A former Wisconsin police officer, Joseph Mensah, is facing another federal lawsuit after killing two Black and one Latino men. An attorney representing the families of the three people filed the suit saying his department taught him to view Black people as dangerous.  

According to AP News, the lawsuit alleges the previous Wauwatosa Police Officer Joseph Mensah fatally shot Jay Anderson when he found him sleeping in a park after hours back in 2016. Anderson did everything Mensah asked but Mensah considered him a threat because he was Black, according to the lawsuit.  

The former officer, who is also Black, claimed Anderson was reaching for a gun on the passenger seat and a county prosecutor declined to bring charges.  

Jay Anderson’s Family Say Former Officer Trained To Fear Black People 

Mensah also fatally shot Antonio Gonzales after Gonzales denied to drop a sword. However, he didn’t stop there. Mensah fatally shot 17-year-old Alvin Cole for running from police for being a disturbance at Mayfair Mall. Mensah reported he shot Cole because he pointed a gun at him.  

The lawsuit also alleges Wauwatosa Police Department has a history of racist officers. As early as the late 1980s and 1990s, officers would wear blackface at police parties and Ku Klux Klan literature was present, but the officers were never disciplined.  

“Mensah, having learned the lessons of a police department rife with racism and racial discrimination, immediately decided that a Black man sleeping in his car was suspicious and dangerous,” attorney Kimberley Motley wrote in the lawsuit. “The WPD devalues people of color which is reflective in their over policing of Black people.”