Town hall sessions set for MPD report
DOJ draft review of city’s police offers criticism, makes recommendations
City officials have discussed and debated a federal review of the Milwaukee Police Department for several months. Now, the public will have its chance. The first community meetings will take place Thursday and Saturday at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School. The sessions were announced last month by the African-American Roundtable.
“We think it’s really important and vital that the community stays at the head of this,” Markasa
Tucker, the group’s director, said at the time.
The meetings kick off a six-month series of “community hubs” to allow the public to weigh in on the draft and prioritize recommendations for police reform, Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton said in a news release.
Information from the sessions will be compiled and given to the Common Council and the city’s Fire and Police Commission, Hamilton said.
When the process started almost two years ago, more than 700 people packed the first listening session conducted by federal officials.
It was the first step of the review, officially called a collaborative reform initiative, to examine the Milwaukee Police Department’s policies, training and practices.
Police Chief Edward Flynn requested the review in November 2015, amid public outcry related to a fatal police shooting in Red Arrow Park.
As time went on, the process stalled with the change in presidential administrations, causing many in Milwaukee to fear the report would never be released.
The draft report was obtained and published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in August.
Soon after, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it had changed its collaborative reform process to focus more on crime reduction tactics instead of accountability and reform of police agencies.
No final version of the Milwaukee review exists, nor will one be produced.
Still, city officials have pressed on and are using the draft report’s 55 findings and more than 100 recommendations as a guide.
The plan for how to prioritize the recommendations came from the Common Council, Mayor Tom Barrett, Milwaukee Police Department and the city’s Fire and Police Commission, with help from community partners.
Although Flynn has said the draft is filled with errors or mistakes, he has repeatedly said he agrees with most of its recommendations.
In a recent news release, Flynn said he supports this “collaborative initiative as an avenue to strengthen and build the mutual trust between the Milwaukee Police Department and the communities we serve.”
The draft, written in 2016, was highly critical of the Police Department, saying it fails the community and its own officers by not communicating clearly, making too many traffic stops and applying inconsistent standards when disciplining officers.