A judge sentenced 40-year-old Darrell Brooks Jr. to life in prison with no chance of release for killing six people and injured dozens more when he plowed his SUV through a Christmas parade in Wisconsin.
Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow sentenced Brooks Jr. on 76 charges, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and 61 counts of reckless endangerment.
Each homicide count carried a mandatory life sentence, Wisconsin doesn’t have the death penalty.
The gallery applauded as Dorow announced the life sentences. Moments later she sentenced him to 762 years in prison on the endangerment counts.
“Frankly, Mr. Brooks, no one is safe from you. This community can only be safe if you are behind bars for the rest of your life. … You left a path of destruction, chaos, death, injury and panic as you drove seven or so blocks through the Christmas parade.”
Before the judge handed down her sentence, Brooks told the court that he suffered from mental illness since he was young and didn’t plan to drive into the parade route. He also offered his first apology to the dozens of people who were hurt or lost loved ones during the incident.
Brooks, who represented himself at trial, told Dorow in remarks that lasted for more than two hours, that he grew up fatherless, poor and hungry in apartment buildings infested with rats and bugs. Brooks said he has dealt with mental health issues for as long as he can remember and that he was physically abused, though he didn’t say by whom specifically. At times he took medication and did short stints in mental health facilities and life was better then, he said.
Before she handed down the sentences, Dorow said that she doesn’t believe Brooks is mentally ill, pointing out that four psychologists who evaluated him earlier this year found that he suffers from an anti-social personality disorder but not a mental illness.
“It is my opinion that mental health issues did not cause him to do what he did on Nov. 21, 2021, and frankly didn’t play a role. It is very clear to me that he understands the difference between right and wrong and he simply chooses to ignore his conscience. He is fueled by anger and rage.”
Dorow spent most of Tuesday listening to dozens of victims demand Brooks get the maximum possible sentence. One by one they described frantically searching for their children in the immediate aftermath, the pain their children have endured as they still struggle to recover from their injuries and the emptiness they feel as they cope with the loss of their dead loved ones.
District Attorney Susan Opper asked Dorow on Tuesday to make the sentences consecutive so they stack up “just as he stacked victims up as he drove down the road,” with no chance of release on extended supervision.
