 By Alexandria Staubach
A Brown County man recently won the right to withdraw his guilty plea after the Court of Appeals held that drug task force investigators used impermissible coercion to gain entry to his home. “This case is a classic example of law enforcement tactics that deeply undermine individual rights and ultimately undercut the state’s interest in investigating and prosecuting crimes,” said defense attorney and Wisconsin Justice Initiative President Craig Johnson. The District 3 per curiam (nonprecedential) opinion issued from the three-judge panel of Presiding Judge Lisa K. Stark and Judges Thomas M. Hruz and Gregory B. Gill. Cris Monge-Davila entered a no-contest plea to a drug-related charge after the trial judge denied his motion to suppress evidence found in a search of his apartment. Whether the search was lawful hinged on whether Monge-Davila willingly allowed officers into his home. In the trial court, the state maintained that Monge-Davila consented to officers’ search or his home. Monge-Davila argued he never gave it. Brown County Circuit Court Judge Marc C. Hammer concluded after a suppression hearing that Monge-Davila consented, as he was heard on body-camera footage saying, “I don’t have nothing, but okay.” Monge-Davila “weighed the options and wanted to minimize the possibility of additional problems,” Hammer said in his ruling. The Court of Appeals disagreed. Looking at the evidence and facts of Monge-Davila’s interaction with officers, the appeals court rejected the state’s characterization of the encounter as “undramatic.” The appellate court said it “view(ed) the interaction as being rather disagreeable and coercive.” In July 2022, members of the Brown County drug task force were executing a warrant at the apartment across the hall from Monge-Davila’s. During that operation, Monge-Davila exited his apartment to find “several armed officers wearing tactical vests, one of whom immediately began asking if he had drugs in his apartment,” wrote the court. Body-camera video presented at the trial court suppression hearing and reviewed by the Court of Appeals showed several officers looking inside Monge-Davila's apartment before he closed the door behind him. The body-cam footage showed at least two officers had Monge-Davila physically cornered at all times. They frisked him and took his phone. One officer grabbed Monge-Davila by the arm, preventing him from leaving. According to the opinion, more than seven officers were present in the hallway when an officer asked Monge-Davila, “Is there some fucking weed coming out of your apartment? I thought I smelled something.” Monge-Davila replied, “No.“ Officers suggested they could get a warrant but would not be forgiving if they had to “go the extra mile.” The appeals court found that any consent given by Monge-Davila was not voluntary. “'Consent to search must be unequivocal and specific, and it must be freely and voluntarily given,'” the court wrote, citing case law. “'Consent is not freely and voluntarily given if it is the result of a mere acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority.'” “Throughout the interaction, Monge-Davila repeatedly expressed to the officers that he did not understand what was going on and that he did not have drugs in his apartment,” wrote the court. He had also rejected officers’ prior requests to come inside his apartment. “The officers made a show of force and otherwise engaged in coercive actions,” the court said. “These circumstances would demonstrate to any reasonable person that the interaction would not end until Monge-Davila provided his consent,” the court wrote. The appeals court remanded the case with directions to the trial court to allow Monge-Davila to withdraw his plea and grant the motion to suppress. “A case like this reinforces the importance of a trial judge’s role in deterring unconstitutional conduct by police through vigorous enforcement of the exclusionary rule,” said Johnson. The decision is available here.
