A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed by the family of a Green Bay man killed during a 2015 officer-involved shooting.
The lawsuit was filed against the City of Green Bay, former Police Chief Tom Molitor, Officer Matthew Dunn, Officer Brian Krueger and ten other officers with the department.
Walter Stern, an attorney for the family of Joseph Biegert, said the 2015 the officer-involved shooting should have never happened.
Biegert was shot and killed by officers after they responded to a welfare check.
According to the Department Of Criminal Investigation report, Biegert stabbed a responding officer and that's when officers shot and killed him.
Biegert was found to have antidepressants and amphetamines in his system.
DCI said the officers were justified in the shooting.
The family attorney said Biegert was known by the Green Bay Police Dept. to have mental illness, was never violent during previous welfare checks at his apartment and the responding officers did not have mental health crisis intervention training, something the family would like to see come out of this suit.
“Crisis intervention really helps train officers on the use of force, how to handle mentally ill people, teaches them about mental illness and many time it teaches them to bring a crisis worker with them,” said attorney Walter Stern.
We reached out to the Green Bay Police Department. Current chief, Andrew Smith, who was not with the department at the time of the shooting issued this statement:
“I cannot comment on any pending litigation, but this incident was investigated by the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation. That independent investigation concluded that the involved Green Bay Police Department officers acted appropriately.”
NBC26 also reached out to the city attorney's office, they have not gotten back to us.
As for the lawsuit, the attorney said this will likely take some time -- the next step is pre-trial discovery, and he said he hopes that happens within the next year.
