Independent audit of Milwaukee police sought

Focus would be on department’s style of policing

A group of nearly two dozen faith, civil rights and advocacy organizations called for an independent audit Tuesday of the Milwaukee Police Department.

Representatives with the Community Coalition for Quality Policing say they already have discussed their proposal with Chief Edward Flynn and Mayor Tom Barrett, which is coming after a federal report on the department has been delayed for months.

“If the department is to have the full community support that it needs to operate properly, there does need to be an independent audit,” Darryl Morin of the League of United Latin American Citizens said Tuesday.

The outside audit would focus on how well the department implements problem-oriented policing, according to the coalition. Problemoriented policing prioritizes officers finding new strategies and solutions outside the criminal justice system to address issues in neighborhoods.

The coalition has brought experts on the topic to Milwaukee to meet with residents, police officials and city leaders.

Problem-oriented policing is a “fundamentally different” approach, as it more closely examines underlying issues of crime, said Elana Kahn, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.

Kahn said coalition members are optimistic about the group’s relationship with city leaders going forward. One of the coalition’s goals is to bring the community’s voice into larger conversations about public safety, she said.

“There are real possibilities,” she said. “We’ve come a long way.”

The coalition also issued strong support of the city’s Fire and Police Commission, a civilian oversight board.

Morin called for city leaders to consistently comply with the commission’s authority in order to gain more trust from the public, pointing to recent changes to department policy that were not discussed publicly before the commission.

Coalition leaders also called for the release of a draft federal report on the department — a document that has been circulating at the Police Department for months and has been the subject of intense debate at City Hall in recent weeks.

Flynn requested the voluntary review from the U.S. Department of Justice in December 2015 after federal prosecutors declined to charge a now-fired officer in the on-duty fatal shooting of Dontre Hamilton. With months of delays and no reports made public, many local leaders are doubting if any findings will be released.

“We’ve been lobbying the Justice Department hard for the last several months trying to pry it loose from them,” Flynn told reporters later Tuesday.

Last month, the Police Department denied a public records request for a draft report from three aldermen, saying the initial draft is “not final in any way,” is the U.S. Department of Justice’s property and “it may not be disclosed by MPD leadership.”

The Police Department is “actively working to expedite the completion and release of the report,” according to the denial letter.

The denial prompted Ald. José Pérez to propose hiring an outside attorney to represent the council and force the release of the draft. Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton has said he does not support the effort and does not find it necessary.

Flynn is willing to explain his position on the report to council members during a closed session and why it might not be good idea to have a draft “floating around considering some of the lawsuits that we’re facing right now,” according to Hamilton.

The ACLU of Wisconsin has filed a class-action lawsuit accusing the Milwaukee Police Department of illegal stop-and-frisks targeting African-Americans and Latinos. The city also settled a lawsuit earlier this year with the family of Hamilton for $2.3 million . A lawsuit brought by the family of Derek Williams , who died gasping for breath in the back of a squad car, is scheduled for trial later this month.

NAACP Milwaukee President Fred Royal said coalition members’ next step is to talk with Flynn and Barrett about the process of bringing in an independent auditor. Both city leaders said they’d consider the audit when they met late last month, he said.

Flynn said he was open to the audit but questioned who would pay for it.

“Certainly we’re not averse to anybody coming in and examining our community policing efforts because we think they’re among the nation’s best,” he said. “If they can identify the funding, great.”