Sensenbrenner offers federal help for Wauwatosa protests

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WAUWATOSA, Wis. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner is offering the help of federal agents in the wake of protests at the home of a suspended police officer in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa.

Sensenbrenner wrote in a letter to the city’s mayor Tuesday that federal agents could bring “peace and tranquility back to the community.”

Mayor Dennis McBride rejected the congressman’s offer, saying federal intervention would only exacerbate tensions in the city.

Recent protests at Joseph Mensah’s home turned violent Saturday night when a window was broken and police said a protester fired a gun into his house, the Journal Sentinel reported.

“What occurred Saturday night was not an organized or peaceful protest. It was a targeted, planned act of violence against one of our police officers and our community,” the Wauwatosa Police Department said in statement Tuesday.

Investigators are reviewing a “large amount of high quality, video footage from the scene,” police said.

Protesters in recent months have called for Mensah’s firing in the aftermath of his third fatal shooting in the line of duty in five years.

Mensah was suspended in July and a third-party investigator was hired to look into a complaint against Mensah by the family of Jay Anderson Jr., one of the men he killed.