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Book review: "Shielded" is an "engaging and enraging" examination of police immunity from suit3/13/2026  Schuldt If you're reading this blog, you are very likely concerned about justice in Wisconsin, the country, and across the world. But you're probably also pretty busy. How do you choose which books about the justice system to read during your limited free time? In a new series of posts, Wisconsin Justice Initiative founder and former executive director Gretchen Schuldt will help you out. An avid reader, she returns to the blog with book reviews so you can decide what's of interest to you and worth your time. Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable, by Joanna Schwartz. Viking, 291 pages, 2023. The U.S. Supreme Court first made it possible for individuals to successfully sue over constitutional rights violations. It’s been walking that decision back ever since. The precedent was set in 1971’s Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents. The court, in a 6-3 decision, said individuals could sue federal agents for damages related to Fourth Amendment violations. These days, thanks to subsequent court decisions, Bivens is so diminished that justice is unattainable for most people. Schwartz’s book is an engaging and enraging examination of the court’s jurisprudence and other factors responsible for this sorry state of affairs. Take, for example, the court’s decisions creating and expanding “qualified immunity,” a pulled-it-out-of-the-air doctrine that gives legal immunity to government officials, including law enforcement, as long as even the most egregious constitutional violations do not violate “clearly established law.” This new standard applies, the justices said in 1982’s Harlow v Fitzgerald, even if the officials’ actions were not taken in good faith. Schwartz provides a number of examples of the ridiculous ways courts gradually stretched the qualified immunity doctrine to give cover to action a five-year-old child would know is wrong. In one of them, Baxter v. Bracey, an appeals court held that officers were entitled to qualified immunity because there wasn’t an earlier case clearly stating that it was unconstitutional for an officer to set a police dog on a burglary suspect who surrendered and was sitting with his hands up. A prior court had said it was unconstitutional for an officer to release a police dog on a suspect who had surrendered and was lying down, Schwartz writes, but the appeals court said that case did not clearly show that turning a police dog loose on a suspect sitting, hands up, was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court in 2020 declined to hear an appeal of the Bracey decision. Then there’s the outcome of the 1978 Supreme Court decision in Monell v. Department of Social Services holding that municipalities can be sued for civil rights violations only if the conduct was due to the government’s policies, procedures, or customs. The court later said the need for better training, supervision, hiring practices or discipline had to be so obvious that a government’s failure to correct the deficiencies amounted to “deliberate indifference” to citizens’ rights. That led to the court ruling in 2011 in Connick v. Thompson that a prosecutor’s office could not be held liable when a district attorney withheld from a defendant blood work information that could have cleared the man. That led to his wrongful convictions for robbery and murder; he spent 14 years on death row before the information was found and he was exonerated. It turned out that hiding the report wasn’t a one-off. The prosecutor had a history of not turning over important evidence to defendants or their lawyers. But, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the 5-4 majority, none of the previous violations “involved failure to disclose blood evidence, a crime lab report, or physical or scientific evidence of any kind.” Schwartz’s takedowns of relevant justice-denying court decisions are convincing, but her analysis goes well beyond that. She tackles, among other things, the difficulty of finding lawyers willing to accept civil rights cases, unrepresentative federal juries, police departments’ failure to discipline rogue and brutal officers, municipal and law enforcement failures to learn from the suits filed against them, the questionable statistics used to justify police immunity, and the political pressure on local judges to not rule in ways that antagonize local political powers. Schwartz’s writing is compelling and accessible. Shielded is for anyone interested in justice and the David v. Goliath issues so often involved in getting it.
 Milwaukee City Hall. Photograph by Alexandria Staubach. By Alexandria Staubach
A large settlement moved one step closer to resolving claims of Milwaukee police misconduct, following a recommendation Monday by the city’s Judiciary and Legislation Committee. Meanwhile, while another city committee recommended a pay increase for officers. The Judiciary and Legislation Committee approved a budget-breaking $2.5 million settlement with the family of Keishon Thomas. Thomas died of an overdose in police custody in 2022, after officers failed to render care. That case has been the source of legal trouble for years. The family filed suit in Milwaukee County Circuit Court in February. Taxpayers would foot the bill for officers' inaction because the city of Milwaukee is self-insured. The proposed settlement now passes to the Common Council for approval. The payment would be among the most expensive in recent memory but for a $7 million payout to Danny Wilber in May. Wilber’s conviction was overturned after a federal appeals court found police misconduct resulted in an unfair trial. Wilber served 18 years in prison on the case. The committee also considered payment of $180,000 to Sedric Smith to resolve a federal case alleging constitutional violations by MPD officers. In a letter to the Milwaukee Common Council discussing the proposed settlement with Smith, City Attorney Evan Goyke and Deputy City Attorney Naomi Sanders wrote that “(s)ettlement is in the City’s best interest.” The committee postponed any recommendation on that settlement, however. Smith, who worked for a private security company at Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital, was stabbed by Edgar Padilla in early 2024. Prior to the stabbing, Padilla had launched himself and hurled racially charged insults at Smith inside the hospital’s parking structure. Smith, with the help of other private security officers, detained Padilla. According to court documents, Smith transferred Padilla to MPD custody as Padilla continued to “yell obscenities and engage in threatening behavior.” Smith then returned to patrolling the Columbia St. Mary’s emergency room. Officers Justin Arredondo and Jeremy A. Weber searched Padilla and located a knife in his backpack. The