By Adam Rife
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MILWAUKEE (WDJT) — After years of harassment, frustration, and danger, a Milwaukee couple is poised to receive a settlement payment from the City of Milwaukee.
Patrick Tomlinson and his wife have been the victims of dozens of swatting calls—fake emergency calls that prompt real police responses.
They allege their civil rights have been violated, and the city should have known their home was an intentional target. A judge agrees.
The city has agreed to pay the $575,000 settlement for not properly training 20 officers involved.
Over the years, they repeatedly handcuffed Patrick Tomlinson and his wife at gunpoint and searched their home.
We first spoke with Tomlinson in 2022. The swatting calls—and police response—intensified from there.
At the time, Tomlinson told us, “I had been handcuffed, naked, on my front porch at one o’clock in the morning by six officers, with six guns in my face.”
It was October 2022 and Tomlinson was worried. Not about the dozens of stalkers making false 911 calls, he was worried about what responding police officers might do when they got to his home.
He said, “Heavily armed, trigger-happy police in full body armor and riot shields and assault rifles.”
For years, Tomlinson and his wife had been swatted for bomb threats, assassinations, kidnapping children, hostage situations, mass shootings, and murders.
Each time, MPD would respond, often in force.
“With a stack of heavily armed police officers, who clearly had no idea why they were there,” Tomlinson told us at the time. “Who were there on the orders of our stalkers.”
For years, Tomlinson begged for MPD to flag his address for any future calls, telling us, “It has led to deaths. People have been killed this way.”
Court documents show police often agreed.
On one call, an officer said, “Luckily, we already kind of know this is an ongoing thing, because if we didn’t, this could end up with this guy dead.”
One officer sent a memo asking that the home be marked as a “Swatter House” in MPD’s dispatch system. A supervisor declined.
An officer said he “thought the call might be fake;” another “would later testify that he knew there wasn’t an emergency,” another said, “We know. We know,” when told the address should be flagged.
The house was not flagged, and the swatting worsened after our interview.
One officer raced to respond to one call, even though he had responded the day before to the first of four swatting calls.
In 2024, Tomlinson and his wife filed a federal suit against 20 officers for violating their civil rights.
The court found there were violations but dismissed the individual claims because the officers were granted qualified immunity.
But the suit against the city remained.
On May 4, the two sides agreed to a settlement.
Tomlinson told us he’s holding off on commenting until after the settlement is finalized.
His attorney told us, “While no settlement can fix the past or fully account for the conduct of City officials involved, this resolution is some acknowledgment of the repeated constitutional violations that Niki and Patrick endured.”
The city’s settlement requires Common Council approval and for the mayor to sign off.
It also requires the city to increase its budget for litigation settlements. The city expects that to take about 90 days, meaning the settlement could be finalized in mid-August.
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