Paul Mozina’s passion is ending racial disparity in policing
Every city has a few of them: perennial gadflies who appear at community meetings and public hearings and always have something to say about how the government is working — or not.
Acting as self-appointed voices for the general public, they attach themselves to a particular cause and are well known to civic leaders but virtually unknown outside that circle. And they’re not usually delicate with their opinions. Enter Paul Mozina.
If Milwaukee’s Fire and Police Commission had an honorary observer, it would be him.
The rail-thin, 62-yearold overcame addiction, cancer and a temporary disaffection with the world to throw himself into social justice and civil engagement. But he’ll tell you he’s not “some skinny, liberal white savior.” He’ll say he just cares. Mozina’s been to countless commission meetings, questioning whether its members have done enough to fulfill their oversight mission and address the racially disparate outcomes found in enforcement statistics.
He’d love for Mayor Tom Barrett to actually appoint him to the commission, but he’s also self-aware enough to know that’s a long shot. When he ran into the mayor at the Bronzeville Festival in August and asked to be appointed, he said Barrett told him, “We’ll talk.”
Setting the bar higher
Created in 1911, Milwaukee’s Fire and Police Commission was the first of its kind: a civilian body with oversight of the police.
More than a century later, Mozina will tell you it is not doing enough.
“Nobody on that commission is holding the police accountable,” he said.
New Fire and Police Commission Chair Steven DeVougas said though the commission is understaffed and has taken on additional roles, the members are committed to the task of oversight.
“A lot of the times, I think we’re all on the same team, between the community, the commission and the fire and police department; we all want to make the city of Milwaukee better,” he said.
Mozina said he believes the city would be better off if police resources were redistributed, such as funding for the Milwaukee Police Department’s
High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program. Mozina calls it a vestige of the “war on drugs” that he’s fought since the 1980s; moreover, he said, it doesn’t work and wastes money.
Based on criminal complaints and information he received from a source close to the police, Mozina also said the recent deaths of Officer Matthew Rittner and Officer Charles Irvine Jr. are proof that the police need to change how they use criminal informants.
Mozina said police didn’t wait to arrest Jordan Fricke when he was outside of his house because an informant told police Fricke had been orchestrating multiple gun sales. Rittner was shot and killed Feb. 6 while serving a search warrant at the home of Fricke, a marijuana dealer who shot through the door when police used a battering ram to enter. Fricke was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the chance for parole.
According to Mozina, his source also suggested that police could have arrested Ladell Harrison before he ran from police, leading to a vehicle pursuit in which the squad car crashed and Irvine lost his life June 7, 2018.
As detailed in the criminal complaint against Harrison, he made three drug buys, the last of which contained traces of fentanyl, but police did not arrest him. Harrison was convicted of killing Irvine and sentenced to 30 years.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has several pending open records requests related to the deaths of Rittner and Irvine.
DeVougas said he is waiting to comment until internal audits and investigations into the circumstances surrounding their cases are complete.
Mozina said he wants to ensure the commission has a plan to meet the goals set forth in a consent decree reached in ACLU’s 2017 lawsuit against the city. The ACLU sued the police department and its oversight body — the Fire and Police Commission — for racial profiling in its stop-and-frisk program.
In July 2018, the city and ACLU reached a settlement, part of which was meant to address racially disparate useof-force statistics.
“The use of force reports for the last 10 years have documented that 70% of force was used against black people. What is going on?” he asked.
To find out, the commission should do a better job of analyzing use-of-force incidents, Mozina said.
“We need data experts in here,” he said.
DeVougas said the commission, which has a policy analyst, risk manager and uses outside agencies to complete tasks, is not short on data.
Moreover, he said the commission has worked closely with monitors to ensure it is compliant with the agreement.
Still, DeVougas said Mozina’s presence does not go unnoticed:
“Mr. Mozina’s definitely engaged and involved, and I appreciate that he comes prepared to make his point,” he said.
As Mozina makes his point, whether at a commission meeting or one-onone, his eyes light up and his hands take on a life of their own, reflecting a passion his older sister, Catherine Bobbe, said he’s possessed for years.
“He was so intense about things, and he’s been working really hard the last 10 years to really listen to other people and respect (them),” she said.
Mark Mamerow was Mozina’s coworker at Northwestern Mutual and has known him for 30 years. He said Mozina doesn’t suffer fools gladly, does his research and won’t be bogged down by bureaucracy.
“When he takes on a cause, he throws himself into it 110%,” Mamerow said.
Mozina, with a slight grin, readily admits that’s true: “Everything I do, I do all out,” he said.
Get-out-of-jail-free card
Mozina grew up in Brookfield, the fifth child in a family of 10 born to two working parents. His mother was a nurse, and his father was an engineer.
Mozina said he started smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol at the age of 8. He said he saw his Catholicism as a “savior who could get you a get-out-ofjail-free card.” Looking back, he said, he realizes his skin color operated the same way.
“I grew up in the suburbs of Brookfield and I did some unfortunate, stupid things and thankfully, I had both my parents there to alibi me out,” he said. “If I had grown up in a different neighborhood, under different circumstances, things would be very different.”
After graduating from Pius XI High School, he tried to study engineering in college, but his heart wasn’t in it. So he picked up a guitar and three years later was playing with a lounge band.
“That’s when my parents said, ‘If you’re going to drop out of college and play guitar, you can live somewhere else.’ ”
Mozina returned to college, earning a management information systems degree from the University of WisconsinMilwaukee at the age of 31. He got the job at Northwestern Mutual, eventually becoming a systems administrator.
During those years, Mozina dabbled in social justice work, advocating for the commutation of Dorothy Gaines’ prison sentence. Gaines, of Alabama, was a mother of three whose house was raided during a suspected drug bust. Although no drugs or guns were found, she was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to 19 years.
Mozina corresponded with her in prison, wrote President Bill Clinton, handed out flyers, opened up a trust fund for Gaines’ son, Phillip, and flew to Alabama to meet her after her release.
The victory was short-lived; after the 2000 election, Mozina fell into a slump of disaffection.
He “hid” in the Kettle Moraine National Forest as a Hartland Marsh volunteer for almost two decades.
“I used to go out to Kettle Moraine with a bottle of Jack Daniels and cut buckthorn all day,” he said.
All that alcohol, he said, contributed to the 13 lymph nodes doctors found in his throat in 2011.
“I abused alcohol. It contributed to my cancer,” he said, adding, “I could barely swallow.”
He had plenty of time to think.
“I had to acknowledge within myself that I wasn’t doing what I could do and I wasn’t paying it forward with the white privilege I had been a beneficiary of,” he said.
Mozina’s eyes well when he talks about remission; he said it’s a second chance at life.
Whether that chance will include a spot on the Fire and Police Commission depends in large part on Barrett, who declined to comment for this story.
But Mozina said nothing will prevent him from trying to make a difference. And showing up at all those meetings.
“I’m going to continue doing exactly what I’m doing,” he promised. “And I’m getting better at it.”