officers then called an ambulance to transfer Padilla to an emergency room. Neither officer secured or seized the knife before releasing Padilla to the ambulance, the complaint alleges. Neither officer accompanied Padilla to the emergency room at Columbia St. Mary’s, either. At the Columbia St. Mary's ER, Padilla was released into the care of the hospital “without police escort or order and with all of his belongings, including the knife,” the complaint states. Less than an hour later, Padilla stabbed Smith several times in the ER’s public restroom. While the 2025 budget originally proposed $3.5 million in allocations for settlements, ultimately only $1.9 million was approved. Since April, the Common Council has filled that gap by moving at least $3.8 million from the Common Council’s contingency fund to the damages and claims fund, and, for Wilber’s settlement, by using contingent borrowing. Contingent borrowing is a form of short-term, unplanned borrowing that was not anticipated in the year’s original budget. While the Judiciary and Legislative Committee was recommending the large settlement for the Thomas case, the city’s Finance and Personnel Committee at a simultaneous meeting recommended a resolution to ratify a final agreement between the city and the MPD that includes a 15% increase in pay for MPD officers. That resolution, now moving to the Common Council, takes the city and MPD one step closer to ending a nearly three-year battle over a contract predicted to require $51 million in additional salary funding to the department. Nov. 20 Note: This post has been corrected to reflect that the Judiciary and Legislative Committee postponed any vote on whether to recommend the Smith settlement to the Common Council. By Alexandria Staubach
The Milwaukee Police Department’s executive staff fielded more than 60 questions over nearly three hours from members of the Milwaukee Common Council and its Finance and Personnel Committee last week regarding the MPD's $310 million proposed budget allocation. Department salaries alone cost $195 million. But the bulk of conversation wasn’t specific line items or costs. Rather, the conversation focused on what MPD is doing and the places council members saw room for improvement. The use of emerging technologies loomed large as did the department’s controversial use of facial recognition technology (FRT). Artificial intelligence "is a force multiplier,” Chief Jeffrey Norman said on more than one occasion as the conversation roamed around new and proposed tools. Not all council members were in lockstep around increased use of technology, especially when it came to additional surveillance. Alderman Peter Burgelis questioned whether placing more cameras at intersections would do any good without enforcement of the laws already on the books to identify the cars that cameras are designed to capture. Burgelis was referencing SB375/AB371, fast-moving legislation that would permit 75 red-light cameras to be placed across Milwaukee. Burgelis compared MPD’s low citation rate for failure to display plates—fewer than 200 citations in 2024—to the more than 12,000 tickets written by the Department of Public Works for the same offense. “We as a department can hold ourselves responsible for what we can enforce more,” said Norman in response to Burgelis. Facial recognition technology loomed large in the conversation. Several alderpersons shared concerns about the deployment of federal officers as close as Chicago. “It’s not just in California,” said Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic, who called out a letter she helped author to Norman earlier this year in which a supermajority of the council opposed the use of facial recognition technology by the department. (That opposition was shared by the Mayor’s Equal Rights Commission.) Norman compared use of FRT to his department’s use of police pursuits. You’re “damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” he said. Norman said his department is still interested in the technology and alluded to current use in only the direst and time-sensitive cases. But he also said the department was using the public-facing conversations with the Fire and Police Commission and Equal Rights Commission to “understand how do we use the proper bumper guards and rails.” Dimitrijevic reiterated her hope in the current climate “to at least pause,” while Alderman Scott Spiker said there has not been a “sober conversation” about this technology as a city. Other generative AI tools discussed included software called “Draft One,” developed by Axon, which produces initial drafts of police reports from the audio of body-worn camera footage. Spiker highlighted its use in Minnesota cities and proposed that its implementation could reduce some of the additional paperwork burden often cited by MPD as resulting from a legal settlement. Spiker suggested they might be able to have fewer “cops behind desks” with Draft One but acknowledged that staffing mandates imposed by Act 12 wouldn’t permit the reallocation of salary funds to pay for the technology. Assistant Chief of Police Craig Sarnow said the department had considered using Draft One, but rolling it out would likely involve a test period on felonies and would require buy-in of the district attorney. Sarnow also highlighted its hefty price tag. Another topic of conversation was that only 63% of sworn officers live in the city of Milwaukee. A recent Fire and Police Commission survey cited crime as a primary reason male officers live outside the city and education as the primary reason female officers live outside the city. Milwaukee police officers are required to live either within city limits or within 15 miles of the city’s boundary. Alderman José Pérez noted that while on paper crime is down, “people in my neighborhood don’t feel that.” “I think there’s a lot of criminal nuisance behavior that we’re not measuring,” he said. In its presentation, MPD highlighted its priority areas for 2026: sustained efforts to ensure compliance with Act 12 hiring mandates; community relations; youth engagement; enhancing public safety; AI integration “digital trust”; employment of drones as first responders; virtual academy training; vehicle pursuit mitigation; and identifying roles that can be transitioned from sworn to civilian. As for the amount of the proposed MPD budget, while that number is $4 million short of the department’s 2025 allocation, it still far exceeds allocations to every other department. The next largest sum goes to water works ($167 million).  