Charles Cross Jr.

Former Milwaukee Police Department officer involved in the recent deportation of a Venezuelan makeup artist to El Salvador.

Charles Cross Jr. had previously been placed on a list of Milwaukee County officers with credibility issues, and was later fired by the department after crashing into a house while driving drunk.

Charles Cross Jr. was hired by the department in 1993.

In 2012, he drove a car with a blood alcohol limit twice the legal limit into a home. At the time of the crash, he was also under investigation for allegedly claiming overtime he did not earn,.

Cross was fired from his position as a Milwaukee Police Sergeant after the crash. He appealed the decision and resigned in the process.

Previously, he was convicted in 2007 of criminal damage to property. This misdemeanor conviction came after he kicked in the door of the apartment he shared with his girlfriend and threatened to kill himself, the court records show. He was fined $500 on that count.

Prosecutors offered him a deferred prosecution agreement on a charge of domestic violence-related disorderly conduct, which was dropped after he got treatment for depression and alcohol abuse.

Nannette Hegerty, police chief at the time, fired Cross, but the civilian Fire and Police Commission gave him his job back after the 2007 incident.

It was after that incident that he was placed on Milwaukee County’s Brady list, a compilation of law enforcement officers deemed by prosecutors to have credibility issues.

Cross, 62, is back in the news for his current job with CoreCivic, which runs many of the immigration detention centers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Cross signed a report that implicated Andry José Hernandez, a gay makeup artist from Venezuela, as affiliated with the notorious Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, based on his tattoos. Cross typed his name over the title “INVESTIGATOR” on the form.

Critics have questioned the legality and effectiveness of having contract workers make such determinations.