WAUWATOSA, Wis. — The Wauwatosa Common Council voted unanimously Tuesday, Sept. 29, to settle former police officer Joseph Mensah’s workers’ compensation claim for $95,000, following a legal recommendation that a settlement was the city’s best option. Mayor Dennis McBride said the claim involved post-traumatic stress. The claim itself is not public, he said. Human Resources Director Beth Mbow’s memo recommended settling it, and McBride said the payment will be made from the city’s workers’ compensation fund rather than its general fund. McBride said Mensah filed the claim about three years after leaving the police department. Mensah resigned in November 2020 under a separate, six-figure separation agreement. McBride, a retired attorney, said state law does not allow workers’ compensation claims to be folded into separation agreements. The settlement drew criticism from Kymberley Motley, attorney for the family of Alvin Cole, who was fatally shot by Mensah in 2020. Motley said the claim appeared to concern Mensah’s time on paid suspension after the shooting, if McBride’s account was accurate. She said Cole’s family and the families of Jay Anderson Jr. and Antonio Gonzales have continued to seek justice and support one another. Mensah fatally shot Gonzales in 2015, Anderson in 2016 and Cole in 2020 while serving as a Wauwatosa officer. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm declined to bring criminal charges in each case. The decisions prompted several nights of protests in and around Wauwatosa in the summer of 2020. During that period, a gunshot was fired outside the home of Mensah’s girlfriend. McBride said the compensation matter was separate from those shootings and the controversy surrounding them. He described a settlement as an agreement neither side may like but both can accept. After leaving Wauwatosa, Mensah joined the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department and later became a detective. He left that department in July 2025.