Community members fill the room at the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission meeting on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. Photograph by Amanda Merkwae. By Alexandria Staubach Almost three dozen members of the public turned up at a Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission meeting last week to discuss an item nowhere on the agenda. The FPC wanted to talk about its procedure for public comment at meetings and had invited representatives from Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and others to publicly comment on FPC file 212211, a communication from the commission regarding public comment at meetings. While some community members highlighted suggestions for improving communication between the FPC and the public, most instead used their time to discuss the volume of high-speed pursuits that have resulted in innocent bystander fatalities this year. A crash the day before Thursday’s meeting killed a mother and her two children at North 35th Street and West Vliet Street. Nine people have lost their lives from high-speed police chases this year—six of them innocent bystanders. What was actually on the agenda: a change in the FPC’s public comment policy. For years, items that were not formally noticed on the commission’s agenda were not up for discussion and could not be commented on by members of the FPC. While the public comment policy is still evolving, members of the public who register in advance will be given five minutes to speak, up from the previous two-minute limit. Also, FPC members will be allowed to address the topics raised, even if they were not on the agenda. FPC Executive Director Leon Todd said the “potential” improvements to the public comment policy came from considering recommendations in the Milwaukee Turners’ 2024 white paper. The Turners issued the white paper after observing the commission’s meetings over the course of a year. Nothing legally prevented the FPC from having such a policy in the past. Todd said “there is no legal prohibition” addressing nonagenda public comments at a meeting, “so long as they take no official action” and keep the discussion to the public comment section of the proceedings. In addition to using the new policy on comment time and topics at Thursday’s meeting, the commission rolled out a new website for community members to register in advance for future meetings. The website encourages people to “be clear and respectful,” advises them to avoid sharing confidential information, and instructs that testimony should relate “to the FPC’s role in oversight, policy, recruitment, discipline, or accountability” of the Milwaukee Police Department, Milwaukee Fire Department, or Department of Emergency Communications. Most attendees seemed receptive of change, but some highlighted that expanded time alone would not fix the communications dynamics at FPC meetings. “I see you all engaging earnestly,” said community advocate and FPC meeting regular Ron Jansen. “The structure undermines the effort,” he continued, because the public comment would still occur at the top of a meeting. “We all give our comment and show all our cards, and then the police come up here and call us liars over and over again,” Jansen said. The format “doesn’t give us a fighting chance to adjust our message,” he said. Following the FPC meeting, WJI spoke with BLOC member J. Robinson by phone about how community members co-opted the meeting time to discuss their priority issue of police pursuits. Robinson said although they had originally intended to speak on the public comment agenda item, the “reckless driving issue was more important,” and MPD’s pursuit policy was “doing more harm than good.” About the changes in communication policy, Robinson told WJI “it was better to be able to speak to the issues.” According to the FPC's 2024 vehicle pursuit report, 71% of Milwaukee police chases in 2024 reached speeds in excess of 75 miles per hour, up from 66% in 2023. A decade ago, the percentage was just 22%. Even during the height of COVID, which is widely regarded as exacerbating reckless driving, the percentage was 58%. Police most frequently engage in high-speed pursuits in response to reckless driving. The circumstances permitting police pursuits are found in MPD’s Standard Operating Procedure 660. Public outcry about pursuits that resulted in injury resulted in a restricted policy that took effect in 2010. That policy brought pursuit numbers to their all-time low of just 50 pursuits in 2012. In 2017, though, the MPD expanded officers’ ability to pursue vehicles in response to reckless driving. That policy remains in effect today, with a modification last year that limits when they can initiate a chase over drug activity. “As it stands, SOP 660 does not benefit this community,” said Milwaukee Alliance representative Kayla Patterson at Thursday’s meeting. “The last few months highlight gross incompetence” and a “general shameful agenda prioritizing property over lives,” Patterson said. She cautioned that “if the turnout in the room is any indication, the community is getting restless.” Antoher speaker, Tiffany Stark, said her child’s father became paralyzed from the neck down as an innocent bystander to a police pursuit. “We want to blame the criminal, but we have a policy that is harming innocent people," she said. Janaisa Rhodes lost her partner as an innocent bystander to a pursuit earlier this year. She appeared for public comment with her 2-year-old son. “You guys are supposed to be serving and protecting us, but you’re doing a lot of the damage,” she said. Public comment was not just criticism. Some speakers offered suggestions and potential solutions. “Property crimes should not qualify for pursuit,” suggested community member Brian Verdin, who also talked about using darts, meaning tracker technology shot at cars to apprehend suspects without pursuit. Concerned citizen Alex Larson referenced the 2024 vehicle pursuit report to highlight that the apprehension rate from a police chase is only 49%. “It’s a coin flip” that lives are being lost over, he said. Larson asked whether the FPC knew how much tax money had been paid by the city to settle innocent bystander claims over the years. Knowing the taxpayer impact and the lives SOP 660 has cost over the years could have a significant impact, he suggested. The FPC did not know the answer to Larson’s question. However, under the new comment policy Todd was able to say it would be good data, which he intended to look into. Per the 2024 vehicle pursuit report, the actual number of pursuits was down just slightly from 2023 (957 compared to 1,081), but maximum speeds were up, and a slightly greater percentage of pursuits resulted in crashes.  Figure from the 2024 City of Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission Vehicle Pursuit Report. In 2024, 26 pursuits resulted in an injury to an officer, 52 pursuits resulted in an injury to an innocent bystander or third party, and 164 pursuits resulted in an injury to the person being pursued—each a slight increase from 2023. WJI discussed the FPC's 2023 vehicle pursuit report here. The Milwaukee Equal Rights Commission approved a resolution opposing the implementation of facial recognition technology by the Milwaukee Police Department.
