Reports: Darrell E. Brooks Identified as Person of Interest in Wisconsin Christmas Parade Massacre

Mugshot of Darrell E. Brooks.
Wisconsin Department of Justice
Paul Bois

The person of interest in the apparent attack at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, has been identified in several reports as 39-year-old Darell E. Brooks Jr., a man with a record of several violent crimes.

Both Fox News and the Associated Press have named Brooks as the individual being interviewed by police after a horrific mass casualty event occurred Sunday in the Milwaukee suburb. An SUV plowed through crowds attending a Christmas parade, wounding dozens of people, including children, and causing several fatalities. Fox News columnist and New York Post reporter Karol Markowicz named Brooks as a “suspect” later that evening, but Fox News’ official reporting has not yet classified him as a suspect.

According to Wisconsin court records, a 39-year-old Darrell E. Brooks of Milwaukee has one pending charge of felony bail jumping and one charge of felony 2nd degree recklessly endangering safety with domestic abuse assessments. He also has one misdemeanor charge of resisting a police officer, disorderly conduct, and battery. The alleged offenses occurred on November 2, 2021; this same Brooks was released on a $1000 bond on November 19 – just two days before the attack. AP has linked these court records to the person identified by their law enforcement sources.

Police reportedly discovered Brooks’ ID in the red Ford Escape they recovered after the incident.

A motive has not been confirmed.

One witness told WISN that the driver hit the “Dancing Grannies,” where at least “one person flipped over the hood of the SUV.” The driver kept plowing and did not stop. One witness estimated that the vehicle was traveling at 40 miles per hour.

“There were moms and dads yelling for their kids, people running around,” one witness told Fox News Digital. “When I rewatched the video, I could hear people talking, and they were like, ‘There’s eight people injured down there. We need an Ambulance over here.’ There’s one lady kneeling on the ground crying.”

Nineteen-year-old Brayden Kowalski said that “bodies were flying everywhere.”

“He’s just blowing through people, kind of just dinging a lot of people, bodies flying everywhere,” Kowalski said. “These people didn’t get run over, they got f***ing thrown through the air. Like a lot of people got tossed up into the air.”

“You could see the fragments of brains,” he added. “There were quite a few people with broken limbs, like a lot of broken legs, a lot of people shouting with broken legs. It was horrifying.”

Though police confirmed that some fatalities occurred, an exact number has not been given. As many as 30 people are reported injured, including 12 children.

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