Conspiracy Plot To Kill Milwaukee Cops Fails To Convict Gang Member

Joe Frazier

A jury acquitted La Familia gang member in conspiracy plot to kill two Milwaukee officers.

By H. Nelson Goodson

March 15, 2013

Milwaukee, WI - On Thursday, a jury acquitted Joe L. Frazier, 21, of conspiring to kill two Milwaukee police officers. The jury found Frazier not guilty of all counts. 

The state failed to provide proof that Frazier, a suspected La Familia gang member intended to go forward in an allege plot to actually commit murder. Frazier had been charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit intentional homicide and was the first defendant of five to go on trial in the case.

Milwaukee police accused five suspects of plotting to kill two officers and several other would be victims. Frazier's trial showed that police and the state had a weak case and puts the rest of the trials of co-defendants in jeopardy. Without Frazier's conviction who police say was the trigger man, gaining any convictions from the four remaining defendants will be difficult to achieve.

The murder plot was discovered in September after several tips to police were made about the plan of members of La Familia were planning to commit multiple murders. 

Three men and a woman, Eliezer Cruz Jr., 20, Michael Geluk, 21, Gabriel Guerrero, 24, and Maricela Gullicksen, 29, were also each charged for conspiracy to commit first-degree intentional homicide.