The suspect in a Christmas parade crash in suburban Milwaukee that killed six people will be charged with six counts of first-degree intentional homicide, according to multiple reports.
A child has died from their injuries sustained in the parade crash, raising the total from five victims to six, it was announced in court Tuesday afternoon.
Darrell Brooks’ bail was set at $5 million by the judge, according to reporter Susan Ormiston.
The crime can carry the stiffest penalty possible under Wisconsin law — mandatory life in prison.
At least 62 others were injured, according to the criminal complaint.
Other lesser charges were also expected to be filed against Brooks after his SUV allegedly barreled through the parade route at a high speed, sending people flying through the air.
Brooks was free on $1,000 bail posted two days before the deadly event, a fact that is leading to a review of what happened and renewed calls for giving judges more power to set higher bails.
One pending case against Brooks included an allegation that he deliberately hit a woman with his car in early November after a fight. Prosecutors in Milwaukee County on Monday called their bail recommendation “inappropriately low” given the facts of that case and the Sunday crash, and said they would review it.
Julius Kim, a defense attorney and former assistant prosecutor, said the bail could easily have been set more than twice as high.
“He was accused of running over the mother of his kid and to put it at $1,000 strikes me as low,” Kim said. “It could have been an inexperienced attorney who happened to be reviewing cases that day.”
Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson said Brooks, 39, was leaving the scene of a domestic dispute that had taken place just minutes earlier when he drove into the parade route.
Brooks has been charged with crimes more than a dozen times since 1999 and had two outstanding cases against him at the time of the parade disaster. That included resisting or obstructing an officer, reckless endangering, disorderly conduct, bail jumping and battery for the Nov. 2 incident.
Legal experts cautioned that one extreme case should not be a reason to push for higher bail amounts that would keep poorer defendants behind bars longer while they await trial.
“We don’t want to have a kneejerk reaction here and say ’Let’s lock up a lot of people pretrial,'” said John Gross, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School and also the director of its Public Defender Project.
“I’m sure the district attorney’s office is going to look back at this and ask themselves, ‘Did we get this wrong?’" said Gross, the law school professor. “This is such an extreme incident … could they reasonably expect he would get behind a vehicle and run people down on a parade route? What would have alerted you to the capacity he would have had for this kind of violence?”
Some Republicans were quick to jump on the case as an example of a broken legal system.
Republican Rebecca Kleefisch, a former Wisconsin lieutenant governor who is running for governor in 2022, called the killings “yet another avoidable tragedy that occurred because a violent career criminal was allowed to walk free and terrorize our community.”
And Republican state Rep. Cindi Duchow said she was reintroducing a constitutional amendment that would change the bail process in Wisconsin to allow judges to consider a defendant’s danger to the community when setting bail. Judges currently are only allowed to consider the possibility that defendants might not show up for a court appearance when setting bail.
“He tried to run over his girlfriend with his car — that’s attempted murder,” Duchow said. “If you’re a danger to society, you should have to work hard to get out.”
Thompson, the police chief, said there was no evidence the bloodshed Sunday was a terrorist attack or that Brooks knew anyone in the parade. Brooks acted alone, the chief said.
Rich Barak of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributed to this report.
