Seven or eight agents from the Wisconsin De-partment of Justice's Divi-sion of Criminal Investiga-tion executed a search war-rant at a residence at 109 Main Street in Gays Mills last Friday afternoon.  

The two-story residence is owned by Richard Wick-ard, according to village records.

The DCI agents at the scene declined to answer questions about the opera-tion. However, Department of Justice spokesperson Dana Brueck later con-firmed the agents were exe-cuting a search warrant that was issued in Dane County Circuit Court. Brueck de-clined to provide further information about the search of the Gays Mills residence because the action was part of ongoing crimi-nal investigation.

Some neighbors of the residence were alarmed to see the armed agents in plain clothes outside the residence.

“I saw them on the side-walk and then I noticed one them had gun,” one neigh-bor said later. “I couldn't figure it out.”

A neighbor confirmed the agents brought something out of the house and placed it on the sidewalk. The agents appeared to be trying to “knock something out of it,” the neighbor said.

The agents, most of whom wore black bullet-proof vests over their street clothes, arrived around 1 p.m. and “stayed for quite awhile,” according to a neighbor.