WAUKESHA, Wis. – Police arrested a man a half mile from the parade where a driver mowed down at least 45 marchers and spectators and killed five less than 20 minutes earlier. Arrested was Darrell Edward Brooks Jr. ,39. Records show Brooks has a lengthy police record, including, sexual abuse and battery. The latest was a charge 2-1/2 weeks in a separate domestic violence case for which had posted $1,000 bond just six days ago. At the house where he was arrested after the parade carnage, police swarmed in and told Brooks to come out with hands up. He complied. Police say Brooks was the only person in the red SUV that plowed into the parade. An earlier report said erroneously that three men were in the vehicle.
Brooks. Police record includes rape, domestic assault, bail-jumping.
The arrest
The arrest was at the house of an unsuspecting man, Daniel Rider, who was unaware of the parade commotion and who, just returning from deer-hunting, was settling in for an evening of football on tlevision This was Rider’s account to police: The doorbell rang. On the front porch was Darrell Brooks, whom he didn’t know. Brooks, in a T-shirt and shivering, said: “”I called an Uber and I’m supposed to be waiting for it over here, but I don’t know when it’s coming. Can you call it for me, please? I’m homeless.” Rider invited Brooks inside and gave him a jacket, made him a sandwich and let him use his phone. “All of a sudden,” Brooks said, “I look outside my street and I see a few cop cars drive by, and I’m getting extra nervous.” Rider asked Brooks to leave. He did. But almost immediately Brooks was back pounding on Rider’s door. He said he’d left his ID. “Then the next thing you know,” said Rider, “you see the cops with lights on him, saying, ‘Hands in the air. Hands in the air.”
Brooks’ criminal record
> 2020 (July): Charged with firing a gun at a relative and a friend in a fight over a cellphone. Two counts of recklessly endangering safety, using a dangerous weapon, and possessing a firearm as a convicted of felony. He pleaded not guilty.
> 2016: Arrested for failing to register as a sex offender. Posted bond and never returned to court.
> 2011 Guilty of resisting a an officer.
> 2010: Guilty of strangulation and suffocation.
> 2006: Guilty of impregnating a15-year-old girl. Put on probation
> 2005: Obstructed a police officer. Brief jail time.
> 2003: Guilty of resisting arrest.