The vote occurred at the commission's monthly meeting on Wednesday. Commissioner Rae Johnson authored the resolution. The vote in favor of adoption was unanimous. The resolution calls on commission chair Tony Snell to draft and send a formal letter to Police Chief Jeffrey Norman. The letter is to highlight the commission’s findings following its June hearing, at which MPD representatives discussed their prior secret use of the technology and members of the public spoke for more than an hour. The commission also consulted with the Legislative Reference Bureau on the impact and reliability of facial recognition technology (FRT) in policing. The letter will go to members of the Milwaukee Common Council and the mayor as well. The resolution states that the material acquired by the commission “affirms that FRT carries the potential for disproportionate impacts and inaccuracies, especially when applied to individuals in protected classes,” and in light of the “little publicly available information about the positive outcomes of FRT in peer cities.” “We are deeply grateful to the members of the ERC for doing the research, listening to the outpouring of opposition to FRT from Milwaukee residents,” ACLU of Wisconsin Advocacy Director Amanda Merkwae told WJI after the commission’s hearing. Merkwae said the resolution serves to recognize that “the profound risks of discrimination or civil rights violations posed by FRT are unacceptably high, even if a policy was in place.” Emilio De Torre, executive director of the Milwaukee Turners, said the resolution was “a significant official declaration of what the people of Milwaukee have been saying all along.” “There are no acceptable guardrails that can be installed that would protect our identities and privacy in satisfactory way,” he said. “Milwaukee does NOT need to open itself up to more civil rights abuses, anti-immigrant tactics and costly lawsuits,” he said regarding the technology. The ERC is not the only city board expressing concern over MPD’s unchecked and policy-less use of FRT. Eleven members of the Common Council sent Norman a letter in May sharing their anxiety about the practice. The letter urged Norman “to prioritize community trust and transparency by rejecting facial recognition technology” and by investing instead “in proven, non-invasive methods to ensure safety.” Alders Andrea Pratt (District 1), Robert Bauman (District 4), Scott Spiker (District 13), and Peter Burgelis (District 11) did not join in the letter. Common Council members retain the power to overturn or alter any standard operating procedure by a two-thirds majority vote. But without an SOP, the council has no policy to oppose. While the ERC’s mandate in the Milwaukee Code of Ordinances limits its power to promote and protect the civil rights of Milwaukee residents, workers, and visitors, the commissioners unanimously desired to take a stand now. The resolution noted the ERC’s obligation “to advocate against practices that undermine the legal protections afforded under (the ordinance code) and to promote a just, inclusive, and equitable community, including our public safety infrastructure.” WJI Policy Analyst Alexandria Staubach is one of the ERC commissioners.  The packed meeting of Milwaukee's Equal Rights Commission at Milwaukee City Hall on June 18, 2025, regarding Milwaukee Police Department's use of facial recognition technology. Photograph by Emilio De Torre. The Milwaukee Police Department claimed in a recent hearing that it is being transparent with the public about its plan to license facial recognition technology, but the department has been using the technology behind closed doors for more than two years. MPD has been borrowing the technology from neighboring police departments. Milwaukee’s Equal Rights Commission held a public hearing on June 18 regarding MPD’s proposal to acquire two licenses for facial recognition technology. MPD Chief of Staff Heather Hough began her remarks by telling ERC commissioners and the packed hearing room that “Post Act 12, the Milwaukee Police Department . . . does not have to be engaged in these conversations,” but said the department wanted to take the plan to the community. Hough likened the department’s use of the technology to date as sharing passwords on the streaming service Netflix. “We asked our neighbors for too many cups of sugar,” said at the hearing. MPD’s use of the technology currently operates without a standard operating procedure or oversight. While community members attending the ERC hearing held neon signs that stated “FRT is inherently biased,” Hough spun to a different aspect of bias. As though inspired by the phrase “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” Hough said the technology is only biased when the user is biased. She insisted that the two individuals with sole access to the two licenses would not use it in a biased way. MPD showed slides noting more than a dozen instances of prior use of facial recognition technology to assist in apprehending a criminal suspect. The department also shared details of at least three cases when the information led to criminal charges. MPD Major Crimes Division Captain David Anderson described identification of one suspect using facial recognition technology. The results included three individuals who were a positive match rating 97%, 95% or 93%. The individual ultimately charged corresponded with the 