Accused Christmas Parade Attacker Keeps Getting Kicked Out of His Own Trial

One of the messiest mass murder trials in recent memory has come to a close, and the decision now rests in the hands of the jury. 

Darrell Brooks is accused of killing six people and injuring 62 more by intentionally plowing his vehicle through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in November 2021. At the onset of the proceedings, he fired his lawyers and announced that he would be representing himself in court against 76 offenses, including six murder charges.

But the courtroom quickly devolved into chaos as Brooks declared himself a sovereign citizen—a group that uses pseudo-legal ideas to argue they don’t need to follow the law. That meant he was allowed to question his own alleged victims and was often combative with them. Brooks was also aggressive with Judge Jennifer Dorow and routinely removed from the court and forced to watch the trial unfold via a video livestream.

On Tuesday, Brooks was once again removed from the courtroom after constantly fighting with the judge. When he was brought in for his final argument, Dorow threatened to pull his ability to give a closing statement if he didn’t drop the sovereign citizen rhetoric, before he finally gave his closing statement. 

“I’m going to speak from the heart. I’m not going to argue facts,” said Brooks during his closing statement. “Arguing ‘facts are this, facts are that,’ I’m not going to waste your time doing that.” 

Brooks acknowledged he was behind the wheel and argued— despite frequent objections from the prosecution—that the vehicle accelerated on its own. He also attempted to play up his Christian beliefs and argued that driving through the crowd was God’s “will for this to happen.” 

In the prosecutors’ closing statements, Waukesha County District Attorney Sue Opper said there is “no doubt” Brooks committed the crimes. She painted a picture of a man who drove his SUV through the crowd without caring. She explained one at a time, in chronological order, the dozens of people who were hit and that Brooks just “kept going” after each person he allegedly collided with. 

“You can stand with a Bible in your hand all day long and profess to be the finest man under God, but when you drive through a parade route and roll over children with band instruments to the extent that your vehicle heaves up and down, your intent is known, Mr. Brooks,” Opper said. 

“Your actions are that of a murderer,” she added later. “You murdered those people.” 

But Brooks, who drove over people like “speed bumps,” as one witness put it, seemed to not be moved by the injuries, trauma, and loss. Last week Brooks verbally attacked a woman whose daughter was almost struck in the attack. He implied that the witness was being coached by the prosecution—even though he called her to the stand—and was chastised by the judge for “intimidating the witness.”

Several times during the trial, Brook’s cross-examinations backfired though. 

"Did you see who was driving?" Brooks asked a man who said he saw "a red SUV plow over a bunch of people." 

"Yeah, you’re standing right there," the man replied. 

Brooks also took out his ire on the judge and prosecution frequently. Last week, he began yelling when a prosecutor raised his status as a sex offender. 

"Get your facts straight,” he yelled at the prosecution as the judge called for a brief break. “Did you know she said she was 18 when I met her? Did you know that?" 

Brooks has a history of making antisemitic and anti-white comments on social media, and many on the far-right have seized upon the allegations as an anti-white terror attack. Several racist figures have been following the trail closely and providing day-by-day breakdowns to their followers. 

The jury is now deliberating the charges. Brooks faces life in prison if found guilty of any of the homicide charges. 

On Wednesday morning, Brooks returned to the courtroom to request a mistrial because he saw a post on Reddit where a user claimed to be a juror. The prosecution was then forced to explain to him that the user edited the post during deliberations saying it was a “prank.”

“The way that Reddit works is that the only person who can modify the content of a post is the original poster, and because the jurors have no access to electronic devices, I think it’s safe to say our 12 jurors back there aren’t the original poster,” said prosecution attorney Zach Wittchow. “I think that puts that issue to bed.”

Judge Dorow did not call for a mistrial. 

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

Correction 10/26 12:09 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to reflect the correct number of charges Darrell Brooks is facing. We regret the error.

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