Darrell E. Brooks Jr. is the man being questioned after a red SUV plowed through Waukesha’s Christmas parade, killing at least five people and injuring dozens. Brooks is a Milwaukee man with a criminal history dating back to 1999, including aggravated battery, felony marijuana, resisting arrest, reckless endangerment, and felon in possession of a firearm, among other violent felonies. He is also listed as a Tier 2 registered sex offender in the state of Nevada. In fact, his criminal charges are so numerous that his background check from the Wisconsin Department of Justice was 50 pages long. Most recently, on November 5th of this year, he was charged with reckless endangerment, battery, domestic abuse, resisting arrest and bail jumping. He was out on $1,000 bail for those charges at the time of the attack.
Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson noted that he is referring five counts of first-degree intentional homicide in addition to other charges against the longtime felon to the district attorney’s office.
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This is another tragic story exemplifying why employers need to know who they are hiring and the facts about, and implications of, recidivism. According to an article in Harvard Political Review, “Each year, more than 600,000 individuals are released from state and federal prisons. Another nine million are released from local jails. Within three years of their release, two out of three former prisoners are rearrested and more than 50% are incarcerated again.” So, the real question we must ask ourselves is – should someone with such a long criminal history even have been out of jail in the first place to kill five people?
As always, we are here to help. Please contact us if you have any questions about your own background screening practices.
