The Milwaukee Police Department said its officers did not violate policy when they left 64-year-old Carrie Zettel with her daughter, who prosecutors say killed her hours later.
The department’s statement comes three weeks after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel raised questions about whether police officers should have taken Zettel’s daughter, 29-year-old Lauren Spors, into custody under Wisconsin’s involuntary mental health commitment law.
Family members said Zettel had tried unsuccessfully for years to get her daughter mental health help and was afraid of Spors’ escalating aggressive behaviors.
The night before her death, on Oct. 12, 2025, Zettel called police around 3:30 a.m. to report loud bangs on her window. Police determined the person banging on the window was Spors.
According to body camera footage from that night, Zettel told officers her daughter was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, used to live with her and had been violent toward her in the past. She repeatedly said she feared Spors and asked police to take her away.
However, the officers said they could not force Spors to go anywhere against her will.
After unsuccessfully attempting to engage Spors, the officers asked Zettel to take her daughter to a hotel for the night and left, according to the footage.
Around 2:30 p.m. that day, police found Zettel dead in her backyard and Spors in the house, covered in blood, according to the criminal complaint.
“While there is no indication that our officers’ conduct violated policy, MPD does recognize the horrific and tragic outcome and extends its deepest condolences to the family and friends of the victim,” a department spokesperson wrote in an email.
The department made the determination based on an informal review, the spokesperson said. Zettel’s family has not made a formal complaint.
Julie Zettel, the sister of Carrie Zettel, told the Journal Sentinel that family members have been meeting with key players in Milwaukee’s mental health system to seek answers on her sister’s death.
“We did get compassion, but also excuses, blame and complacency,” Julie Zettel wrote in an email. “We are still reviewing MPD’s response to the crisis and missed opportunities.”
Key players need to do better to bridge the gaps, and the family will not give up its efforts to seek answers, she added.
“It adds greatly to our suffering to discover just how broken the mental health system is,” Zettel added. “We cannot accept the minimization of the system collapse.”
Under Wisconsin statute, police officers can involuntarily take people with severe mental health issues to a hospital if they present a danger to themselves or others.
How often that power should be used has been an ongoing debate among mental health advocates, civil rights experts and law enforcement officials in Wisconsin and elsewhere.
In October, the Journal Sentinel reported that Spors had at least five interactions with Milwaukee-area law enforcement in the week before her mother’s death.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Cynthia Davis, who chairs the Milwaukee Community Justice Council’s mental health committee, said in October the events that led up to Carrie Zettel’s death were being reviewed “internally.”
“It certainly does highlight a concern that we are trying to address on a systemic level,” Davis said at the time.
Spors is charged with first-degree intentional homicide with a domestic violence modifier.
She was found incompetent to stand trial in November, meaning she does not understand court proceedings and cannot assist in her defense. She is undergoing treatment so to she can face her charges.
“Our family continues to feel the deep sorrow of losing Carrie to such a gruesome death at the hands of her daughter, who she loved very much,” Julie Zettel said.
Eva Wen is an investigative data reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She can be reached at qwen@usatodayco.com.
(This story has been updated to meet our standards.)
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee police say ‘no indication’ of violations in Lauren Spors case
Reporting by Eva Wen, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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