One Milwaukee Common Council committee recommends settlement for police misconduct, while another recommends pay raise for officers

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.