A Mother’s Fight for Justice After Her Son Killed by Police Officer

Tracy Cole (right) stands with her family and attorneys outside the federal courthouse in Milwaukee in a 2025 photo. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

It’s been over six years since Tracy Cole learned that her 17-year-old son Alvin had become the third person killed by Joseph Mensah, at that time a Wauwatosa police officer. Alvin’s death in February 2020 was followed a few months later by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis officers, fueling months of protests and clashes with the Wauwatosa Police Department, followed by years of litigation in court.

The Cole family is finalizing a confidential settlement over Alvin’s killing, and his mother has been reflecting on her personal journey to find solace amidst grief. The settlement, coming after two hung juries and as a third trial neared, will not come out of Mensah’s pocket despite what his attorneys implied during the trials, the Cole family’s lawyers told the Wisconsin Examiner.

“We haven’t had time to grieve yet but it’s coming along,” Tracy Cole told the Examiner in an exclusive interview. The settlement, she said, brings some “closure to my family.”

Alvin Cole was killed in February 2020 after a foot chase at Wauwatosa’s Mayfair Mall. The teen and his friends left the mall after being involved in a noisy quarrel, during which witnesses told police that a handgun had been displayed. The group ran as officers intercepted them outside the mall, with Mensah arriving in an unmarked squad car without first announcing his presence on the police radio.

As Cole ran away from officers and mall security a single gunshot rang out and Cole fell to the ground, having shot himself in the forearm. Mensah shot at Cole five times shortly thereafter, while Cole was on his hands and knees listening to officers yell contradictory commands, “Drop the gun” and “Don’t move!”

Mensah told police investigators that Cole pointed a gun at him while he was on the ground. Further testimony gathered by the Cole family’s attorney’s, however, found that a security guard and Wauwatosa officer who were closest to Cole when he was shot asserted that neither the teen nor the gun had moved at all before Mensah fired. The only Wauwatosa officer who also said that Cole pointed a gun — Evan Olson — contradicted Mensah by saying that the gun had been pointed in a completely different direction, towards Olson and away from Mensah.

The contradictions led to a federal civil lawsuit over Cole’s death that went to trial twice. Testimony at those trials revealed that Mensah and Olson were good friends on and off the job and had violated protocols requiring officers to be separated after a shooting. They got into a squad car alone together and turned off their dash cameras and audio equipment before driving back to the police department. According to trial testimony, they did not share those facts with police investigators. Both trials ended in hung juries, leaving jurors unable to decide unanimously whether Mensah’s killing of Alvin Cole was excessive.

Detective Joseph Mensah (right) sits before the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety in 2025 pushing for a bill to protect police officers from John Doe investigations after fatal shootings. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Tracy said that she still remembers those trials, and what it was like to see Mensah for the first time.

“It’s like I could finally see a person instead of a name,” she said. “It never changed anything of how I feel about him.”

She also recalled other officers taking the stand as she sat with her husband and remaining children “listening to the different testimonies, just listening to the videos.” Images of Alvin’s body were also briefly shown, something that Tracy said “I’ll never forget.”

The two trials were tense at times, as attorneys battled over what evidence could be shown or attempted to discredit each other’s witnesses while bolstering their own. At various points, U.S. Marshals stood sentry or increased their presence, which confused both the Cole family’s attorneys and U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman. Several Wauwatosa officers also arrived to watch the proceedings in the gallery, dressed in full uniform, sitting around Mensah’s wife, who is a disgraced Milwaukee officer, or chatting with the pair in the hallways. The Cole’s attorneys argued that the presence of fully uniformed Wauwatosa officers could influence the jury, and that the officers were expressing a sort of solidarity with Mensah, which the Cole family was prohibited from doing for Alvin.

Nevertheless, the two hung juries were encouraging for Alvin’s mother. “It was somebody in the jury [who] basically believed that my son was never a threat,” said Tracy. “It was somebody listening.”

