WeedPress: The Paper Trail

Related: Attention Attorney General Barr: Investigate the Wisconsin Political Assassination of O.G. Rastafarian Bernell Trammell Now! (July 28, 2020)

By Jason Karimi, Publisher

On July 23, 2020, a man covered from head to toe rode a bicycle to a small office in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood, walked up behind Bernell Trammell and opened fire from about 8 to 10 feet away, according to the Milwaukee police detective assigned to the case.¹ Trammell, 60, was a Rastafarian known locally as “The Ras.” For decades he published eXpressions Journal, a small publication on political and spiritual news.² He often sat outside his office with homemade signs, including signs supporting President Donald Trump’s reelection.¹,²

“This was premeditated,” Milwaukee Police Department Detective Vincent Lopez III told CBS 58 in April 2024. Detectives believe Trammell was killed because of the views he expressed in public, the station reported. “He was Pro Trump. He voiced it, he had signs up,” Lopez said.¹

In April 2024, CBS 58 reported that the case was unsolved and that a $10,000 reward was still available through Milwaukee Crime Stoppers for information leading to an arrest.¹ WeedPress found no public report of an arrest or charges since then. CBS 58 listed Milwaukee Crime Stoppers at 414-224-8477 and the P3 Tips app for tips.¹

WeedPress covered Trammell’s killing in the days after it happened.³⁻⁶ This week, a story out of Texas, centered on University of Texas at San Antonio student Isabela Casahuga Lemgruber, has raised two related questions: what happens when someone’s words about a killing draw national outrage, and what happens when an anonymous website then publishes that person’s family details. The Dallas Express and The College Fix have identified her by name; The College Fix calls her Isa Casahuga.⁸,¹⁰

What happened at UTSA

Video from a “Pick Up the Mic” event at the University of Texas at San Antonio shows Casahuga Lemgruber reciting a poem about the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk during an exchange with conservative activist Christian Collins, founder of the Texas Youth Summit.⁷,⁸ Kirk was shot and killed on Sept. 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University.⁹ The College Fix reported that the campus event took place Sept. 23, 2026, and that Collins posted the video Oct. 27.¹⁰

The poem referred to the “Kirkiversary” and included the line “as we solemnly remembered a shot to the neck.”⁸ Collins wrote on X that the student “read a poem celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk with such glee, then told me I was brave to be out here without my neck covered. I told her I’d pray for her.”⁸

On Oct. 29, University of Texas System Board of Regents Chairman Kevin Eltife and Chancellor John Zerwas said in a joint statement: “We will not tolerate the incitement of violence or the threat of incitement of violence by any member of our UT community. UT San Antonio will handle this incident consistent with the law.”⁷ UTSA spokesman Joe Izbrand said the university was reviewing the matter “through its established student conduct processes” and, citing federal student privacy law, would not comment further on the student or any discipline.⁸,⁹ The Dallas Express noted that the UT System statement did not announce any discipline or identify a policy violation.⁸

On Nov. 2, The College Fix reported that Casahuga Lemgruber had apologized to Collins and the Kirk family. She said in the apology, “I understand why my words caused so much pain and I take full accountability for them.”¹⁰

The website

On Oct. 28, the day after Collins posted the video, someone registered a website about Casahuga Lemgruber. The public registration record reviewed by WeedPress does not identify the owner.¹¹ The site is a single page and lists no author. It publishes the student’s identifying details and personal information about her family, including an estimate of what their home is worth. It also repeats an unsourced claim about her.¹² The Dallas Express reported that a website “purported to compile” screenshots of the student’s social media activity and information about a family member’s work, and that it had not independently authenticated those materials.⁸

News outlets have already published Casahuga Lemgruber’s name,⁸,¹⁰ but her family’s private information is a different matter. WeedPress is not repeating her family’s details or linking to the site. She is a 19-year-old student, not a public official,⁸ and she has apologized.¹⁰ In WeedPress’s view, the site puts her family’s personal information in front of strangers.

