Stop-and-frisk settlement balloons to $6 million

Proposed deal includes consultant services

The cost of the City of Milwaukee’s proposed settlement with ACLU of Wisconsin over police stopand-frisk practices has ballooned to some $6 million.

Stunned aldermen delayed a vote on the settlement Tuesday after learning of the skyrocketing total, a steep increase from the initial figure of $1.9 million for the tentative deal.

“I feel like I’m buying a used car and not getting an honest deal here,” Ald. Michael Murphy said.

Murphy and others on the city’s Finance and Personnel Committee delayed a vote on the settlement following a briefing on the climbing costs associated with a consultant mandated by the proposed deal. Those costs were calculated by the Milwaukee Police Department and the city attorney’s office.

“I think that’s why the council supported my motion to hold it to get more information, so before we make a final decision we have all the facts before us,” Murphy said.

If approved as is, the settlement would involve the city paying an estimated $3.5 million over the next five years to a Chicago-based consultant, Hillard Heintze.

Heintze would then oversee changes to procedures within the Police Department to address concerns that the department’s search practices unfairly target African-Americans and Latinos.

Chris Ott, ACLU of Wisconsin executive director, said Tuesday that building public trust in the city’s implementation of stop-and-frisk reforms is crucial to the deal’s success.

“The city must invest in an independent consultant whom the people can trust to measure the progress of the police department and fire and police commission objectively, as well as the tools that the consultant needs to collect and analyze data,” Ott said in a statement.

With the case set to go to court in two weeks, the Common Council would need to hold a special committee meeting and a special full council meeting to approve a deal in time. The settlement would also need to be signed by Mayor Tom Barrett.

“It was a jolt. There’s no question it was a jolt,” Barrett told the Journal Sentinel. “The cost of the monitoring was something that was not antici-

pated by council members nor myself.”

The mayor added that he remains “guardedly optimistic” a settlement can still be reached.

“I think it’s important to see what we can do to abide by the spirit of what we’re trying to accomplish, at the same time bring these costs back in line,” Barrett said.

The possible settlement was approved unanimously last week by the city’s Judiciary and Legislation Committee, but is now stalled.

The tentative settlement would include a five-year consent decree requiring the Milwaukee Police Department and the city’s Fire and Police Commission, the civilian oversight board, to reform stop-and-search practices, improve data collection and require officers to undergo more training on stops and searches.

The consultant would monitor compliance with the agreement, which will remain under the jurisdiction of the federal court, and issue periodic reports. Aldermen have raised concerns that approving unknown fees for that consultant amounts to writing a blank check.

The lawsuit did not seek damages and most of the monetary settlement would go toward litigation costs, primarily for expert witnesses and depositions, Ott said.

The lawsuit, filed by ACLU of Wisconsin in February 2017, accuses Milwaukee police of routinely stopping thousands of minorities without cause or suspicion.

Such stops are a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which requires police to have “reasonable suspicion” that the person is dangerous or has committed a crime, the suit says.

The suit also accuses officers of conducting stop-and-frisks “motivated by race and ethnicity” in violation of the 14th Amendment. It was filed against the city, the Fire and Police Commission and then-Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn.

Earlier this year, the city filed a motion to dismiss the suit now that Flynn, the “sole architect” of those practices, had retired. Flynn denied that his department practiced stop-and-frisk and defended high-volume traffic stops as effective in reducing nonfatal shootings, robberies and car thefts.

Police Chief Alfonso Morales, who was appointed after Flynn’s retirement, ended the Neighborhood Task Force that performed most of the traffic stops and has said he does not expect officers to meet quotas for stopping and questioning people.

The Journal Sentinel reported last fall that police misconduct has cost Milwaukee taxpayers at least $17 million in legal settlements since 2015, forcing the city to borrow money to make the payouts amid an ever-tightening budget. When factoring in interest paid on the borrowing and fees paid to outside attorneys, the amount jumps to at least $21 million, the Journal Sentinel found. The costs far outstrip the $1.2 million the city sets aside each year for settling all of the claims it faces.

Council President Ashanti Hamilton acknowledged Tuesday that council members were shocked by the significant cost increase of the settlement, but insisted that they are not “pushing back on the things that the ACLU found.”

“All of us want to try to find the best way of dealing with some of the concerns that the community has,” Hamilton said. “And sometimes the outcome of some of these lawsuits — the win — is not necessarily a monetary win. It’s a change in policy, it’s a change in standard operating procedures that creates better police-community relations. I think we can all work toward that end.”