Madison, Wisc., ABC affiliate WKOW is being sued for defamation by a retired Milwaukee police sergeant for being named in a story about the shooting of an unarmed black man.
In the story, former Milwaukee Police Sgt. Mark D. Wagner Jr. was identified as a state Division of Criminal Investigation agent who allegedly shot Quadren Wilson in February. The station also said Wagner was cleared of any wrongdoing in a 2002 shooting incident in Milwaukee.
The defamation lawsuit stated the station’s report named the wrong Mark Wagner. The DCI agent involved in the Wilson case was former Milwaukee Detective Mark P. Wagner. While Sgt. Mark D. Wagner was the officer in the 2002 shooting incident, he was never a DCI agent.
The lawsuit stated that “As a result, Mark D. Wagner Jr. has suffered humiliation, loss of reputation, and physical endangerment to him and his family entitling him to compensatory damages.”
TVSpy asked news director Dani Maxwell about the lawsuit. We’ll update the story once we hear back.
Madison.com said WKOW did make a correction, but according to the lawsuit, the story had run at least once after WKOW knew the the story was wrong.