Community Task Force Milwaukee (ComForce MKE) is a non-incorporated community-level left-of-center advocacy organization. ComForce MKE is allied with Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (MAARPR), a left-of-center race- and social-policy organization. [1] MAAPR is known for calling for defunding of police departments. [2]
Opposition to Police
ComForce MKE, through its founder Vaun Mayes, has supported cutting police funding and diverting such funds to alternative neighborhood safety programs in Wisconsin such as 414Life and ComForce MKE. [3]
In a press event hosted by the organization, ComForce MKE president Vaun Mayes condemned the Wauwatosa police department [4] for having shot a mentally disturbed woman who had allegedly attacked another woman, attacked police, and refused arrest. [5]
Public Advocacy
Senator Ron Johnson
On June 28, 2022 the Facebook page for Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression claimed that the organization, in concert with Freedom Road Socialist Organization–Wisconsin and ComForce MKE, ran out U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) while he attempted to participate in a planned coffee social with constituents, in effect disrupting the meeting. [6]
2016 Wauwatosa Shooting
In 2016, police officer Joseph Mensah shot and killed an individual, Jay Anderson, Jr., while attempting to communicate with Anderson from inside his car. [7] Special prosecutors in the case announced they declined to charge Mensah based on footage showing that Anderson appeared to reach for a handgun which was visible from the front passenger seat of the car. [8]
On October 24, 2020, Vaun Mayes confronted Mensah after locating him at the Brothers Bar and Grill on Milwaukee’s Water Street. In the video, Mayes can be seen harassing Mensah and repeatedly demanding that he resign from the police force. [9]
Leadership
Vaun Mayes is the leader of the ComForce MKE organization. [10]
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed charges against Mayes for alleged involvement in an alleged plot to firebomb a Milwaukee police station during the 2016 riots that took place after police officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown shot Sylville Smith during the course of a pursuit to make an arrest. [11] The DOJ alleged that Mayes planned to bomb a police station with Molotov cocktails, and encouraged children he was mentoring to participate in throwing the devices at the police station. [12]Since charges were pressed in 2018, Mayes has been charged by DOJ with witness tampering in relation to those charges. [13] Mayes has argued that the charges should be dismissed due to legal deficiencies in the statutes under which he was charged. [14]