Federal judge hears oral arguments in lawsuit over Alvin Cole shooting

Legal battles have continued for the family of Alvin Cole, a 17-year-old who was killed in a fatal officer-involved-shooting four years ago. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Milwaukee heard oral arguments  from attorneys representing the Cole family and Joseph Mensah, the officer who shot Cole after a foot pursuit in early 2020. Attorneys representing Cole’s family told the Wisconsin Examiner that it may take at least six weeks for U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman to decide whether the civil wrongful death lawsuit will move forward.

Mensah and his supporters were in court Tuesday, as were members of Cole’s family and others who have brought cases against the officer.

Much of the discussion hinged on statements made by Mensah and other officers on the scene of Cole’s shooting. In February 2020, Wauwatosa officers had been dispatched to Mayfair Mall for a disturbance between two groups of people, during which a handgun was brandished. Officers arriving on the scene chased Cole and his friends, who had fled the mall following the disturbance report. Mensah was the last officer to arrive on scene and get involved in apprehending the teens.

According to investigative reports —  and recounted by attorneys in court —  as Cole ran, a shot was fired from a handgun in his  possession. Autopsy reports showed that the bullet grazed Cole’s arm. Dash camera video shows Cole falling to his hands and knees after the shot was fired, with officers gathered around giving various commands.

Cole was shot while on his hands and knees. Mensah later said in a statement to investigators that he feared Cole was pointing the gun at him. While Wauwatosa officers were not equipped with body cameras in 2020, parts of the police response and shooting were captured on dash camera video from police squads.

Much of Tuesday morning’s oral argument centered on what Cole was doing in and around the time officers heard gunfire. Attorneys representing Cole’s family emphasized that Mensah was the only officer to fire and charged that several officers’ accounts contradicted one another. While Mensah has said he feared Cole somehow moved his body to point a gun in his direction, other officers standing in different areas of the parking lot also suggested Cole had pointed a weapon at them. Still other officers didn’t report that Cole had raised a weapon at all once he was on the ground. “We’ve got officers who all swear different things,” Nate Cade, one of the attorneys representing the Cole family, told Adelman.

Mensah’s attorneys discounted the suggestion that officers were contradicting one another, however. Citing case law, they also argued that one should not second guess an officer’s decision to act in self-defense or in defense of others.

Cade pushed back against the argument, citing the 2016 shooting of Syville Smith by a Milwaukee officer, in which Adelman ruled that Smith’s rights had been violated.

Cade told the Wisconsin Examiner that Cole, who was right-handed, shot himself in his left arm, probably while tossing the gun away. He said the question of what happened to Cole should be put to a jury. “He’s not facing any murder charges,” Cade said of Mensah.  “All it is, is the family wants the truth and something to suggest or serve as a demonstration of ‘this is what [their] son’s life was worth.’”

Mensah resigned from the Wauwatosa Police Department in late 2020, following months of protests for police reform. Cole was Mensah’s third fatal shooting in his five years as a Wauwatosa officer. He was also the only Wauwatosa officer to fatally shoot anyone in at least eight years prior to the Cole shooting. After leaving Wauwatosa, Mensah was hired at the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department where he works as a detective.

An earlier version of this article included a misspelled name. The error has been corrected.