Crime & Safety

Frank Jude Faces More Charges, Puts Tosa Home Up for Sale

It was a troubled year in Tosa for the infamous Frank Jude Jr., and for his neighbors. It included the shooting of Jude's pit bull dog when it attacked the homeowner behind his house.

The turbulent saga of Frank Jude Jr. as a Wauwatosa homeowner may be coming to an end after just over a year of problems, culminating with six domestic abuse charges filed Wednesday, including a felony count of strangulation and suffocation.

Jude's ranch-style home at 1332 N. 121st St. has "for sale by owner" signs out front, with an invitation to call 414-484-3134 with inquiries.

Jude was charged Wednesday in Milwaukee County Circuit Court with choking and threatening to kill his girlfriend, leading to one felony count and five more misdemeanor accusations.

Also during Jude's time here, he had to surrender one pet pit bull dog for biting people and saw the other shot to death by a neighbor just a month ago.

Never a dull moment

Both the home sale offer and the criminal charging come just a little over a year since Jude, who became a national figure in 2004 as a victim of police brutality, moved to Wauwatosa and became a local figure as the subject of constant police calls.

After winning a $2 million settlement from the City of Milwaukee in late February 2012, Jude that May bought the home in one of Wauwatosa's quietest neighborhoods.

The quiet didn't last long, and culminated in June this year with a very troubled time for Jude and his neighbors, and a tediously busy time for Wauwatosa police.

Jude was involved in three incidents involving police in just the first week of last month, as well as the assault on his girlfriend on June 20 that could land him in prison for up to six years, if he is convicted. The first two dealt with a neighbor:
  • On June 1, Jude's remaining pit bull, Frankie, escaped from his back yard, according to a police report, and his neighbor shot it to death with seven rounds from a 9mm semi-automatic when the dog attacked him in his yard.
  • On June 5, another report states the neighbor who shot Jude's dog called police to say that he and his wife had been awakened at 2 a.m. by Jude, who was yelling threats from his back porch.
He told police that among Jude's rants were an accusation against him that he had opened a gate and let the dog into his yard so that he could shoot it, and more seriously, that Jude was going to "Get that gun, shove it up your (expletive) and pull the trigger."

The neighbor, whose wife was in tears during a police interview, asking "When will this end?", wanted criminal charges of disorderly conduct, but the district attorney declined.

Two days after that, on June 7, Jude and another sometimes girlfriend from another Wauwatosa address, each called police to complain about the other, with Jude saying she had hit him with a hammer. No hammer was found, no charges were filed, and each was put under a 72-hour no-contact order.

Finally, on June 20, Jude's regular live-in girlfriend on 121st Street called police after, she said, she told him she was leaving him and he twice choked her nearly to unconsciousness. She said he also threatened her with a knife, but no charge of use of a deadly weapon was filed.

The woman said Jude then harassed and threatened her by phone, and police were able to record multiple messages in which he said he would kill her and would happily go to prison for doing so.

Not the least of it

That was just this June.

In January, Wauwatosa police surrounded Jude's house and kept up a 1½-hour standoff after he called 911 to say he was being robbed.

Jude did not say, however, where he was being robbed, so dispatchers associated his phone number with his home address and sent officers there. As it turned out, only his half-brother and his girlfriend were in the house – Jude was in a Walmart store in South Milwaukee, on an alcohol, cocaine and marijuana binge, hiding from an imagined assailant.

Noted in police reports from that incident was an order that, due to the number and nature of calls to the Jude residence, no less than five officers, including a supervisory-level officer, should be sent to any call there.

Police checked the rest of the record for Jude since he became a Wauwatosa resident and found there were 13 calls related to his pit bull dogs, nine of them for excessive barking, two for an animal at large, and one from Oshkosh in which Frankie bit an 11-year-old girl and Jude failed to report it. That makes 12.

The 13th and last episode, on June 1, came after Jude put Frankie out in his fenced back yard. At about 6:45, he told police, he went out to check on the dog and didn't see it. Then he heard yelling from the back neighbor's yard and went through the back gate.

Jude said as he came through evergreens into his neighbor's yard, he saw Frankie standing on his hind legs in front of the man but "not doing anything." Then, before his eyes, his neighbor shot Frankie seven times with a pistol.

Jude's neighbor and several eyewitnesses said they had heard a commotion and found Frankie and the neighbor's yellow Labrador retriever, Bear, rolling on the ground, tangled in Bear's lead, with Frankie having a jaw grip on Bear.

The man's wife called to her husband, who tried to call off Frankie, and when the pit bull wouldn't let go of Bear, he ran inside his house and got his gun.

When he came back out, he said, Frankie let go of Bear and charged him, biting him on the left thumb even as he began firing.

Police investigating the shooting decided the neighbor was justified and returned his gun, magazine and ammunition. Frank Jude, however, was cited for having "an animal that kills, injures, threatens or assaults any person or domestic animal" with a fine of $681.

Jude became a national figure in 2004 and, like Rodney King in Los Angeles, the face of victims of police brutality and excessive force in Milwaukee when he was severely beaten by both off- and on-duty Milwaukee police officers at a party in Bay View.

Seven MPD officers were eventually convicted in federal court of violating Jude's civil rights or of lesser criminal charges, and in late February 2012, Jude's attorneys and the City of Milwaukee reached a settlement awarding him $2 million in a civil action.

During the lengthy investigation and proceedings, it was revealed that Jude had a record of drug, battery and disorderly conduct arrests and convictions, and that pattern continued with increasing frequency after the beating.

All the new charges Jude faces after the June 20 choking incident with his girlfriend include criminal enhancers because he had two or more previous convictions for domestic abuse.

Ironically, Frank Jude Jr. told police he believed his neighbor used "excessive force" when the man shot his dog when it was attacking and injuring him.


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