WAUWATOSA, Wis. — After more than five hours of deliberation, a federal civil case against a former Wauwatosa police officer ended in a hung jury.
Joseph Mensah killed three people of color in five years.
Mensah was not criminally charged in any of those shootings; however, the parents of Alvin Cole, a teenager who was among those killed, filed a civil rights lawsuit alleging that Mensah used excessive force.
Late Thursday afternoon, the jury entered the courtroom to ask the judge what they should do if they disagreed about a verdict. The judge told them to go back to the jury room to try to reach a unanimous decision. Less than 30 minutes later, the trial ended with a hung jury.
Watch: Family of Alvin Cole speaks out after hung jury announcement
Cole was shot during a foot chase outside a mall in February 2020.
During closing arguments Thursday morning, the defense and plaintiff’s attorneys provided different accounts of what happened right before and during the shooting at the Mayfair Mall parking lot on February 2, 2020.
Watch: Verdict expected in case against former Wauwatosa officer
Wauwatosa police did not wear body cameras at the time, so the jury largely relied on witnesses, officers, and experts' testimony.
Dash and surveillance camera footage showed Cole running from Wauwatosa police officers after they were called to the mall for disorderly conduct and a person with a gun.
Cole had a gun and the plaintiff’s attorneys claimed he accidentally shot himself in the arm while trying to get away.
The defense pointed to Mensah’s testimony along with another witness who claimed they saw Cole turn his body toward Mensah and point a gun at him.
Mensah said he felt his life was in imminent danger and that he had no other choice than to fire his service weapon five times.
The plaintiff’s attorney noted that another officer on the scene testified that he did not see Cole point a gun at Mensah. The plaintiff’s lawyer also claimed Cole was already on the ground at the time.
After the trial, Cole’s mother said her family isn’t giving up.
“They couldn’t make a decision, but it’s good,” Tracy Cole said. “It just makes us fight more. Somebody was there looking, somebody see that my son was killed while he was on his hands and knees so I don’t have no dispute about that.”
Cole went on to say she will have to go through the same emotions when the case is retried starting on Sept. 8.
“I have to redo the things just go through the emotions back over again, I thought it would be over, I thought I would be able to have closure today, but I don’t, but through god, through my family, through my husband we can do this,” she said.
Mensah resigned from the Wauwatosa Police Department in 2020 after collecting a severance payment. He is now working for the Waukesha County Sheriff's Department.
Before that, Mensah shot and killed Antonio Gonzales in 2015 after Gonzales refused to drop a sword, and Jay Anderson Jr., who had been sleeping in a park after hours in 2016 and was armed with a handgun.
The case filed by Cole’s estate will be retried Sept. 8.
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