MILWAUKEE — Darrell Brooks Jr., serving multiple life sentences plus hundreds of years in prison for his actions in the 2021 Waukesha Christmas Parade tragedy, will stand trial on three Milwaukee County cases later this year.
Brooks, 41, was convicted of six counts of homicide by the use of a dangerous weapon, 61 counts of recklessly endangering safety, six counts of hit-and-run causing death, two counts of felony bail jumping and misdemeanor battery following trial last October.
But at the time of the parade attack, Brooks had two criminal cases pending in Milwaukee County. The first alleged two counts of second-degree recklessly endangering safety as well as being a felon possessing a firearm. In that case, Brooks allegedly fired a gun at a vehicle in July of 2020; he was released on $500 cash bail in February 2021.
A second case alleges he ran over his girlfriend Erika Patterson with the same truck he later used in the parade incident, injuring her on Nov. 2, 2021. He was released on $1,000 cash bail in that on Nov. 19, 2021, two days before the parade incident. That decision prompted questions about it, as well as an admission from Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm that the recommendation was inappropriate, and spurred efforts to change bail laws in the state. A third case alleged he intimidated Patterson in phone calls from the Milwaukee County Jail prior to being released.
In hearings in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on Thursday, a trial date was set in the first case for July 10, with a pretrial conference scheduled for June 5. In that hearing, public defenders William Rakestraw and Robert Hampton III also formally withdrew a motion to withdraw from the case, online court records show.
The other two matters, to be tried together before a different judge, were set for trial June 26 with a pretrial conference on May 23.
