Posted on 07/28/2015 8:11:38 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
MADISON, Wis. – Michael Lutz, the highly decorated former Milwaukee cop and John Doe whistleblower, fatally shot himself early Sunday morning just inside the Milwaukee County line.
Multiple sources tell Wisconsin Watchdog that Lutz lived an agonized life in the years after he was shot while on the job in 2005. Things got worse, those sources say, after he went public about Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm’s “hyper-partisan” pursuit of Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
“I know Mike, and the worst thing he could have imagined was being in a mug shot, in an orange jumpsuit on a perp walk,” a close friend of the 44-year-old Lutz told Wisconsin Watchdog Monday. The friend, who asked not to be identified, said he last saw Lutz Friday evening.
Menomonee Falls Assistant Police Chief Mark Waters said his department’s tactical unit responded to reports of a suicidal man in the 12300 block of W. Mill Road in Milwaukee County. The incident had begun in Menomonee Falls.
“We tried everything we could do to prevent it, but he eventually committed suicide in our presence,” Waters told Wisconsin Watchdog.
Lutz was pronounced dead at 4:05 a.m. Sunday.
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office was expected to release an autopsy report Monday.
Waters said the police department would not make additional comments or issue a press release on a suicide.
Sources close to the situation told Wisconsin Watchdog that Lutz argued earlier in the day with his ex-wife, Lori, who resides in Menomonee Falls, and had threatened to hurt her boyfriend.
Police had Lutz’s vehicle information and stopped him, sources said. One of the officers responding thought he heard the racking of a firearm as he approached Lutz’s vehicle. They backed off and called in the tactical team.
Sources said Lutz never threatened officers but did not comply with orders. He eventually got out of the vehicle, placed a Glock handgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Lutz finished fourth in last week’s primary election to fill the Milwaukee Common Council seat of 11th District Alderman Joe Dudzik, who died in May in a motorcycle crash.
Lutz was a Milwaukee cop for 17 years, including a stint as a respected member of the Milwaukee Police Department’s Intelligence Division. He resigned in 2006, but was honored even in retirement.
RELATED: A whistleblower’s story: Taking on a ‘hyper-partisan’ district attorney He was named “Professional Law Enforcement Officer of the Year” in 1997 and 2007, received the Milwaukee Police Department’s Purple Award of Valor in 2009, commendations for heroism in 1996 and 2006, and an Award of Merit from the FBI in 2006 – 11 honors and decorations in all.
Lutz received so-called “duty disability” for post-traumatic stress disorder, until the agency overseeing officer benefits changed his pay to regular retirement. They concluded Lutz did not suffer post-traumatic stress disorder.
The people who say they know him best said it was clear that Lutz long suffered from trauma related to the violence he encountered as a Milwaukee police officer.
Lutz attempted to move on, earning a law degree in 2010 and, in 2011, joining Chisholm’s District Attorney’s office to get prosecutorial experience. Having worked closely with Chisholm during his years as a Milwaukee investigator, Lutz said he was part of the DA’s ‘inner circle’ of confidantes during his brief time at the prosecutor’s office.
Lutz made national headlines nearly a year ago when he blew the whistle on Chisholm and his aggressive and political “John Doe” investigation into allies and associates of Walker. Chisholm a Democrat, launched the two phases of the probe, which began in Walker’s office when Walker was Milwaukee County executive and continued through much of the Republican’s first term as governor.
A September 2014 bombshell report by American Media Institute quoted Lutz who worked a special prosecutor in Chisholm’s office in 2011, amid the political battles over Walker’s public union collective bargaining reforms.
Chisholm’s wife, Colleen, was a teachers union shop steward who had demonstrated against Act 10 and was, according to Lutz, moved to tears by the governor’s reforms.
“(Chisholm) felt it was his personal duty to stop people from being treated like this, to stop Walker from treating people like this,” Lutz told Wisconsin Watchdog not long after the American Media Institute story broke.
In the wake of the story, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Daniel Bice wrote an expose on Lutz’s “troubled past.” In it he noted an intoxicated rant Lutz left years ago on Chisholm’s home voicemail. The district attorney apparently took it as a threat.
Lutz never denied the voicemail, but he explained to American Media Institute that he left the message out of concern for his best friend and former police partner, Jon Osowski, the brother of Chisholm’s wife who lived with the couple at the time.
Ironically, Lutz feared Osowski meant to hurt himself after a series of “alarming phone conversations” he had with his friend.
“Urgently, Lutz phoned the Chisholms, leaving messages expressing increasing and agitated concern for his friend, Osowski,” according to the story. “Finally, Lutz says, he succeeded in reaching the district attorney, goading him into action to aid his brother-in-law. Chisholm responded by going out into the night to help Osowski, Lutz says.”
In a 2007 letter of recommendation, Chisholm wrote that Lutz had been “one of the best investigators in the Milwaukee police department” and had “removed some of the most dangerous offenders from the streets of Milwaukee.
Lutz told Wisconsin Watchdog that being a whistleblower had cost him dearly. He felt he had been “blacklisted” from practicing law in Milwaukee.
He said the same to Stuart Taylor, who broke Lutz’s story for AMI.
“There is no doubt, as one person has put it, that I am already blacklisted. . . . Supporting the family will be difficult. Of course, it has been a huge undertaking to go through four surgeries, take care of two children, drive back and forth to Madison daily in order to get my law license … only to be persecuted for simply telling the truth,” Lutz said.
Earlier this month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled the John Doe investigation Chisholm launched more than five years ago was an unconstitutional assault on the rights of citizens and ordered it shut down for good. The court’s majority opinion stated the investigation was “unsupported in either reason or law.”
In September, Lutz told Taylor that his motivation for speaking out was based on principle: “I don’t like what he (Chisholm) has done in regard to political speech he disagrees with.”
TRAGIC END: Former Milwaukee police officer Michael Lutz killed himself early Sunday morning, according to police. Lutz made national headlines last September when he accused Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm of running a ‘hyper-partisan’ investigation against Gov. Scott Walker and conservative groups.
There are many links to background information contained in the original article at the source.
There are a great many links in the article that explain more background on the tragic Lutz suicide.
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And yet he went on to get his law degree. Pray tell, who would be the "people who say they know him best?"
Vince Foster shot himself, too.
They obviously didn't follow proper procedure. I think they are supposed to kill the would-be suicide as a last resort to prevent him from committing suicide. That seems to be the more common outcome.
So sorry for this man, a highly decorated cop, suffering from injury and heartbreak. Very sad.
I wonder if Colleen Chisholm will shed a tear for him . . .
Yes. Colleen appears as a God-less mental case, herself— with a conscience replaced by power and politics.
I used to teach at Menomonee Falls Music. It was a nice, quiet small town in the Seventies. Don’t know what it’s like now.
My family escaped, ‘The People’s Republik of Milwaukeestan’ in 1970. I thank my Dad often for bettering himself and getting us the hell OUT of there!
It’s a bustling commercial area now spilling directly into Germantown on one side (still quiet) and Milwaukee industrial on the other. There’s still a fairly quiet residential area.
Wow! I the Seventies it was a sleepy little burg in the middle of farms!
I live there now. Its still a nice place to live!
Is the little music store still there?
So, so sad. :(
Last time I looked it was. :)
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