The Milwaukee Area Investigative Team will investigate the five officers who killed a man in Milwaukee near the Republican National Convention on Tuesday.
Greenfield, Wisconsin Police Captain Eric Lindstrom said he's never encountered a case like this before - a use-of-force investigation of out-of-state police officers.
Lindstrom is team commander of the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team, also known as MAIT, which is a task force of 21 law enforcement agencies that investigates police shootings for each other. Lindstrom is now tasked with investigating the shooting involving five Columbus police officers who killed a man who was wielding two knives about a mile away the Republican National Convention.
A cousin and others identified the man killed as 43-year-old Samuel Sharpe.
The Columbus Dispatch identified the five officers who fired their weapons at Sharpe as Austin Enos, Adam Groves, Canaan Dick, Karl Eiginger and Nicholas Mason. The five joined CPD between 2007 and 2022.
They were assigned to travel to Milwaukee with members of the division's bike patrol team and dialogue team.
Lindstrom's team's job echoes the responsibility that is often relegated to the Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Ohio. Since this shooting happened in Milwaukee, MAIT is taking on the case.
MAIT's job is to gather evidence and facts from the scene and analyze it before sending their findings to the Milwaukee County District Attorney. Unlike in Ohio, the district attorney makes the charging decision in Wisconsin according to Lindstrom. In Ohio, the case often goes before a grand jury.
"Within two months or so these cases are in the hands of our district attorney's office in some form. Whether we have the full complete case they're based on, testing results from labs is variable," Lindstrom said.
He said the cases could take longer depending on certain pieces of evidence being processed like toxicology reports.
Body camera footage previously released by Columbus police appears to show Sharpe approaching another man with a knife in each hand.
Lindstrom said his office is not always the one that handles these cases. Out of 21 member agencies there are seven "lead agencies" including Greenfield and Milwaukee that rotate the responsibility unless their officers are involved in the shooting.
Lindstrom said MAIT is unique in the state because Milwaukee is such a large center of population for the Badger State. He said the other areas of the state use a statewide agency to investigate police shootings.
Lindstrom said MAIT sees about 10 cases a year.
Milwaukee's metro population is a little over 1.4 million people. Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati each have a larger metro population but still rely on the Ohio Attorney General to investigate cases involving police officers.
Ohio's process often takes longer than what Lindstrom said Wisconsin takes. For example, Blendon Township Police Officer Connor Grubb shot and killed Ta'Kiya Young outside a Kroger in August last year but a grand jury has yet to decide whether Grubb's actions were justified.
"I think all of the agencies that are members of this team really feel it provides a benefit. It provides quick response to officer-involved death scenes and we could provide a lot of services to the involved agency and the investigating agency to make sure they all have what they need for a complete and thorough investigation," Lindstrom said.
Lindstrom declined to comment further on the ongoing investigation.
