Published: November 26, 2021
By: Michael Ruiz
Waukesha parade suspect Darrell Brooks Jr. is being held on $5 million bail in a Wisconsin jail after allegedly mowing down dozens of people, including senior citizens and children, Sunday evening in a red Ford Escape.
The 39-year-old career criminal faces life in prison if convicted on the charges prosecutors have already announced against him, and more are expected.
Similar carnage broke out six years ago last month when Adacia Chambers, now 31, plowed through the 2015 homecoming parade at Oklahoma State University.
Then-25-year-old Chambers drove a grey Hyundai Elantra through a red light and then a police barricade in Stillwater, Oklahoma, as spectators lined Main Street for the parade. An arrest affidavit states that once through the barricade, she sped into a parked police motorcycle without slowing down.
Witnesses reported seeing bodies thrown around "like rag dolls," and she ultimately killed four people, including a 2-year-old, and injuring 50, according to authorities.
The dead were 23-year-old student Nakita Prabhakar Nakal, Bonnie Jean and Marvin Lyle Stone, both 65, and Nash Lucas, the toddler son of an OSU student.
Nine of the surviving victims were under 10 years old, including at least one additional toddler, the Associated Press reported at the time.
Chambers is currently serving out a sentence of life in prison after pleading no contest to four counts of second-degree murder and dozens of assault charges in 2017, court records show.
Chambers’ defense attorney Tony Coleman said she was struggling with mental illness at the time of the incident. She told police after the carnage that she was having suicidal thoughts, the affidavit states.
Brooks also faces life in prison if convicted in connection with Sunday’s Christmas parade carnage in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
While fleeing the scene of an apparent domestic incident he allegedly slammed through a barricade and then swerved into a crowd of people on Main Street – killing five adults and an 8-year-old and injuring 62, according to authorities.
Brooks, a longtime convicted felon with a 50-page rap sheet, had been released from a Milwaukee jail just days before the parade attack on just $1,000 bail. Even progressive District Attorney John Chisholm called that sum "inappropriately low" and launched an internal investigation into his own office for recommending it.
John Gross, a defense attorney and clinical associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said the Christmas parade attack seemed inexplicable.
"I would almost think the person would be mentally ill to do this," he said. "But who knows about that."
Regardless, he said a conviction and life prison sentence seems likely.
"As a defense attorney, I cannot imagine a possible defense that he would have to these charges," he said. "Maybe at sentencing, he'll say something about what caused him to do this. And maybe that will bring some closure for some folks. But it's really hard to even imagine what he could say to give people context or closure for an act that's so bizarre and violent -- and unjustifiable."
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