Milwaukee officials react to officers punching homeless man in arrest on bodycam video
Several Milwaukee city officials say they’re left wanting more from police and prosecutors after video of two officers roughing up a homeless man accused of robbery failed to result in criminal charges or their termination.
Officers Eric Ratzmann and Eric Fjeld resigned from the Milwaukee Police Department while being investigated for the way they treated the man, who is white, on June 30. And since the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office has said it won’t pursue charges, it’s added skepticism about whether adequate systems are in place to hold officers accountable.
“It’s a sad state of affairs, considering what is happening in the United States right now in terms of the conversations around police misconduct and police brutality and using their power against people who have little or none,” Common Council President Cavalier Johnson said. “Whether you’re talking about a person of color – African American, a person like George Floyd or Dontre Hamilton here — someone who’s Latino, like Joel Acevedo, or someone who is homeless … there’s clearly an issue.”
On June 30, Ratzmann and Fjeld were called to a sandwich shop on the city’s southwest side after employees reported a homeless man, apparently intoxicated, bothering and assaulting another person at a bus stop.
After making an arrest, Ratzmann got physical with the suspect after being spit on more than once, according to bodycam footage. He punched the suspect, grabbed his hair and slammed his head into the squad car’s partition. And instead of booking the suspect on suspicion of robbery or taking him to a shelter, the officers left the suspect with a ticket at a random location seven miles north of the sandwich shop.
The officers did not report their use of force, police records said. An internal investigation began but Ratzmann and Fjeld resigned on Aug. 5 in lieu of termination, Sgt. Sheronda Grant said.
In August, before the incident became public, Acting Chief Michael Brunson Sr. mandated that officers watch the bodycam footage during roll call, according to a news release. It came with a video message from Brunson saying the behavior is unacceptable and that anyone caught behaving in such a way “will be separated from the Milwaukee Police Department.”
“It doesn’t surprise me. Time and time again, they just fail to hold officers accountable. I think that individual was assaulted.”
Nate Hamilton City’s Community Collaborative Commission
Why the internal investigation took so long before discipline could be handed down is something that caught the attention of several city officials, especially since bodycam footage captured so much of the incident.
“Internal investigations are investigated thoroughly and do not just consist of body cam footage,” MPD said in a statement. “Officers, complainants, victims and witnesses are interviewed during the investigation. All officers have the right to due process.”
Nevertheless, at least two Common Council members didn’t see a need for a full-fledged investigation, given the video at hand.
“Just based on the video they should have been fired,” said Ald. Michael Murphy.
Johnson added: “What sort of investigation needs to happen? You saw the actions. So I just don’t know what it is they were going to glean from that.”
In a Facebook post, Reggie Moore, the director of the city’s Office of Violence Prevention, called it a “botched” investigation that allowed Ratzmann and Fjeld a chance to resume their careers elsewhere.
He likened it to the case of Michael Mattioli, who has pleaded not guilty to reckless homicide after putting Acevedo, 25, in a 10-minute chokehold after an off-duty party at his house in April.
Both the Police Department and its oversight board, the Fire and Police Commission, started internal probes, but Mattioli resigned Tuesday after spending four months on paid administrative leave.
There are at least 246 law enforcement officers in Wisconsin, including six from the Milwaukee Police Department, who have quit instead of being fired from 2017 to June 2020, according to a Wisconsin Department of Justice database obtained by the Journal Sentinel through an open records request.
On top of that, there were 147 officers in the state who resigned prior to the completion of an internal affairs investigation in the same period, according to state records.
The day he resigned, Fjeld also filed for duty-disability retirement, citing mental health injury, according to city records. If approved, he would be paid the equivalent of his take-home salary tax-free. He made $61,700 last year, according to city salary records.
The number of claims granted for mental or physical disabilities has dropped considerably since a 2013 Journal Sentinel investigation revealed the program was being abused, spurring reform.
But Murphy still called Fjeld’s application an “abuse of the system.”
District attorney declines to pursue charges
Nate Hamilton, the chair of the city’s Community Collaborative Commission, which solicits feedback on law enforcement policies, framed the incident as another example of the district attorney’s office not holding officers accountable.
“That has been the normal,” he said. “It doesn’t surprise me. Time and time again, they just fail to hold officers accountable. I think that individual was assaulted.”
Hamilton’s brother, Dontre, was killed in 2014 after police were called about him for sleeping in Red Arrow Park. Dontre Hamilton suffered from schizophrenia and was shot 14 times by the responding officer. He was not prosecuted.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern said he reviewed the case involving the homeless man several weeks ago and determined the officers’ conduct did not rise to the level of criminal behavior. He said in an email to the Journal Sentinel the use of force was in response to the suspect spitting at them — itself a felony-level offense.
Johnson also felt the district attorney’s office could have taken action, considering the mixture of force, driving the suspect to an unknown part of town and not reporting their actions to supervisors. He and Hamilton both argued that placing a spit bag over the suspect would have de-escalated things.
“This is nothing that the Black community is just complaining about,” Hamilton said. “You can clearly see this is a white individual and the police are aggressive, period.”