Alvin Cole

Alvin Cole, 17, was shot and killed by Wauwatosa, Wisconsin Police Officer Joseph Mensah outside Mayfair Mall on February 2, 2020, after officers responded to a report of a man with a gun and pursued Cole and another person fleeing the scene. Police said Cole, who was carrying a stolen 9mm handgun, fired a shot while running from officers and refused commands to drop the weapon before Mensah shot him; Cole's family disputed that he ever fired the gun. No body camera footage exists, since Wauwatosa officers were not yet equipped with them. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm declined to charge Mensah in October 2020, finding he reasonably believed deadly force was necessary. Cole was the third person Mensah had fatally shot in five years as a Wauwatosa officer; an independent investigator hired by the city separately concluded Mensah's continued employment posed an “unnecessary risk” and recommended he be fired. No one has ever been convicted in Cole's death.

Wauwatosa, WI · Milwaukee County

• 2020: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The pursuit and the shooting, per District Attorney John Chisholm's 14-page public report and an independent investigation commissioned by the City of Wauwatosa's Police and Fire Commission.
• Officers responded to a report of a man with a gun near Mayfair Mall; Officer Joseph Mensah pursued Cole and another individual as they fled, and Chisholm's report stated evidence showed Cole fired a shot while running and pointed the stolen handgun at Mensah before being shot.
• Cole's family and their attorney, Kimberley Motley, disputed that Cole ever fired his weapon or aimed it at Mensah, stating “Alvin Cole did not shoot Joseph Mensah, did not shoot at Joseph Mensah.”
• No body camera footage of the shooting exists, since Wauwatosa police officers were not equipped with them at the time; the city approved a five-year, $760,000 body camera contract shortly after the shooting.
• District Attorney John Chisholm announced in October 2020 that he would not charge Mensah, writing that “there is sufficient evidence that Officer Mensah had an actual subjective belief that deadly force was necessary and that belief was objectively reasonable” and that the state could not disprove self-defense.
• Cole was the third person Mensah fatally shot in five years as a Wauwatosa officer, following Antonio Gonzales in 2015 and Jay Anderson Jr. in 2016; the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office ruled all three shootings justified, and special prosecutors separately declined to charge Mensah over the Anderson shooting after the Anderson family pursued a rare legal process called a John Doe proceeding.
• Former U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic, hired by the city to independently review Mensah's record, concluded in an October 2020 report that keeping him on the force “creates an extraordinary, unwarranted and unnecessary risk to the Wauwatosa Police Department and the City of Wauwatosa” and recommended his firing; Mensah resigned from the department that November before any termination process concluded, and later resigned from a subsequent role at the Waukesha County Sheriff's Office.
• Cole's family separately pursued a federal civil lawsuit against Mensah; as of late 2025, two consecutive federal civil juries had deadlocked without reaching a verdict, with a third civil trial scheduled for May 2026.

• Whether Cole in fact fired the stolen handgun and pointed it at Mensah, as the district attorney's report concluded, or never fired or aimed the weapon at all, as his family has maintained, was never resolved at any criminal trial, since no charges were brought; the question has also not been conclusively resolved in the parallel federal civil case, where two consecutive juries have deadlocked.
• Why the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office ruled all three of Mensah's fatal shootings over five years individually justified, without any office-wide review of the pattern itself until the city's own independently commissioned report, has not been fully addressed in available public reporting.
• The outcome of Cole's family's federal civil lawsuit remains unresolved, with a third trial scheduled for May 2026 after two prior juries failed to reach a verdict.

• Wisconsin Examiner — “No charges against Mensah for killing of 17-year-old”
• CBS News — “No charges against Wisconsin officer who fatally shot teen”
• Hoodline — “Second Deadlock in Federal Civil Trial Over Police Shooting of Alvin Cole in Wauwatosa as Third Trial Set for May 2026”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs