Milwaukee, WI
Twilight Centers offer nighttime fun for Milwaukee youths
Step into North Division High School on a Monday night, and you’ll hear the sound of students playing basketball and see others playing in the game room. Three nights a week, the school turns from a place of learning into a recreation center.
North Division High School is one of eight Milwaukee high schools that host Twilight Centers, a Milwaukee Recreation program.
“Twilight Centers are meant to get teenagers off the street at night and provide a safe haven,” said Jason Blocker, Twilight Center supervisor.
Many come to the centers every night they’re open, he said.
Blocker said he sees about 50 to 60 students on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays at North Division, and just as many at Washington High School of Information Technology, another Twilight Center site he supervises.
Centers are staffed with student and adult monitors who check in on students at all times. Blocker said students are often respectful of the space and stick to their activities, especially with monitors around.
All kinds of fun
Students in the mood for more relaxing activities can go to the game room to play video games on the Xbox or PlayStation, or air hockey and pool. Students also have access to computers to do homework, look for jobs and safely browse the internet.
North Division’s pool is also open for swimming during Twilight Center hours. Two student lifeguards monitor swimmers at all times.
Blocker said the pool at Washington is under renovation, so those wishing to swim should go to North Division’s Twilight Center.
Centers offer snacks like chocolate milk, cheese sticks and crackers in the cafeteria each night, Blocker said.
The center also offers different enrichment activities. If students attend enough, they get to go on a field trip at the end of the semester.
One semester, students attended a Milwaukee Bucks basketball game, Blocker said. For another, they went to Dave and Buster’s. He said about 20 students at North Division end up going on the field trip.
When it’s time to leave, Milwaukee Recreation has free bus passes to help students get home.
Where to find your local Twilight Center
This semester, most Twilight Centers are open Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Six centers serve students ages 12 to 18, and two serve ages 10 to 14.
Blocker said children of other ages can come if they’re accompanied by an adult, but snacks are limited to children and teens.
He said you must be a student to attend, but you don’t have to go to an MPS school.
If you’re an MPS student, all you need to go to a Twilight Center is your “s number,” the same number you use to get lunch, Blocker said.
Students who don’t go to MPS can provide information about their identity and age and will get a card to use on future Twilight Center visits.
This allows Milwaukee Recreation staff to identify everyone at the Twilight Center to maintain security and let parents know their child is at the center if they ask.
Twilight Centers: Ages 10 to 14
Andrew Douglas Middle School: 3620 N. 18th St.
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Bay View High School: 2751 S. Lenox St.
Friday and Saturday: 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Twilight Centers: Ages 12 to 18
James Madison High School: 8135 W. Florist Ave.
Monday and Wednesday: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Saturday: 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
North Division High School: 1011 W. Center St.
Monday and Wednesday: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Saturday: 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Obama School of Career and Technical Education: 5075 N. Sherman Blvd.
Monday, Wednesday: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Saturday: 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Casimir Pulaski High School: 2500 W. Oklahoma Ave.
Monday and Wednesday: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Saturday: 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
South Division High School: 1515 W. Lapham Blvd.
Monday and Wednesday: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Saturday: 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Washington High School of Information Technology: 2525 N. Sherman Blvd.
Monday, Wednesday: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
and Saturday: 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
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West Allis Fire demonstrates using Narcan for opioid overdoses
West Allis Fire Department Assistant Chief Armando Suarez Del Real illustrates how a Narcan nasal spray kit is administered in the event of an overdose.
The number of Milwaukee County residents who died from a drug overdose fell for a third year in 2025, which county officials say is a promising sign that more money spent on harm reduction, treatment and prevention efforts is working.
New data released April 21 show 387 overdose deaths across the county last year, down about 43% from their peak in 2022.
“The work is paying off,” Dr. Ben Weston, Milwaukee County’s chief health policy adviser, said at a news conference, touting the county’s vending machines stocked with Narcan and drug testing strips, as well as a state-sponsored data collection system that helps local health departments understand when and where overdoses occur.
Still, the hundreds of county residents who lost their lives last year to a drug overdose means that work isn’t close to done, officials say – especially as the drug landscape continues to change, presenting new challenges.
“We can’t let our foot off the gas quite yet,” said Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.
Drug mixing continues to drive lethal outcomes
Milwaukee County’s decline in overdose deaths is a trend mirrored across the state and the country, following years of climbing fatalities that were deemed a public health crisis.
The county will spend $111 million in opioid settlement funds over the next several years and is already putting what it has received to use, focusing on “reaching residents where they are,” said Jeremy Triblett, prevention integration manager with the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services.
That includes initiatives like the harm reduction vending machines and also knocking on doors, providing county EMS workers with Narcan and seeking the opinions of people who use drugs to shape the county’s strategy.
But officials say they still see a concerning trend of combinations of drugs leading to overdose, particularly fentanyl being cut with stimulants such as cocaine. These mixes of drugs make it harder to reverse an overdose, said Dr. Wieslawa Tlomak, Milwaukee County’s chief medical examiner.
Nearly a third of all autopsies the medical examiner’s office conducted in 2025 were deaths by drug overdose, Tlomak said, and the majority involved multiple drugs. Data show the most common combinations were fentanyl and cocaine, cocaine and alcohol, and opoids and fentanyl.
Methamphetamines are also involved in more overdose deaths than a few years ago, Tlomak said.
For drug users, not knowing exactly what’s in the drug they are getting is one of the most dangerous elements of the current drug landscape, she said.
Fatal drug overdoses were most common among American Indian and Alaska Native residents in 2025, the data show, followed by Black residents. About two-thirds of fatal overdoses were in men, and the median age of death from an overdose was 49, a number that’s been climbing steadily since 2018.
Triblett said the county is focusing on how substances interact with cultural norms in different communities and that a community advisory board is convening to develop harm reduction messaging for specific populations. His team will also host a door-knocking event June 12 to reach new people across the county with prevention and treatment resources.
Madeline Heim covers health and the environment for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at 920-996-7266 or mheim@usatodayco.com.
Drone video shows dug‑up yard at former Michael Lock home
Drone video shows a dug‑up yard at a Milwaukee home once owned by Michael Lock, following a police search for possible homicide victims.
Milwaukee police on Monday, April 20, began digging up a home once owned by notorious Milwaukee drug dealer Michael Lock.
The dig marks another chapter in Lock’s long criminal history in Milwaukee, which has included convictions for homicide, drug dealing, kidnapping, torture and running a prostitution ring.
As of 6 p.m., April 20, police had partially dug up the concrete driveway and yard in Lock’s former home. Lock has been convicted of murders of other drug dealers whose bodies were found under concrete slabs at a different home he owned.
As the dig continues, here’s what to know about Lock:
Who is Michael Lock?
Lock was the head of a murderous criminal organization known as the “Body Snatchers” and one of the leading criminal operators in Milwaukee until his 2007 arrest.
Over the course of a decade, Lock’s organization sold large volumes of cocaine, tortured and killed other dealers, prostituted women across the Midwest and ran a mortgage fraud scheme.
A jury convicted Lock in July 2008 in the homicides of two drug dealers in 1999 and 2000, whose remains were found in 2005 under concrete slabs in the backyard of a home once owned by Lock at 4900 W. Fiebrantz Ave. He has also been found guilty of running a prostitution ring, various kidnapping and drug dealing charges and mortgage fraud.
Where is Michael Lock now?
Lock is is serving multiple terms of life in prison at Waupun Correctional Institution without the chance of parole.
Where are Milwaukee police digging on April 20?
Milwaukee police confirmed they are executing a search warrant at the home on 4343 N. 15th St. in Milwaukee’s north side. City tax records show the property is owned by Shalanda Roberts, formerly Shalanda Lock, Michael Lock’s former wife.
Why are police digging up the yard of Lock’s former home?
There has long been suspicion on the part of law enforcement that there are additional bodies buried under the yard. In 2011, police dug another Milwaukee yard looking for remains.
In that warrant 15 years ago, investigators said at least four victims are buried somewhere in Milwaukee. Before that, police had dug a half-dozen other yards. Police have found no remains in the other digs.
Who lives at the property now?
It is unclear if anyone currently lives at the North 15th Street property. Shalanda Roberts told the Journal Sentinel she owns the property where police are digging, but it is a rental and she lives out of state now.
She said she has no information on the dig and has not spoken to her former husband in years.
Read the Journal Sentinel’s past coverage on Michael Lock
The Journal Sentinel documented the case against Lock in a five-part investigative series, “The Preacher’s Mob,” published in 2009.
You can read the series below:
Marvin Bynum, adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School, was named to BizTimes Milwaukee’s list of Notable Leaders in Law.
Bynum, shareholder and real estate attorney with Milwaukee-based Godfrey & Kahn, teaches a course on real estate transactions at Marquette. He has experience with a range of property types, from sports facilities to manufacturing plants and office spaces, and works to help clients navigate transactions including development, financing, leasing, acquisitions, dispositions and low-income housing tax credit-financed projects.
Notable Leaders in Law is part of BizTimes Milwaukee’s Notable series, which recognizes leaders in the southeastern Wisconsin business community.
Six alumni were also named to the list:
- Jim Brzezinski, managing partner and CEO of Tabak Law
- Adam R. Finkel, partner at Husch Blackwell
- Jeremy Guth, shareholder and attorney at O’Leary-Guth Law Office S.C.
- Keith Kopplin, shareholder at the Milwaukee office of Ogletree Deakins
- Isioma Nwabuzor, associate general counsel and assistant corporate secretary at Modine Manufacturing Co.
- Joe Pickart, partner at Husch Blackwell
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