MILWAUKEE (CN) - The jury began deliberations on Wednesday in the excessive force trial of a former Wauwatosa police officer who shot and killed 17-year-old Alvin Cole in 2020 in a mall parking lot.

In February 2020, Wauwatosa police officers were dispatched to Mayfair Mall for a dispute involving a group of teenagers, one of whom was Alvin Cole. He was described by mall security as a Black teenage male wearing a lightly colored hoodie and a fanny pack containing a handgun.

When officers arrived on the scene around 6 p.m., Cole and his friends ran away. While he was fleeing one officer and a mall security guard, his gun went off and he collapsed, according to testimony.

About 10 seconds later, former Wauwatosa officer Joseph Mensah arrived and fired five times, killing Cole. He gave no orders before shooting, but testified he saw Cole's gun aimed at him and acted in self-defense.

No criminal charges were filed, but Cole's parents sued Mensah in 2022 for excessive force. The first trial in March ended in a hung jury after two hours of deliberation.

The civil retrial began on Monday in the Eastern District of Wisconsin before federal Judge Lynn Adelman, a Bill Clinton appointee.

On Wednesday, the parties gave long closing arguments marred by objections, and the jury retired to deliberate just before courthouse closing time.

Cade spent much of his argument combing back through the testimony of each witness, pointing out specifically that only Mensah saw Cole point the gun at him and only Mensah saw Cole crawling after shooting himself in the arm.

This is significant, he says, because Mensah has reason to stretch the truth and has changed his story since being deposed.

The law permits deadly force when a reasonable officer would fear death or serious harm to themselves or others. Cade argued that Officers Shamsi, Olson and Officer Jeffrey Johnson fit that standard, and none fired.

Attorney Jasmine Baynard seemingly sought to cast doubt on Cade's argument, urging jurors to remember Cole and to ask themselves during rebuttal, "What would Jasmine say to that?"

"This is a tragic ending to Alvin Cole's life, but we are here today because of his actions that night," Baynard said.

Mensah testified on Tuesday that he could not remember several details of the shooting itself and the aftermath, only that Cole twisted his body to point his gun over or under his shoulder at Mensah.

This, he says, is the moment he decided to shoot. However, as Cade pointed out on Wednesday, no other officer saw this movement.

FBI Agent David Shamsi, who was then a Wauwatosa officer and was standing closest to Cole at the time, testified that he did not see Cole's gun move off the ground at all.

Officer Evan Olson, who drove Mensah back to the station after the shooting despite protocol to isolate until they can give statements, was the only officer who testified to have seen Cole move his gun - but he said that the gun was pointed at him, not Mensah.  

Olson and Officer Dexter Schleis are also defendants in another excessive force civil suit before Judge Brett Ludwig, a Trump appointee. Both are represented by the same attorneys in this case, Joseph Wirth and Baynard.

Former mall security guard Davion Beard testified and gave a different account of Wednesday's events, saying Cole turned to face him and made eye contact as the gun went off.

The jury has the difficult task of deciding whether Mensah or his fellow officers is a more credible witness to the events of that night.  

Mensah served as a Wauwatosa officer for five years before resigning in 2020. In that time, he fatally shot three men: Antonio Gonzales, who had mental health issues and refused to drop a sword; Jay Anderson Jr., a Black man who was shot in the head while asleep in his car in a public park; and Cole.

He was cleared of wrongdoing in each case, despite a federal judge finding probable cause to charge Mensah in Gonzales' death.

Following his resignation, Mensah worked as a deputy sheriff in Waukesha County, another Milwaukee Suburb, for five months before moving on to become a detective in the Internet Crimes Against Children Division, according to his LinkedIn.

He left the force entirely in July, citing mental health and family reasons, four months after the first civil trial.

The plaintiffs argued over two days that Mensah could not have had time to fully assess the situation and determine whether deadly force was necessary before shooting Cole, and that Cole didn't point the weapon at him.

The defense attempted to show that Cole made a series of bad choices that led to his death, leaving Mensah no other choice but to use deadly force.

Both parties declined to comment on Wednesday's proceedings.

Source: Courthouse News Service