WAUSAU, WI – Just three years after Darreon Parker-Bell was committed to state custody for 30 years following a shooting inside Milwaukee Police District 5, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Nidhi Kashyap, whom David Crowley endorsed, has ruled that Parker-Bell is a candidate for conditional release and ordered the state to prepare a release plan.
On February 25, 2022, Parker-Bell walked into Milwaukee Police District 5 and opened fire. Civilians were in the lobby and police employees were behind the counter. One bullet went through a partition inches from an officer’s head. An officer returned fire, and Parker-Bell fled the station while still armed. Outside, he ignored repeated orders to drop the gun and pointed it toward officers, who shot and stopped him. The attack was so serious that it led to bullet-resistant glass being installed in police station lobbies across Milwaukee.
Parker-Bell was later found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disease or defect. In June 2023, he was committed to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services for 30 years. Just three years later, Judge Kashyap ruled that Parker-Bell is a candidate for conditional release and ordered the state to prepare a release plan.
In 2021, Crowley endorsed Kashyap for judge, saying, “Commissioner Kashyap’s work for our community is admirable. With her experience working with victims of domestic violence, families, and incarcerated Milwaukeeans, she has a well-rounded understanding of our system, and how we must improve. She will make an excellent Judge.”
The Milwaukee Police Association has strongly condemned the decision and said it opposes Parker-Bell’s conditional release.
“This is David Crowley’s soft-on-crime record coming full circle. A man opened fire inside a Milwaukee police station, and now, just over three years into a 30-year commitment, the judge David Crowley endorsed has ruled Parker-Bell is a candidate for conditional release. David Crowley has spent years supporting policies to weaken criminal penalties, and now his campaign has accepted a maximum $20,000 contribution from a California megadonor whose foundation called for defunding police departments across the United States. As governor, I will stand with law enforcement and victims, not the soft-on-crime policies that put dangerous individuals back into our communities,” said Tom Tiffany.
Quinn Delaney gave Crowley $20,000 on August 12, the day after the primary. California megadonor Quinn Delaney co-founded the Akonadi Foundation, which argues that police departments should be defunded entirely and carried out an initiative to abolish the Oakland School District Police.
