Officer gets job back after inmate’s suicide
A Milwaukee police officer who was fired after an inmate in a district jail cell attempted suicide on his watch in 2019, and later died, has been given his job back by the Fire and Police Commission.
Officer Brandon Rutherford will instead serve an unpaid 30-day suspension after the commission found termination was “wholly out of proportion” compared to past punishments handed down to officers in similar incidents.
On Nov. 7, 2019, Rutherford was working out of District 7 as a “booker,” a position tasked with checking on inmates at random intervals no more than 15 minutes apart.
At one point that evening, Rutherford went 28 minutes without performing his checks and found one inmate, Djion M. Marks-Hollis, 20, had attempted suicide in his cell. Marks-Hollis suffered a traumatic brain injury from the attempt and died four months later in March 2020.
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death a suicide.
Marks-Hollis had been arrested earlier that day in November after drugs were found in his vehicle during a traffic stop, police said. He was taken to District 7 for processing.
Then-Chief Alfonso Morales fired Rutherford in July 2020 for not following the department’s standard operating procedures regarding prisoners and booking. At an appeal hearing Feb. 4, police officials said current Acting Chief Jeffrey Norman remained in favor of firing Rutherford.
The Fire and Police Commission supplies a three-person panel to hear disciplinary appeals. Commissioners Angela McKenzie, Everett Cocroft and Steven DeVougas presided over Rutherford’s and issued their written ruling Feb. 8.
Rutherford joined Milwaukee police in 2013 as a police aide and became a sworn officer in 2015. He was paid $113,800 in 2019.
“This is something I’m going to live with for the rest of my life,” Rutherford said during his appeal hearing. “I think about it all the time… I felt that I let the department down… I’m genuinely sorry for what had happened to that man.”
In a statement Tuesday, the Milwaukee Police Department said it respects the commission’s decision and is still in the process of reintegrating Rutherford.
The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office also reviewed the case, which was investigated by the Waukesha Police Department. But the office declined to file charges after finding that no officers behaved negligently, according to a letter from District Attorney John Chisholm.
Chisholm noted in the letter that Rutherford interviewed Marks-Hollis, found no indication he was suicidal, provided him water earlier in the evening and performed life-saving measures upon discovering him after his attempted suicide.
Rutherford and his attorney, Brendan Matthews, did not contest any facts of the case but argued that a series of mitigating circumstances made termination unnecessary.
Those circumstances include that Rutherford, who normally worked with an anti-gang unit, was acting as a substitute booker the day of the incident and could not be expected to be familiar with every one of its procedures.
Rutherford had previously been trained as a booker, however. Prior to becoming a sworn officer, he spent two years as a police aide, during which he was trained and worked as a booker, according to testimony from Inspector Paul Formolo.
Rutherford’s attorneys also argued his actions were not as severe as those of other officers who received one- and three-day suspensions under similar circumstances dating back to 2010.
Those cases also involved officers who were not properly checking on inmates when one of them attempted suicide, but those inmates did not die or suffer significant injuries as a result, according to the testimony of Detective Andrew Wagner, the vice president of the Milwaukee Police Association, the union representing rank-and-file officers.
In one of those cases, an officer went about 40 minutes without checking on cells, and the inmate was discovered by a sergeant who was performing their hourly check of inmates. The officer received a one-day suspension, Wagner said.
The other received a three-day suspension after it was found that he performed checks on a 30- or 40-minute interval while watching a Milwaukee Bucks game, according to Wagner.
Rutherford missed his required check because he was signing subpoenas for other cases, Matthews said.
The commissioners found termination was not necessary after balancing the incident with the nature of Rutherford’s conduct, his record of service and other factors, documents said.