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JAY-Z pens open letter calling for arrest of officer behind three fatal shootings

In a newly penned open letter, JAY-Z and his social justice firm, Team Roc, are seeking the arrest of a police officer behind three fatal shootings. The letter, published in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the week of June 29 and addressed to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, specifically called for the arrest of Joseph Mensah of the Wauwatosa Police Department.

The letter begins,

“How many more people must die at the hands of Officer Joseph Mensah?”

Mensah joined the Wauwatosa Police Department in 2015. In the time since, Mensah has fatally shot three young men of color: 17-year-old Alvin Cole (2020), 25-year-old Jay Anderson Jr. (2016), and 29-year-old Wauwatosa native, Antonio Gonzales (2015).

JAY-Z and Team Roc note,

“The law demands that each shot fired from a police officer’s gun is carefully and thoroughly scrutinized. Nineteen shots and three deaths in five years is not a pattern of accidents.”

The full letter, in which JAY-Z and Team Roc state that Mensah “must be de-certified and fired from the police force immediately,” in an illustration of the “responsibility to do the right thing” in the wake of the shootings, can be read below.

Featured image: Neil Lupin/Redferns


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