Milwaukee top cop says convention unpredictable

MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Police Department doesn’t know how many people will show up for the scaled-back Democratic National Convention, which begins in less than two weeks, but it’s prepared to handle protests without using tear gas, the city’s embattled police chief said Tuesday.

“We’re still under the national spotlight, and we have to prepare the security for that,” Chief Alfonso Morales said at a virtual news conference organized by the Milwaukee Press Club. “That changes on a regular basis depending on who’s coming and who doesn’t come. We still have to prepare.”

Morales said he didn’t know how many people would attend the convention, either as participants or protesters. Original estimates were for around 50,000 delegates and other attendees. But with the event dramatically reduced because of the coronavirus pandemic, only a few hundred are expected to be at the Milwaukee convention, where former Vice President Joe Biden will formally accept the nomination to be the Democratic candidate for president.

The convention runs Aug. 17-20. The convention comes as Morales fights to save his job under pressure from the citizen oversight board that hires and fires the chief. Last month, the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission ordered the Milwaukee Police Department to stop using of tear gas and pepper spray, one of a series of orders issued in the wake of protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Morales said last week that more than 100 police departments are no longer planning to assist with security at the four-day event. Some of them have cited the ban on pepper spray as a reason. The Wisconsin National Guard planned to provide hundreds of members to assist with security.