Reasonable response on pursuits.
The Milwaukee Board of Fire and Police Commissioners’ directive to Chief Edward Flynn is a measured approach in response to concerns of the community, and this approach specifically and consciously does not revert the policy to the pre-2010 language.
The changes asked for in the directive are in no way a blank check for our city’s police officers to chase vehicles for minor offenses such as broken tail lights. This action was not a personal attack nor was it a politically motivated act; it was instead the board fulfilling its purpose as the voice of the community. As the voice of the community in local police and fire matters, the board acted independently, and members voted their consciences, with the expressed wishes of the community as their primary concern.
The chief has claimed that “the directive, and I’m saying this as objectively as I can, would create probably the least restrictive pursuit policy in the United States.” This statement is patently untrue. There are a wide variety of vehicle pursuit policies even if one examines just the communities surrounding Milwaukee.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel provided an excellent analysis of this fact in a June 7 article “When should police chase fleeing cars?” In that article, it is noted that in Greenfield officers can pursue vehicles for any criminal activity, and in Wauwatosa and Glendale officers may pursue vehicles for traffic or misdemeanor offenses. While state law, rightfully so, requires police departments to have written policies, the guidance is deliberately broad to allow communities to determine the conditions in which they will ask their law enforcement officers to engage in pursuit.
The board was clear in the directive that it wished for the policy to expand to include additional specific and narrowly defined offenses, while still allowing the chief discretion in creating the specific definitions. This directive is not an attempt to micromanage MPD operations but is intended as specific guidance to MPD from the community. The directive requires that the MPD allow for vehicular pursuit of:
Vehicles on a highvalue target list, which MPD experts would have considerable discretion in narrowly defining so long as they define mobile drug houses and repeat nonpursuit vehicles.
Extremely reckless driving, which MPD would have considerable discretion in narrowly defining so long as it addresses the most egregious offenses.
The directive that we unanimously issued is consistent with the chief’s own action in 2015, in which he expanded MPD policy to allow for pursuit of vehicles involved in carjackings.
In the opinion of the board, this change in 2015 was reasonable under the rationale of the “balance of danger.” Did the emerging public safety threat of the carjacking epidemic warrant the additional danger that increased vehicle pursuits would inevitably cause? Yes, by any reasonable observer.
Just as in the carjacking scenario, this emerging threat is wreaking havoc on our city and is causing high levels of harm to Milwaukee’s sense of peace, safety and quality of life. Lives are lost as a result of this threat. Inaction in the face of these injuries, loss of life and loss of property also is morally indefensible.
It was true when Flynn stated, “I did a presentation to them on June 6 about our pursuit policy, and they never contacted me or asked me a question ever again.” At that televised meeting, it was made directly clear to the members of the commission’s Policies and Standards Committee and the members of the public that Flynn would not consider any changes to the policy. In response to the data that the board produced showing an only 20% rate of owner citations for non-pursuit vehicles with known license plates, the chief provided no assurance that things would improve without resorting to high-speed pursuits. In fact, he turned that statistic inside out to make the claim that a 20% clearance rate for these situations was actually a great success.
Our roads are overrun by reckless and dangerous driving. While MPD had provided some assurances that it would step up traffic enforcement, the issue of non-pursuits is inevitably intertwined with this problem: police can attempt to pull over 10 times more violators of traffic laws, but criminals are aware that they will not be pursued for the offenses no matter how many times they flee, as reported by the Journal Sentinel.
We are a citizen board of community members charged with the important responsibility of oversight of the Milwaukee Fire and Police departments. We take this responsibility seriously and we wish only to advance our community’s interest as the citizens’ voice in police and fire matters and as a means of ensuring more responsive and effective city government.
Steven DeVougas is chair of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission.