Waukesha Sheriff Division Supervisor Displays Militia Support
Lt. Michael Anderson
Through an open records request with the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department, NSM received dozens of documents including group text messages between sheriff’s. This is the same county where former Wauwatosa Police Officer Joseph Mensah is now employed. One series of messages stood out from Lieutenant Michael Anderson who currently serves in the Metro Drug Enforcement Unit as a Division Supervisor. Anderson was hired into the WCSD in 2018. We had to do a little digging because Anderson refused to tell NSM what department he came from having over 20yrs of law enforcement background. Anderson also sits on the Association of SWAT Personnel as Vice President. Prior to Waukesha, he served as a Deputy Sheriff with the Washington County Sheriff’s Department from 2002-2018. He is also a substitute teacher with the Richfield Joint School District since 2013, and a Group Exercise Instructor with the YMCA of Greater Waukesha County. Prior to all of that, Anderson served in the Wisconsin Army National Guard as a Military Police Officer from 1998-2006.
Most of the text messages between Anderson and Capt. Neil Dussault, who works within the Waukesha County Court House, consist of checking in with team members, asking what they are seeing and if they need anything. Anderson claimed to not remember anything from the Kenosha Unrest back in August 2020 including what was written in the text messages. NSM was met with quite a bit of resistance and attitude when we confronted Anderson. He stated “I don’t remember, if it’s written then I wrote it”.
If you were a protestor during the Kenosha unrest you probably are aware that tires were being slashed to prevent protestors from leaving the area. Some thought it was the FBI. During a private conversation NSM had with an anonymous Kenosha Guard Militia Member, this individual bragged about how they were going around and slashing tires and snatching up protestors and handing them over to law enforcement. They thought it was funny that this was being blamed on actual law enforcement. In one of the text messages from Lt. Anderson on the night of August 25th 2020 approximately 10:30pm, he writes “Gotta love counter protestors. Slashing tires”. This is the first time we have seen anything in writing that law enforcement actually knew that militia was causing property destruction, yet not a single arrest was made to any militia member. Anderson refused to comment on this portion of the text messages, other than “I don’t remember”. This is extremely discriminating and one sided. Here we have a sheriff with 20yrs of experience choosing when to uphold the law and who it should be applied to. Militia and racists doesn’t seem to fall into that category for Lt. Anderson.
In the next series of messages following the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting at approximately 1:07am, of course Lt. Anderson has something to comment regarding this situation. He writes “Listening to the gunfire. Such a nice night. They have a live stream on Twitter”. He then links a YouTube video and comments again with “Nice video”. Again, Anderson had no comment other than “I don’t remember”. NSM asked him his thoughts on the Rittenhouse shooting and he responded that his “opinion didn’t matter”. He defensively asked what my thoughts were on the Rittenhouse shooting. And when I responded I thought Rittenhouse broke the law, Anderson responded, “well my personal opinion doesn’t matter”. Anderson refused to clarify any of the text messages he wrote that night or comment on anything further.
The alarming element of this is that on paper Lt. Michael Anderson appears to be a standup officer and very involved in his community as well as others. But when you see messages like this where a high ranking officer is selectively applying the law and showing support to racist militia members for vandalizing personal property and shooting and killing people, it leaves to question his interactions with black and brown children within the Richfield School District and people of color on the streets of Waukesha County. It’s always this hidden racism and quiet support of dangerous militia within law enforcement. Lt. Michael Anderson is not an example of good law enforcement or a leader within our communities. Seems Waukesha County Sheriff, Eric Severson will hire just about anyone.
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