Officer demoted for kicking man

No charges filed in case in which suspect spit on lieutenant during arrest

A Milwaukee police lieutenant once described as a “time bomb” by a co-worker has been demoted and given a 10-day suspension after he kicked a suspect who had spat on him.

Chief Edward Flynn demoted Steven J. Kelly to the rank of sergeant and issued the suspension. Kelly has appealed that decision to the city’s Fire and Police Commission, said MaryNell Regan, the commission’s executive director.

Kelly also was referred to the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office for potential misconduct charges, and the individual who spat on him was referred on a potential charge of battery to police officer.

Prosecutors declined to file any charges in the case, Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern said in an email.

“In the course of a contentious arrest, the citizen was forcibly taken to the ground,” Lovern said. “He spat on Kelly and Kelly responded by kicking the citizen.”

“The facial injury suffered by the citizen resulted from the takedown to the sidewalk, not from Kelly’s kick to his head,” Lovern said.

Body camera footage captured most of the incident, he said. An open records request for the footage and disciplinary records that led to his demotion is pending.

Kelly, a 22-year department veteran, was promoted to lieutenant on Feb. 24, 2013, and began a standard one-year probationary period, according to his personnel file.

Flynn sought to extend the probation after conduct “that calls into question his judgment as a supervisor,” the chief wrote in a letter to the Fire and Police Commission.

Prior discipline

Kelly had been disciplined twice for violating department rules since his promotion, receiving an official reprimand in August 2013 and a twoday suspension in December 2013 for failing to be civil to another department member.

Records show a detective made an unspecified complaint against him and Kelly appeared to have gone to other co-workers to build a “consensus” on his version of events. Then, when an internal affairs investigator called his division and asked for him, Kelly told the officer who answered the phone that he didn’t take calls from internal affairs and flipped his middle finger up.

Kelly later said it was a joke.

The commission granted Flynn’s request on a 5-2 vote in February 2014 and gave Kelly an extra six months on probation.

In 2015, Flynn suspended Kelly for five days for poor leadership and failing to treat another department member with courtesy and professionalism. Kelly requested a grievance hearing and Flynn reduced the suspension to three days.

In that case, Kelly was working in the Forensic Section and got into a heated, profanity-laced argument with another employee. The employee asked why department officials had not taken action if it was known Kelly acts in “an unprofessional manner” and the situation is a “time bomb waiting to occur,” according to internal affairs records.

Other forensic investigators reported questionable behavior from Kelly, saying he called co-workers fat, was “rude and disrespectful” and seemed to lack “social skills” when communicating with people. At least one co-worker said she changed her schedule to avoid him and another said Kelly’s reputation preceded him.

But others said he was an effective supervisor and they did not report seeing any objectionable behavior. Kelly told investigators others in the unit “despised” him because he tried to give them “corrective action.” He denied calling people fat but said he had used profanity and acknowledged it was not civil or courteous.