Although Alvin’s father was allowed to testify freely in the first trial, Tracy was not allowed to testify. The effort to keep her testimony out of the court record stuck out to Tracy and her attorneys, especially after her testimony was limited during a separate trial in 2023, when Wauwatosa PD stood accused of spying on and surveilling the Cole family and protesters who supported them in 2020.

Protesters gather to march in Wauwatosa alongside the families of Antonio Gonzales, Jay Anderson Jr., and Alvin Cole in 2020, all killed by officer Joseph Mensah. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

“I would basically had said how my son was,” she told the Examiner. “The events that I had with the Wauwatosa Police Department, what they did to me as a mother, that should never had happened.”

After the Cole family began protesting in 2020, Wauwatosa PD put them, their attorneys, a Wisconsin Examiner reporter, and dozens of supporters on what they called a “target list” on at least one occasion. The list was shared with numerous local, state, and federal agencies. Wauwatosa officers also violently arrested Tracy and her daughters, one of whom claimed to have been stripped searched at a jail and questioned by the FBI.

Tracy would have testified to all of this if asked, she said, “but they didn’t want a mother’s testimony,” because it would’ve been emotionally impactful to the jury. “But my husband, he was able to speak on my son’s behalf.”

Tracy feels that the protests, held for over 400 days after George Floyd’s death by a group that called itself The People’s Revolution, changed Wauwatosa for the better.

“We changed laws,” she told the Examiner. Wauwatosa PD adopted body cameras in 2021 after the protests, one of the protesters’ key demands. The department refused to adopt body cameras previously, even after Mensah killed three people over five years. Two of those were less than a year apart, when Mensah was still a rookie, and all the incidents were troubled by a lack of good video. The Milwaukee County District Attorneys Office declined to charge Mensah with any of the killings. The first jury in the Cole family’s case stated that a lack of good video was a main reason they couldn’t agree on a verdict.

Family members of Alvin Cole join protesters in 2020 in Wauwatosa, WI. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

No other fatal police shootings occurred in Wauwatosa during Mensah’s time at the department, and the Cole family’s attorneys say that they’re unable to find other examples of fatal police shootings in Wauwatosa besides Mensah’s, no matter how far back they look.

The protesters also pushed for a ban on no knock warrants, and for Mensah and longtime Police Chief Barry Weber to be removed. Mensah resigned in late 2020 followed by Weber, who retired after leading the department for over 30 years as local media covered how Weber’s department had targeted anyone who was seen as anti-police.

Finding forgiveness

Memories of those days are still with Tracy, regardless of how much Wauwatosa officials claim their community has moved on. Fighting back was something she had to do, she said, even though it took a lot out of her. She also needed to learn to forgive Mensah, she said.

“At the end of the day, I had to learn to forgive him, for what he did to my son,” she told the Examiner. “It took a process to learn to forgive him. I can’t hold a grudge, because that would take a whole part of me. I had to learn to forgive him.” Mensah left law enforcement in 2025 after a stint at the Waukesha County Sheriffs Office, following his time at Wauwatosa PD.

Alvin’s death was tragic and painful for the Cole family, yet it also brought them together.

“It made us stronger, it made us united as one,” said Tracy Cole. She’s had to learn again how to trust law enforcement after her experience with not just Mensah, but with Wauwatosa PD and the suburb as a whole.

Yet, her experience of being surveilled remains with their family. Tracy watches her every move now. “I never had to, but now I’m very particular where I go, who I be around, who I talk to.”

Since Alvin’s death, more families have been touched by police-related violence and killings in Milwaukee County.

“I would tell people that’s going through what I went through to never give up,” said Tracy. “Never give up. …the Devil wanted me to give up but I didn’t. Don’t give up. Keep fighting for your child.”

Exclusive: Mother reflects on years spent fighting for justice after Alvin Cole killing was originally published by Wisconsin Examiner.