Confidential Deal Could Settle Civil Case in Joseph Mensah Shooting of Alvin Cole

The family of Alvin Cole and their attorneys outside the federal courthouse in Milwaukee. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Over six years after 17-year-old Alvin Cole was fatally shot by then-Wauwatosa officer Joseph Mensah, the two sides in a contentious civil case have confirmed that they are close to reaching a confidential settlement deal, a story by Bridget Fogarty reported.

A third jury trial in federal court has been set for early May. Each of the first two trials — both held in 2025 — ended in hung juries, with jurors unable to unanimously decide whether Mensah used excessive force when he shot Cole in February 2020.

The shooting occurred at Mayfair Mall, after a group of teenagers got into an argument. One of the teens flashed a handgun and Wauwatosa police officers responded to a call and encountered the group outside the mall. The teens fled when they saw the police, Cole among them. As Mensah and other officers chased Cole, Cole accidentally shot himself in the arm when the handgun he was carrying went off. Cole fell to the ground as police surrounded him, shouting various commands.

Mensah told investigators that he shot Cole, believing that Cole was raising or pointing the handgun at him. Other officers’ accounts contradicted Mensah’s. An officer who was closer to Cole, David Shamsi, said that neither Cole nor the gun moved after Cole was on the ground. Another officer, Evan Olson said that the gun was pointed at him, even though he was in a different position from Mensah. After the shooting, Olson and Mensah — who said that they were friends on and off the job — went off alone together in a squad car, violating policies which state that officers need to be separated after shootings to avoid contaminating statements.

During the trials, Mensah said that he fired to protect himself and others around him, and that he didn’t want to die. Mensah also testified that he did not remember much of what happened that night. Cole was the third person Mensah had killed on the job during his five years as a Wauwatosa officer. Mensah resigned from the department in 2020 following months of protests over the shooting, and was hired by the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department before he retired from law enforcement. Jurors in the case were not allowed to know about Mensah’s two other shootings in 2015 and 2016, less than a year apart.

The terms of the settlement, including the amount awarded to the family, will remain confidential, lawyers said. During the first trial, attorneys representing Cole’s family asked for $9 million, and then $22 million in the second trial.

Confidential settlement agreement close to completion in Joseph Mensah shooting of Alvin Cole was originally published by Wisconsin Examiner.