MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee County supervisors tried to get answers from county health leaders on Thursday about why a murder suspect was released back into the community and no one was told.
Twenty-four-year-old Amando Lang was charged with stabbing a man to death six years ago in Greenfield. He never went to trial because he was deemed mentally incompetent.
The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office and the Greenfield Police Department said they had no clue he was living in a group home until officers responded to his mother’s house where he was having a mental health crisis.
Watch: Milwaukee County health leaders release report, take questions about murder suspect's release without notification
The main question supervisors had was, "how did this happen?" The county’s Behavioral Health Services Division said they haven’t been able to figure that out yet. Its leaders said they wouldn’t share details about individual cases, but they acknowledged a misstep was made.
“Where was the actual breakdown?” County Supervisor Kathleen Vincent asked.
Read the full Milwaukee DHHS report:
Milwaukee DHHS Report by TMJ4 News on Scribd
“To go back in time, who, what, when, I don’t know if anyone is going to be able to track that down,” said Jennifer Rose with the county’s Corporation Counsel.
During a county board of supervisors committee meeting, Behavioral Health Services administrator Michael Lappen said he believes this is an isolated incident.
In a Department of Health and Human Services report released on Thursday, DHHS said cases have been reviewed and cross-checked to make sure prosecutors were notified when those mentally incompetent defendants were released into the community.
County health leaders specifically mentioned 15 cases in which defendants deemed mentally incompetent were released back into the community and the DA’s office was properly notified.
That notification allows the DA’s office to request that a defendant’s competency be re-evaluated, as we saw in Lang’s case a couple of weeks ago.
“What did you learn in the report?” reporter Ben Jordan asked Vincent.
“I did learn that they’re taking some accountability," she said. "There was an oversight. Exactly where, I’m still not sure how their systems are laid out. They did talk about electronically tracking this better in the future so there was some oversight in the process.”
B.H.S. says this situation has resulted in policy changes. They include routine audits and mandatory training on reporting this information to prosecutors as required by state law.
The D.H.H.S. report calls for changes to state law to require defendants to appear in court to redetermine their competency if they’re set to be released into the community.
A second proposed law change would require inpatient treatment facilities to notify the county 30 days before a defendant’s release, rather than 14 days as it is now.
“Do you support these suggested changes to state law?” reporter Ben Jordan asked Supervisor Vincent.
“First of all, yes I do support the changes,” Vincent said. “They talked about changing from 14 days to 30 days and I think a notification of 30 days seems pretty realistic to me. Fourteen days is a tight turnaround, and it’s probably in part how the situation got confused or how there was a misstep in there. I think having a longer period will allow for the proper channels to work and do their part.”
Lang is due back in court next Tuesday where a judge will review a doctor’s examination to determine whether Lang is mentally competent to stand trial for a first-degree intentional homicide charge.
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