Driver faces slay trial in Wisc. parade rampage
A man accused of killing six people — including an 8-yearold boy — as he plowed his car through a Christmas parade in Wisconsin will be tried for murder, a court official ruled Friday.
Darrell Brooks Jr., 39, is charged with 77 crimes, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide.
Waukesha County Court Commissioner Kevin Costello decided there was ample evidence for Brooks to face trial on every count. Brooks has been behind bars since he was detained after the Nov. 21 parade rampage in Waukesha, Wis. He is held on $5 million bail.
Prosecutors called a single witness, police officer Thomas Casey, who said cops yelled at Brooks and told him to stop before and during his rampage through the parade route in Waukesha, a west Milwaukee suburb.
Brooks’ defense attorneys said he was high on marijuana never meant to kill anyone. Prosecutors said if that was true, he could’ve simply stopped the vehicle.
Brooks’ arraignment, where he will enter pleas on all 77 counts, is scheduled for Feb. 11. He did not speak at Friday’s hearing.
According to police, Brooks met up with his ex-girlfriend around 4 p.m. on Nov. 21, where the pair argued about why she hadn’t bailed him out of jail days earlier after he was arrested for driving over her with his car.
Inside his red SUV, Brooks allegedly punched the woman in the face repeatedly until she got
out.
That’s when he allegedly drove into the parade route, crushing dozens of people before abandoning the car and holing up in a nearby home. Police tracked Brooks there and arrested him.
Brooks was out on $1,000 bail for the initial domestic violence arrest two days before the rampage.
Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm, a Democrat, has been criticized for not seeking higher bail in the domestic violence case.
Chisholm has admitted the failure to seek more than $1,000 bail in Brooks’ initial arrest was “not consistent” with his office’s policies. He blamed the problem on a COVID-19 case backlog, a failure of case paperwork to arrive in his office’s computer system, and a young, overworked assistant DA.