Fricke’s girlfriend describes chaotic scene before officer’s death
Witness says couple awakened by ‘banging and yelling’
Jordan Fricke’s girlfriend told jurors Wednesday that the shooting of Police Officer Matthew Rittner at Fricke’s apartment in February was chaotic, confusing, terrifying and traumatic.
Kylie Powell was called as a state witness. She said she had been dating Fricke about nine months and often stayed at his upper-unit apartment at 2945 S. 12th St. They had gone to bed about 3 a.m., she said, and she awoke to loud noises “like banging and yelling” about 9 a.m.
She got out of bed and went to the kitchen, where she said Fricke was already standing with a gun, one of several he kept in the apartment, including a shotgun that pretty much lived on a coffee table in the living room, amidst video game controllers.
She said the AK-47 Fricke used to shoot Rittner typically hung from the headboard of his bed, or sat atop a safe that served as a nightstand.
He kept other guns in a safe, she said. She wasn’t too concerned, as her 7-year-old son frequently spent the night at the apartment with her.
Powell, breathing hard and crying at times, said she heard “police” twice and “search warrant” once sometime in the approximately 20 to 30 seconds she estimated passed between waking up and Fricke firing shots. Asked if she believed it was police outside the door, she said, “I didn’t know what was going on.”
She said she initially thought it was police but said the door crashing in “made me completely doubt it.”
She said she expected police would knock and say something before
breaking in, based on what she’s seen on TV shows like “Cops.”
Only two or three seconds passed, Powell estimated, between Rittner’s smashing of the door and the shots; she wasn’t even sure which came first, though police body cam video clearly shows the shots came after the third strike from a battering ram.
She said she knew it was really police after the shots when a bright light came shining in through the broken door and she could see a police shield. She described how Fricke bent down and slid the shortened assault rifle away from him on the floor then got on his knees, and crawled to the door at officer’s command, unlocked it, stood up and was taken down by the officers.
Jurors see dramatic video
Earlier Wednesday, several members of the Milwaukee police Tactical Enforcement Unit team that attempted to execute a no-knock search warrant at Fricke’s apartment testified. Jurors watched dramatic video from their body cameras. There were eight officers in “the stack,” some with rifles, some with battering rams, and one with a ballistic shield.
But that officer with the shield was near the bottom of the stairs when Rittner started smashing open the door to Fricke’s duplex upper unit on Feb. 6, and only ran up after Rittner went down amid four shots. One fatally struck him as he was turning away, entering a gap in his ballistic vest under his left arm.
Procopio Orlando testified that the shield bearer doesn’t usually stand near the person using a ram to break down a door, because there often isn’t much room.
Space was even more restricted that day given the narrow staircase and cluttered landing at Fricke’s apartment, he said. He said the shield was rated to stop pistol shots, but likely wouldn’t have stopped the four high-powered rifle rounds Fricke shot as his door was being smashed in by Rittner.
Video from Orlando’s bodycam shows him run to the small landing at the top of the stairs after Rittner went down amid shots, smoke and dust. He places the shield at the broken door while team member Lane Grady yells into the apartment. You can see Fricke inside with his hands up.
Fricke then follows Grady’s commands to crawl to the door, unlock it and exit, when he was grabbed by the officers. He sounds frantic as he says, “I thought someone was breaking in, man.”
Fricke contends he acted in self-defense because he feared gang members were attacking his home, and that he stopped firing and surrendered as soon as it became clear the intruders were, in fact, the police.
The tactical team members testified that they sneak up on a search warrant target until they break in, and then begin yelling, “Milwaukee police, search warrant.” That is heard on the bodycam videos as soon as they knock open the ground-level exterior door to the duplex.
It’s unclear what Fricke, who was asleep upstairs shortly after 9 a.m., heard. His attorney, Michael Chernin, replayed Orlando’s video to show that two dogs in Fricke’s unit were heard barking as soon as officers entered the building, suggesting that made it harder for Fricke to hear shouts in the stairwell.
Chernin also suggested that because of the tight quarters, the failed first ram of Fricke’s door and lack of specific information about Fricke, the mission should have been aborted.
Brad Buddenhagen, the sergeant in charge of the team that day, testified that nothing he saw would have prompted that, and told jurors that any member of the team can abort the mission at any time if they see things that could endanger the team.
He said the tactical unit knows little about the underlying investigation that leads to a search warrant. He said he gets information from the investigators to form a plan, and that it’s up to the judge who authorizes the search, not him, to designate it as a “no-knock” warrant.
Buddenhagen said they were told Fricke was suspected of selling marijuana and guns.
Fricke, 27, has no prior criminal record. He has concealed-carry license and his attorney said he’s a gun enthusiast who buys and sells at gun shows and has not knowingly sold to felons.
He is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in Rittner’s death, two counts endangering the safety of other officers, and running a drug house. The trial continues Thursday.