93% match. ERC Commissioner (and WJI Policy Analyst) Alexandria Staubach replied that three matches for one individual rating 97%, 95% and 93% demonstrate the real bias issue and called the technology “notoriously inaccurate,” especially for Black and brown individuals. Staubach said MPD’s example shows that the results are “inherently unreliable.” ERC Vice Chair Jacqueline Cook shared Staubach’s concern and said that the facial recognition software on her phone permits her daughter to open it. Hough initially disclosed MPD’s use of the technology at a Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission meeting in March. That meeting centered on MPD’s new drone program. FPC Commissioner Krissie Fung had posed a hypothetical in which MPD’s drones could be updated with facial recognition technology and asked Hough how MPD would deal with software updates they could not control. Hough responded then that the department was already using facial recognition technology on “a case-by-case basis,” but that the technology was a separate issue from the drones. Fung attended last week’s ERC hearing and spoke in opposition to MPD’s use of facial recognition technology. Fung highlighted that MPD has been using the technology “for years” and that “MPD did not choose to be transparent until they were forced to,” referencing Hough’s comments that the department could no longer borrow licenses from partner jurisdictions and now wanted to acquire their own. When asked at the ERC hearing whether MPD had formally brought their prior use to the attention of the Fire and Police Commission, FPC Executive Director Leon Todd said they had not. 2023 Wisconsin Act 12, mentioned by Hough as allowing MPD to purchase the facial recognition technology licenses without another body’s approval, largely gutted oversight of the MPD by the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission. Nevertheless, the statute says the FPC must “conduct at least once each year a policy review of all aspects of the operations of the police and fire departments of the city.” And Milwaukee’s Common Council can reverse any MPD policy or standard operating procedure with a two-thirds majority vote. While the common council has not altered any standard operating procedure since Act 12 took effect, ERC Commissioner Tony Snell shared at the hearing that several alders had in fact written to Chief of Police Jeffrery Norman opposing the department’s plan to obtain facial recognition technology.  Attendees and WJI Policy Analyst and commission member Alexandria Staubach at the Milwaukee Equal Rights Commission meeting at Milwaukee City Hall on June 18, 2025, about Milwaukee Police Department's plan to purchase facial recognition technology licenses. Photograph by Emilio De Torre. By Alexandria Staubach An advocacy coalition today called on Milwaukee’s Common Council to adopt and implement a Community Control Over Police Surveillance ordinance. Already adopted in 26 cities throughout the nation, CCOPS ordinances are designed to ensure that people living in municipalities have a meaningful opportunity to participate in decisions on the purchase and use of surveillance technologies. Cities that have adopted a CCOPS ordinance include Madison, Wisconsin; St. Louis, Missouri; and Detroit, Michigan. The ordinance would not ban the use of surveillance technology. Instead, the ordinance is “a mechanism to democratize the decision-making process surrounding Milwaukeeans’ personal privacy and surveillance and to ensure transparency and accountability in programs funded or administered by local government," the coalition's letter to the Common Council said. The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin leads the coalition. Wisconsin Justice Initiative is a member, as are the Milwaukee Turners and Black Leaders Organizing for Communities organizations. "Law enforcement surveillance should always be the exception, and never the norm,” said WJI President Craig Johnson regarding CCOPS and the coalition's letter. “As new and more surveillance technologies emerge, WJI believes the people of Milwaukee deserve full transparency as to the means, methods, and costs associated with police surveillance. Excessive surveillance can negatively impact the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens," Johnson said. "CCOPS is a critical tool for revealing information about how and when law enforcement surveils us and shifting power back to the community,” Milwaukee Turners’ Executive Director Emilio De Torre told WJI. “That information, and that decision, belong to the public—both because we are the ones being surveilled and because it is paid for by our taxpayer dollars,” said De Torre. The model ordinance takes a three-pronged approach to ensure community control over the adoption and implementation of surveillance technologies. First, it would require a public hearing and approval of the Common Council before any municipal entity funds, acquires, or uses new or existing surveillance technology. “This gives community members and elected officials the opportunity to discuss the risks and alleged benefits of these technologies, instead of law enforcement making these decisions unilaterally and in secret,” the coalition letter says. Second, law enforcement operating in Milwaukee would be required to prepare an annual report to the Common Council on each form of surveillance technology used in the