely was assisted," Mauch testified.
"Do you believe that force was used against Mr. Poe?" Gende asked.
"Yes," Ohlson answered.
Anytime there is police use force, a supervisor is required to file a use-of-force report. Bamba never did.
Poe had answered officers' questions for roughly an hour while seated in the hospital lobby before officers made the decision to detain him. He was released with an apology a short time after the forcible arrest, but police made no mention of the use
"And was it because Bamba didn't want to do the report on use of force?" Gende asked.
"Correct," Terrell answered.
"Do you think that was appropriate?" Gende asked.
"No," Terrell said.
Bamba was already making plans to retire later that year. He said he decided he could always file a report later – if Poe complained.
"You know, if he calls, you can always, you know, file a use of force [report] then," Bamba testified.
Poe sued Milwaukee Police in August 2022. Thirteen months later, the Milwaukee Common Council voted to approve a cash settlement, but not before the City Attorney's office took one parting shot.
In a letter to the Common Council dated July 27, 2023, City Attorney Tearman Spencer writes the case was headed for a jury trial when Attorney Gende "unexpectedly accepted" the city's prior settlement offer. The letter goes on to explain this happened "the day after" the city successfully defended Milwaukee Police in another federal civil rights lawsuit (English v. City of Milwaukee).
Spencer did not respond to our request for comment.
"It’s just a way to try and make an excuse for what they’ve done," Gende said.
The letter got the attention of at least one council member, Alderman Michael Murphy, who asked Deputy City Attorney Jennifer Williams why the city was recommending a six-figure settlement.
"Do you think at this point and time it would make sense to withdraw and say, ‘Listen, we won in federal court on the other case. We don’t need, we will win on this case with you?'" Murphy asked during a September meeting of the Judiciary and Legislation Committee.
Williams said it was already too late.
"Before I could withdraw our offer, he accepted it," Williams said.
"The offer was there. It was never rescinded. We accepted it. And that’s the way things work in this world," Gende countered.
"I think it’s fair," said Poe, who says he is a supporter of Milwaukee Police, even if they made mistakes that night.
"It was just one bad night," Poe said. "And that doesn’t erase all the great things the city has done. You know, one bad night."
After our original story in April 2022, Milwaukee Police opened an Internal Affairs investigation. However, Chance Bamba had retired by then, so he was not a subject of the investigation. Internal Affairs found no violations were committed by the five officers under Bamba's command.
Milwaukee Police declined our request for an interview.
As for the accidental shooting that set the whole chain of events in motion, Cameron Lee pleaded guilty to negligent use of a weapon. He was sentenced to probation. According to online court records, he has not been in trouble since.