Family members of Dontre Hamilton, area leaders and supporters rally in September five months after the shooting death of Dontre Hamilton by a Milwaukee Police officer. Many of the Department of Justice agents investigating the shooting worked for the city’s Police Department before joining the state’s Department of Justice. Credit: Journal Sentinel Files

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At least half of the Department of Justice agents and a top supervisor responsible for the state's investigation into the fatal shooting of Dontre Hamilton by Milwaukee police had long careers with the city's Police Department before joining the DOJ, the Journal Sentinel has confirmed.

State investigators — rather than the department's internal affairs division — are leading the review into Hamilton's death in order to comply with a new law intended to ensure unbiased reviews of officer-involved deaths.

Hamilton, 31, was killed in Red Arrow Park in April.

Some are questioning whether the state's investigation of his death is truly independent because the lead investigator for the state, Gilbert Hernandez, spent 35 years with the Police Department and DOJ supervisor David Klabunde, who provided the Justice Department's report to the district attorney, spent 25 years with the Police Department.

Patrick Mitchell, deputy administrator of the Justice Department's Division of Criminal Investigation, where Hernandez and Klabunde work, spent 27 years at MPD, retiring as an assistant chief.

Further, the two top administrators in the Justice Department's Division of Law Enforcement Services, which supervises the State Crime Laboratory, also had long careers with the Milwaukee Police Department. Brian O'Keefe, administrator, rose to the rank of assistant chief of the Milwaukee police during his 30 years there. O'Keefe's second-in-command, David Zibolski, worked for the Milwaukee police for 27 years.

The lab processed evidence from the scene of Hamilton's death, such as ballistics evidence, according to law enforcement sources.

Jonathan Safran, attorney for the Hamilton family, said that just as attorneys need to be careful about conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety, law enforcement should do the same.

"Certainly, when you have officers who have worked for the Milwaukee Police Department, I'm concerned, and the family is concerned, about whether they can look at this impartially and whether they can do an investigation that is independent," Safran said.

Dana Brueck, spokeswoman for the Justice Department, called it "irresponsible" to suggest O'Keefe and Zibolski's roles as administrators are affecting the investigation.

She would not explain the extent of the Crime Lab's work on the case, however.

"Where is the evidence that the prior employment of our agents or supervisors is impacting this investigation, or any prior investigation of an officer-involved death?" she said in an email. "While the legislation requiring outside investigators is new, DCI has been leading such investigations for years, which is part of the reason it's often called upon for such matters."

She also said a reporter's inquiry about whether agents who long served with the Police Department can conduct an independent investigation "unfairly appears to call into question the integrity of our dedicated special agents."

The officer, identified by the family as Christopher Manney, shot Hamilton 14 times, resulting in 15 wounds. The officer has said he fired after Hamilton became combative. Family members say Hamilton had a history of paranoia and schizophrenia but was not violent, and they have called for Manney to be criminally charged.

State Rep. Garey Bies (R-Sister Bay) and state Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison), who sponsored the bill on investigations of officer-involved deaths, credited the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel with helping it pass by informing the public about the issue of officer-involved deaths.

The Journal Sentinel first reported in 2005 on the officer-involved death of Michael Bell of Kenosha, whose father was instrumental in the law's passage. The newspaper's coverage of the death of Derek Williams in the custody of Milwaukee police resulted in the medical examiner reclassifying it from natural to homicide in 2012.

The new law also requires reports of custody death investigations throughout the state to be publicly released if criminal charges are not filed against the officers involved.

The Justice Department's review of Hamilton's death was completed Aug. 8. It still has not been publicly released.

The fact that many of the state investigators on the case formerly worked for the Police Department was first reported by WTMJ radio's John Mercure.

The Journal Sentinel has since confirmed the names of several of those individuals.

Milwaukee police spokesman Lt. Mark Stanmeyer issued a statement calling the Justice Department's Division of Criminal Investigation "the largest, most experienced, and most complex investigative agency in the state of Wisconsin outside of the Milwaukee Police Department."

The statement continued: "The new law requires that an outside agency conduct the investigation and MPD has no authority over either who is employed by any other agency in the state or how their staff are assigned."