city and whether that information was shared with external parties. The report would include law enforcement’s summary of complaints received about the surveillance technology and a geographical breakdown of where the technology was used. Third, the ordinance would establish a community advisory committee on surveillance. “In recent years, we’ve seen states impose bans and criminal penalties for seeking reproductive healthcare and gender-affirming care; we’ve seen state and local law enforcement officials enforce immigrant deportation schemes; and we’ve seen surveillance used to suppress free speech and intimidate leaders of political movements,” wrote the coalition. “(L)ocal police departments and their surveillance mechanisms will likely target individuals seeking or providing these services,” the letter warned. The letter noted that U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement is known to use mass location surveillance data collected on the local level to target individuals for investigation and that without “robust oversight,” law enforcement use of surveillance technology would risk regressing to a time when “surveillance was used to suppress political dissent and target minority groups.” “At a minimum, people who live, work, visit, or attend school in Milwaukee deserve to know if and how they’re being surveilled and who has access to that surveillance data,” the coalition wrote. CCOPS guidelines also will help build trust between police and the communities they serve, the letter said. “Now, more than ever, we need to have community involvement and transparency with surveillance technology. We have seen surveillance technology be used and weaponized against organizations, protesters, and racial profiling,” BLOC Executive Director Angela Lang told WJI. “Listening to people directly impacted is important and leads to further context about why this is harmful for us all,” she said. When asked why the Turners joined the coalition, De Torre said his organization remains “in opposition to the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement, and we see CCOPS coexisting with, and contributing to, restrictions on increases in surveillance technology." The coalition consists of ACLU of Wisconsin, Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, Com Force MKE LLC, The Difference Principle, Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing, Fair Wisconsin, League of Women Voters Milwaukee County, Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Milwaukee Turners, NAACP Milwaukee Branch, National Lawyers Guild–Milwaukee, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, Voces de la Frontera Action, WAVE Educational Fund, Wisconsin Council of Churches, Wisconsin Justice Initiative, Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance, and Zao MKE Church. By Alexandria Staubach A new Wisconsin Policy Forum report concludes that a dramatic decrease in arrests has not negatively impacted crime rates in Milwaukee. While the report does not provide a single explanation for the overall decrease in crime or arrests, it suggests that community-oriented solutions could be contributing to the decline. The report’s key findings were presented to Milwaukee’s Fire and Police Commission at a meeting last week. Milwaukee Police Department Chief of Staff Heather Hough suggested that instead of executing arrests, officers now have “more tools in their tool box for different outcomes.” She cited specifically the specialty task forces the department employs. Wisconsin Policy Forum’s Ari Brown highlighted at the same meeting that a decade ago among peer cities Milwaukee ranked number one in arrest rates and number seven in reported offenses. In 2023, though, the city ranked 10th among its 12 peers for both arrests and offenses, Brown said. Using Wisconsin Department of Justice data, the forum concluded in its report that MPD made fewer overall arrests year over year except in 2021. MPD made 51,175 arrests in 2012, falling to 9,061 in 2023, a decline of 82.3%. Traffic stops have also dramatically decreased, falling from 149,721 in 2015 to 27,715 in 2023. Reported instances of crime have declined in Milwaukee, helping to partially explain the arrest decline, the report said.  Graph from the Wisconsin Policy Forum report "Arresting Developments: How and Why Arrests and Citizen Contacts are Declining in Milwaukee." Whie violent crime rates, particularly homicides, remain elevated over numbers from the early 2010’s, they remain on a downward trend as well. The report indicates that MPD has focused more on combatting high-priority crime, which requires more significant officer resources. The report attributes some of the overall declining arrest rate to an increased focus on solving and addressing more violent crimes that “draw significant community and media interest.” Graph from the Wisconsin Policy Forum report "Arresting Developments: How and Why Arrests and Citizen Contacts are Declining in Milwaukee." The report points to no single cause for the arrest rate drop off. However, the combined effect of decreased reported offenses, amorphous national “societal factors” in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, decreased traffic stops, decreased staff competing with elevated serious crime levels, leadership changes at MPD, and a 2018 settlement in the Collins case have all played a significant role. The Collins