Milwaukee hearing finds officer failed to get medical clearance before prisoner later died; chief ordered termination for several violations

Officer Adam Maritato, a Milwaukee Police Department officer, faced a disciplinary hearing March 4 after internal affairs investigators concluded he failed to seek medical clearance and summon emergency medical services for a detainee who later died in custody.

The hearing centered on body-worn, dash and holding‑cell surveillance video from the early morning of Feb. 23, 2022, and on Sergeant Raymond Hewitt’s internal‑affairs summary of the probe. The files show officers stopped a vehicle, arrested driver Keyshawn Thomas on a county warrant, found narcotics in and near the car and later found additional narcotics on Thomas during a secondary search at District 5. At booking, Thomas told officers he had ingested drugs; he later became unresponsive in the holding cell and was pronounced dead. Sergeant Hewitt testified the Milwaukee County medical examiner later listed the cause of death as "acute mixed drug intoxication" involving fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Why it matters: the department’s standard operating procedures require officers to ensure that anyone believed to have ingested a controlled substance be medically cleared before booking and to activate EMS when a person is in medical distress. The internal‑affairs investigator told the commission that officers at multiple points could have sought medical care but did not do so, and that videos and witness interviews shaped the…