WeedPress’s view

Celebrating or mocking a killing is wrong, whether the victim is Charlie Kirk or a Black, pro-Trump Rastafarian publisher in Milwaukee. Doxxing is wrong too. A website that publishes a 19-year-old student’s family details and a home-value estimate for strangers to read does not answer speech. It risks turning a person into a target.

Bad speech should be answered with more speech. In the exchange, Collins told the student he would pray for her.⁸ UTSA has said it is reviewing the matter through its conduct process, and the UT System has said UTSA will handle it “consistent with the law.”⁷,⁸ Neither response requires anyone’s personal or family information to be exposed.

What the Trammell case shows

In WeedPress’s view, the Trammell case shows how fast a killing can be pulled into partisan fights before the facts are known. In 2020, the Associated Press reported that Trammell’s political views were “sometimes contradictory.” He supported Trump, but he also supported Black Lives Matter and many liberals. A Republican Party official said he often saw Trammell holding a sign for Trump on one side and, on the other, a sign for state Sen. Lena Taylor, a Black Democrat then running for mayor.² Reggie Moore, then director of Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention, told the AP he had stepped in about three weeks before the killing during a brief confrontation between Trammell and a young man upset by his pro-Trump sign.²

Wisconsin Republicans called for a federal investigation. Taylor told the AP that “there’s nothing to substantiate” that Trammell was killed for his politics. “We don’t know that,” she said.² In 2024, the detective on the case told CBS 58 that investigators believe Trammell was targeted because of his views.¹ WeedPress found no public report that anyone has been identified or charged.

WeedPress’s record

WeedPress first wrote about Trammell on July 28, 2020, in a post that called the killing a political assassination and called on then-Attorney General William Barr to investigate.³ That post noted that Trammell had shown up for a Madison, Wisconsin, Rastafari church after police raids in a case over cannabis used as sacrament. It quoted the church’s statement that he drove down from Milwaukee and drummed on the street corner beside the church for seven days.³ WeedPress followed with posts on July 31, Aug. 2 and Aug. 4, 2020, about how national media and Wisconsin officials were covering the case.⁴⁻⁶ On Aug. 29, 2020, WeedPress wrote: “America is either going to reject political violence or become consumed by it.”¹³

Karimi, WeedPress’s publisher, says he was raising concerns about political violence before WeedPress covered Trammell. In a Dec. 17, 2025, WeedPress post, he wrote that in 2017, while he was president of the Young Americans for Liberty chapter at Iowa State University, he joined a roundtable with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, the head of the Iowa College Republicans and other leaders. He wrote that the group warned her that political violence was rising, and that a fellow student leader told the governor he had been assaulted for speaking about politics on campus.¹⁴ Karimi also says that after the meeting, the governor issued a resolution condemning campus violence. WeedPress has not confirmed that claim. It has not found a copy of that resolution in its own archive or in the public sources it searched for this article.

Trammell was killed in broad daylight more than six years ago. CBS 58 reported in April 2024 that the case was unsolved and that a $10,000 reward was still available.¹ The best way to honor him is to help solve his killing, not to make more targets.

Related coverage

• Attention Attorney General Barr: Investigate the Wisconsin Political Assassination of O.G. Rastafarian Bernell Trammell Now! (July 28, 2020)
• Fox News: Mainstream Media Not Covering Ras Bernell Trammel Murdered for Political Beliefs in Milwaukee (July 31, 2020)
• Black Rasta Man Gunned Down in Broad Daylight Last Week Makes Fox News for Second Time, Gets Not a Peep from BLM or Wisconsin Democrats (Aug. 2, 2020)
• Rasta Bernell Trammell Political Assassination/Murder Discussed by Raymond Arroyo and Candace Owens on Internet Talk Show 7-30-2020 (Aug. 4, 2020)
• Mob Violence Is Killing America and Is Way Deadlier Than Police Violence — Reject Violence, or It Will Consume the Country (Aug. 29, 2020)
• WeedPress Warned Political Violence Was Increasing and Now a 19 Year Old Was Assassinated (Dec. 17, 2025)