settlement of a lawsuit against MPD in 2018 over its stop-and-frisk practices, for example, called on MPD to track several data points about every traffic stop it makes. The forum’s report concluded that “there be can be no doubt that the Settlement’s fundamental intent to eliminate unjustified stops has, indeed, been a contributor to the reductions in both stops and arrest.” The report points to changes in leadership at MPD since 2018 as another significant factor. Former MPD Chief Edward Flynn emphasized data to measure officer performance—better performance reviews for more arrest made. Neither subsequent Chief Alfonso Morales or current Chief Jeffrey Norman use such measures to gauge officer performance. Brown was careful to say he did not believe Milwaukee needs to be making more arrests, but he highlighted that the sharp declines are worth closer examination. He said anecdotal evidence gathered from interviews suggested that MPS patrol officers now spend significant amounts of time shuttling detainees to medical services and watching surveillance footage. Because Milwaukee is duty bound to allocate significant resources to the recruitment, training, and hiring of new law enforcement officers as a result of 2024 state legislation, figuring out how to better use officer time was a “worthwhile” endeavor moving forward, Brown said. By Alexandria Staubach Milwaukee police encounters involving an officer’s use of force in 2023 hit an all-time high since the current metrics for evaluating incidents were adopted in 2013, with nearly 80% of those use-of-force incidents occurring against Black people. The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission shared the use-of-force data in an annual report presented at a meeting earlier this month. The Milwaukee Police Department recorded 2,285 incidents involving use of force in 2023. A total of 1,333 incidents involved the display or pointing of a firearm only, while an additional 952 involved “hands-on physical force or the discharge of a weapon” according to a presentation to the commission. An annual report a decade ago found 895 comparable uses of “hands-on” physical force or instances where a firearm was used. That number declined substantially in 2014, then remained generally constant until sharp drops in 2019 and 2020. The numbers rose significantly in 2021 and again in 2023, when incidents surpassed even 2013 numbers.  Slide shown by Barbara Cooley, research and policy analysist for the Fire and Police Commission, at the commission's Dec. 5 meeting, detailing those instances where physical force or the discharge of a weapon was involved over time. Black individuals accounted for 76% of all arrests and were the subjects of 80% of officers’ use of force. White individuals accounted for 10% of arrests and were the subject of 12% of the use of force incidents. According to current census data, Black and white Milwaukeeans command roughly equal shares of the city’s population. Per the report, a typical use-of-force encounter in 2023 involved a white male officer, 36 years old, with nine years of experience, on duty and in uniform. The person experiencing the use of force was typically unarmed, Black, male, 29 years old, and more likely than not resisting arrest.  Table taken from “An Analysis of Use of Force Incidents in the Milwaukee Police Department in 2023,” the annual report prepared for the commission by University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Professor Steven G. Brandl.
MPD District 3 had the greatest share of use-of-force incidents, with 241 incidents—more than 50 incidents higher than the next district. District 3 also accounts for one of the largest shares of arrests annually (2,339 arrests), essentially tied with District 7 (2,343 arrests). District 3 has jurisdiction over the southern section of Milwaukee’s 53206 zip code. Although a 2019 University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee study found the claim that 53206 is the most incarcerated zip code in America to be exaggerated, that “should not obscure the reality that mass incarceration is an integral component in the ‘ecosystem’ of concentrated disadvantage that continues to weigh on this beleaguered neighborhood," the study said in its key findings. At last week’s commission meeting, Barbara Cooley, a research and policy analysist for the commission, noted the sunsetting of the requirement in the Sterling Brown settlement agreement that required officers to generate a detailed report for instances where they display or point a firearm. Because the requirement has ended, that data will not be included in tallies going forward. MPD Chief of Staff Heather Hough said the information would still be captured, just not included in annual reports like this one. Commissioner Dana World-Patterson noted that an officer pulling a gun is “threatening” and said it seemed like data the commission would like to have. World-Patterson asked Hough how the commission would see the data going forward, a question Hough could not answer. Despite the significant jump in numbers, questions about the report’s findings and for Hough were few. Commissioner Ramon Evans said, “it seems like we’re going backwards.” The annual report was prepared for the commission by University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Professor Steven G. Brandl. |
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