Charges Filed in Corey Stingley Killing?

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne. Courtesy of Ismael Ozanne via Facebook.

Is a Dane County prosecutor poised to file charges in the death of Corey Stingley? West Allis police found Stingley not breathing on Dec. 14, 2012, after three white men restrained the 16-year-old Black youth at VJ’s Food Mart when they saw him shoplifting.

His father Craig Stingley posted information on Facebook on Sunday saying this: “Charges will be filed in the homicide case after 13 years of perseverance. I have read the charging documents and there will be accountability for those who inflicted this tragedy on our lives.”

The case caused an uproar in Milwaukee, with many pointing to this as a case of racism by the three men. More than a year after the incident, in January 2014, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm announced he would not issue charges, on the grounds that the men didn’t intend to injure or kill Stingley and didn’t realize there was a risk to his life or health. Chisholm’s decision sparked community protests.

The case got national attention in May 2023 in a feature story by Pro Publica. Stingley got caught by a clerk trying to steal six bottles of Smirnoff Ice and tried to run. “But there would be no escape for the unarmed teen in the light blue hoodie,” as the story reported:

“Three customers, together weighing 550 pounds, wrestled the 135-pound teen to the floor… They pinned him in a seated position, ‘his body compressed downward,’ according to a police account. One of the men put Stingley in a chokehold, witnesses would later tell investigators.

“‘Get up, you punk!’ that man, a former Marine, reportedly told Stingley when an officer from the police department finally arrived. But the teen didn’t move. He was foaming at the mouth, and his pants and shoes were soaked in urine.

“He’d suffered a traumatic brain injury from a loss of oxygen and never regained consciousness. His parents took him off life support two weeks later. The medical examiner ruled Stingley’s death a homicide following his restraint in ‘a violent struggle with multiple individuals.'”

Anthony Orcholski, a customer at the store when the incident happened, told the West Allis police “that the victim was being restrained for approximately five to eight minutes by the patrons during which time he did not see the victim offering any resistance” and that “it appeared that the victim was not breathing and that Mario Laumann, one of the three men constraining Stingley, “had a tight hold on the victim as he held him around the neck area and that Laumann did not appear to loosen his grip.”

The police report about Stingley’s death noted Laumann had been arrested twice for battery, but charges were dismissed both times. “Mario did have a temper,” his brother Mennas Laumann was quoted in the story. Mario Laumann passed away in 2022.

Another of the three men who held Stingley down, Robert W. Beringer, back in 1996 had pulled a gun on a Pakistani-born man in 1996 and told him he hated “fucking Iranians,” according to a criminal complaint. Beringer pleaded guilty to misdemeanor gun charges and was put on probation, with the judge ordering him to complete a course in violence counseling or anger management.

Craig Stingley continued to push for justice for his son. A second police review led to a reexamination of the case in 2017, the story reported, and Racine District Attorney Patricia Hanson “sat on it for more than three years, until a judge demanded a decision.” Hanson decided not to file charges.

Still, Craig Stingley refused to give up. In 2022 he convinced a judge to assign a third district attorney to look at what had happened to his son. That prosecutor was Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne of Dane County, who is still working on the case it appears. Urban Milwaukee contacted the office of Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern, who succeeded Chisholm in January and heard back from Jeffrey J. Altenburg, Chief Deputy District Attorney for the Milwaukee office. “Please reach out to the Dane County District Attorney’s Office for any information about this case as they are the Special Prosecutor on this matter,” Altenburg said in an email to Urban Milwaukee.

Urban Milwaukee contacted the office by phone and email and has yet to hear back. But his father is certain charges will be filed.

Corey Stingley was a wonderful young man, his father said to Pro Publica, a running back on his high school football team, a member of the diving team and a good student who took advanced placement classes in school and made the National Honor Society at school.

“So today I remember my son with his favorite Born Day meal… a Cheeseburger and Fries,” Craig Stingley wrote in his Facebook post. Corey would have been 29 today had he lived.

His father’s post included a portrait he did of Corey “several years ago,” which looks like a pencil drawing and is quite well executed, “to give me an idea of how he might have looked into his 20’s.”