5 homicide charges filed in plowing of parade in Wisconsin

The man accused of a driving a car into a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee that killed five people was charged with five counts of intentional homicide Tuesday.

Prosecutors say a sixth person, a child, has died and more charges are pending against Darrell Brooks, 39, of Milwaukee.

He made his first court appearance on Tuesday afternoon. Conviction on first-degree intentional homicide carries a mandatory life sentence.

Other lesser charges are also expected to be filed against Brooks related to the roughly 50 people who were injured when an SUV barreled through the parade route Sunday in Waukesha, a Milwaukee suburb,at a high speed, sending people flying through the air, The Associated Press reported.

Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson said Brooks was leaving the scene of a domestic dispute that had taken place just minutes earlier when he drove into the parade route.

Brooks was released from police custody on $1,000 bail posted for a case in Milwaukee County just two days before the deadly event. Prosecutors said they are investigating their bail recommendation in that case, calling it inappropriately low.

Brooks was free on bond on Nov 11 after he allegedly ran his car over a woman while she was walking through a gas station parking lot after a fight. The Wisconsin district attorney's office said in a statement that their bail was "inappropriately low" and that it would be reviewing its procedures.

The woman in that incident was the mother of Brooks' child, NBC News reported.

John Kulich, whose wife, Jane, was among the five people killed by in the Christmas crash, reacted with anger to the bail revelation. Jane Kulich, 52, was a mother of three and grandmother of three.

"I think my wife's life and our children's future are worth a lot more than $1,000," he told The Washington Post.

Julius Kim, a defense attorney and former assistant prosecutor, said the bail could easily have been set more than twice as high.

"He was accused of running over the mother of his kid, and to put it at $1,000 strikes me as low," Kim told the AP. "It could have been an inexperienced attorney who happened to be reviewing cases that day."

Brooks was also charged with bail jumping because he was already out on bail following an incident in which he fired a gun after getting into "a physical fight" with his nephew on July 24, 2020, according to court documents. He was charged with two counts of reckless endangerment and possession of a dangerous weapon as a convicted felon. He posted $500 bail in February.

Brooks has been charged with crimes 16 times since 1999 that include arrests for sexual abuse, drugs, battery and domestic abuse, records showed.

The warrant out for Brooks' arrest in Nevada shows that he is accused of failing to appear at a court hearing in 2016. He was scheduled to answer a charge that he failed to notify authorities about a move, as he was required to do because he was on the state sex offender registry, police in the city of Sparks said, NBC News reported.

Brooks was convicted in 2006 of felony statutory sexual seduction for impregnating a 15-year-old girl, police said.

In 1999, when Brooks had his first criminal record with an arrest for battery, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months in jail and three years' probation.