Michael Bell offers to make $100K donation if he gets the bullet that killed his son

Nineteen years ago, a Kenosha police officer shot and killed Michael Bell's son.

Since then, Bell has fought for accountability, leading the charge for a state law to require outside agencies to investigate deaths in police custody and pushing for a new investigation into his son's death.

On Monday, he told Kenosha City Council he will donate $100,000 to a local charity if the city releases the bullet that killed his son so that Michael Haag, an outside ballistics expert based in New Mexico, can examine it.

Bell said he was inspired, in part, by recent news coverage of Baby Holly, whose parents were killed in 1981 in Houston and who had been missing for 40 years until investigators pieced together her identity last year.

"Sometimes it's just going to take some time," Bell, 66, said in an interview. "That family waited 40 years before they could find out what happened to their loved one and it might take that long here."

Bell's offer came days after the Wisconsin Crime Victim Rights Board determined he was not a crime victim and declined to move forward with his complaint, another avenue Bell tried in his long-running quest for answers about his son's death and the aftermath.

Also this week, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals upheld a circuit court decision dismissing Bell's defamation claim against Albert Gonzales, the officer who killed his son and wrote about the shooting in a self-published memoir.

Bell's libel lawsuit, filed in 2020, argued the book, "A Fateful Two Minutes," contained "demonstrable falsehoods and misquotes, twisted to present Mr. Bell in a false light." The suit accused Gonzalez of misquoting Bell's deposition from his federal wrongful death lawsuit against the city, which resulted in a $1.75 million settlement.

The appeals court found the statements in the book were "substantially similar" to the source material and the meaning was not changed, and the record did not show Gonzales made the statements with actual malice, according to a decision released Wednesday. Bell told the Journal Sentinel he plans to appeal the matter to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

A father's long search for answers in his son's death

Kenosha police pulled over Bell's son, Michael Bell Jr., early Nov. 9, 2004, as he was arriving home. Police said the younger Bell was uncooperative, which led to a struggle in the family's driveway.

As he was being held down over a car, one officer yelled, "He's got my gun," prompting another officer to shoot Bell, 21, in the head in front of his mother and sister. Three days after the shooting, then-Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Wade cleared his officers of wrongdoing; none of them faced criminal charges.

Bell has long contended there's been an ongoing effort to cover up details of what happened the night his son was killed. Kenosha officials have always denied those allegations. He has tried legal tactics and public campaigns and appealed unsuccessfully to governors, attorneys general, local and federal prosecutors and other officials to reopen the case.

In 2017, Bell released a 20-minute film with findings from outside investigators. The film and his ongoing efforts have uncovered discrepancies and physical and digital evidence that refutes the officers’ accounts of the circumstances of the shooting. For example, Bell's son's DNA was not found on the officer’s holster or gun. His father believes the holster likely was caught on the outside mirror of the car.

Bell first sought the bullet that killed his son in 2020 and sued in 2021 after the city refused. A judge dismissed the suit. Last year, Bell offered to release the city and its insurer from any future damages he might win in future lawsuits if officials turned over the bullet. They did not do so.

The bullet is an important piece of evidence, Bell says, because private testing showed signs of lead in a dent in the trim around the garage door, near where his son was shot. He wants to test the bullet to see if it matches the trace lead on the trim, and if it does, he believes it would support his theory of how the shooting unfolded and contradict the police version of events.

"It determines the direction in which the gun was fired," he said.

Bell, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, said his continued efforts are not just for his family, but for others who find themselves in similar situations.

"I served my country for 23 years and eight months. I flew jets for the Air Force in three different conflicts," he said. "To come home and to have my government kill my child and I don't have the right to seek recourse or look at the evidence in the matter?"

Bell pursued a crime victim rights claim against Attorney Josh Kaul

Since Josh Kaul was elected attorney general in 2018, Bell said he has tried repeatedly to set up a meeting with Kaul or his staff at the Department of Justice to discuss Bell's findings. Instead, Bell said he received no response.

Earlier this year, Bell turned to the Crime Victims Rights Board, telling the Journal Sentinel he thought it "could open the door for a proper investigation."

The complaint before the Crime Victim Rights Board alleged the lack of response from Kaul was a violation of Bell's constitutional rights.

Bell through his representative, Russell Beckman, had argued he was a crime victim because Kaul and DOJ Administrator Tina Virgil were unresponsive to his citizen complaint and participated in efforts to conceal what occurred. Beckman, a retired Kenosha police officer and volunteer researcher, filed the complaint on Bell's behalf.

In a written decision dated Nov. 2, the board determined those accusations are not crimes that "confer victim status" to Bell. Instead, the alleged conduct is against the government and its administration, not an individual person, the board wrote.

"While, in a practical sense, the complainant is impacted by the alleged conduct, he is not a statutory victim of it," according to the letter. "Therefore, the Board finds no probable cause that a crime victim rights violation occurred."

To Beckman, such an interpretation of Wisconsin law has far-reaching implications. The crimes he and Bell have alleged — perjury and misconduct in office, among others — are violations of the public trust, even if they were not made against a specific person.

"This is much more important than just the Bell piece," Beckman said in an interview. "In effect, this decision is contrary to the interests of the citizens of Wisconsin."

The board also said although the DOJ "did not have a duty to investigate a citizen complaint, it would have been polite to notify (Bell) of its decision not to investigate if they made such a decision."

The DOJ, in filing its response to Bell's complaint, did not provide any reason or justification for choosing not to communicate with Bell, the board wrote.

Beckman said he plans to appeal the board's decision.

In an email, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said the agency "appreciates the Crime Victims Rights Board making an independent assessment on this matter."

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Michael Bell still wants bullet in Kenosha police shooting of his son