Edward Flynn, welcome to Milwaukee. Hope you enjoy it here, it's cooler by the lake.
In the week it took to vote you in, we had some real high-profile crimes, mainly a student being shot in his own apartment at UWM and a actual honest to God shootout on the southside with three dozen shots fired and 5 dead and two cops wounded. Some real 310 to Yuma shit right there for you.
But we all know this doesn't happen everyday, and I think you need to be commended for you address in which you talked very seriously about reducing crime but also spoke to the fact that reducing the perception and the fear of crime is much more difficult and nearly impossible. We like that here. A hard working hard drinking town needs leaders that tell it like it is. Keep that up and you won't have any problems.
So here's the deal, I understand you've been the chief of police in various east coast towns for the last ten or twenty years, whose counting. The fact is that nowhere you've worked as a cop or as the chief was even a fifth the size of Milwaukee. You are going to have to deal with the type of bigger city bullshit that comes with the job, mainly budget constraints, political nonsense, racial issues,
lunatic aldermen, and so forth. At the same time, perhaps policing smaller cities encourages a more community approach to the job, which you clearly favor, and Milwaukee could stand to benefit from.
On the other hand, Milwaukee isn't the greatest place to be an outsider, and the MPD might be the worst place as an outsider in Milwaukee to seek a job. Let alone start at the top. There's just too much you don't understand. Milwaukee is an extremely racially strained city, and the unique sphere where race, crime, and policing intersect has never every been a pretty one. Too put it nicely, we've had some real problems. And the problems aren't easy to categorize. Our problems run a lot deeper than a racist police department, a high crime rate, and a hyper-segregation. Especially when none of these things are total absolutes and in many cases, the perception of these problems are far worse than the reality.
In short you need to brush up on your history. We haven't had an outsider as chief of police since 1989 and his failure to keep the crime rate low forced him to bow out earlier than the Mayor would have liked. His replacement, Arthur Jones, our first black chief instituted the
broken windows approach and crime did drop. Granted, it did rise again and drop again and rise again, but Jones' term will not be remember for the fluctuation in crime, but rather the intense amount of racial animosity among the MPD. Hagerty, who I believe is the first white female to serve as the chief of police took a no nonsense approach to the managing the department. She fired 44 "
cowboy cops" without so much as a warning. She wasn't about to get involved in racial squabling. :When cops did wrong, they were gone. But this cost her the department's trust as well as a huge loss of morale among many officers.
So there you have it, the last three chiefs. One left because of the crime rate, the next left because of racial politics and politics at large, and your predecessor cleaned up house so well there wasn't any room for her anymore.
Crime is bad here. And we need a chief of police who can manage the department and the crime rate. Things got so bad in the last few years that Hagerty actually held a press conference and declared Milwaukee to be in the midst of a "societal crisis," the type of crisis a police department can't fix. It sounded like something a some crazy Jesus-loving southerner might say, but she wasn't saying "we're so morally fucked up we'll let God sort em out at the gate," no, she was screaming at the top of her lungs at the top of the mountain that
shit is out of control and something, anything, everything must be done to stop to ongoing problem.
She got it half right. I was impressed at the time a high ranking city official would so publicity announce their own vulnerability. I thought it was commendable. But, on the other hand, she wasn't doing her job. Ok, it's a crisis, don't cry about it like woman, granted, do something about it.
So here is hoping you do in fact do something about it. We do have a crisis, but there's a lot that can be done. We have one of top five worst pubic school systems in the country, the highest teenage pregnancy rate, the highest rate of black unemployment, and a lot more. Use you status as police chief as a soapbox to address these issues. it will be a a lot more work out the gate, but it will make your job a lot easier in the long run.
Otherwise, as far as normal tactics go, I think you're on the right track. From what I've read, you tend to favor broken windows and community based policing. I understand you want to gibe more power to district captains to enforce crime and build relationships with the community. I'd agree with that one too.
But even though you have the Mayor and the Fire and Police Commission's approval, you did not carry any favor among the Police Union. Big problem and I haven no idea how to address it. You are inheriting a department not with a low morale, but one with a low morale problem. The number of internal investigations is at such a high many cops want to hide behind doors and not even do their jobs, there's got to be some type of happy medium.
And let's not forget the main problem, people are shooting at each other. Notice I didn't say killing. People are still killing each other, just not as often. But, shootings have gone up at least 30 to 70 percent every year for the last few years. So if homicides are down but shootings are up, then we are in fact dealing with an increase in violent crime. Anytime someone shoots at somebody else, you might a well mark it down as a homicide, after all, it's a question of inches, sometimes not even that, centimeters. I don't know how much longer Milwaukeeans bad aim will last But when we start shooting better, and those bullets start hitting where we aim them, it's going to be a problem.
This summer we avoided a crime high crime rate by hiring more officers, putting more boots on the streets, and approving more overtime. It worked, but it will quickly prove to be financially impossible. district alderman have long pushed a plan to allow civilians to do mundane, non-risky police work such as booking and processing, allowing more money and time for officers to patrol the streets. There seems to be something to this idea and I hope you look into it.
In closing, I'd like to apologize for my rambling. I hope you will be able to balance budget constraints, politics, departmental mistrust, and so much more and still be able to lower our crime rate. Also, for real, Milwaukee is the shit, it beats any goddamn city in Mass, honestly, Boston looks like a fucking joke compared to us. It's the greatest city in America. Keep it that way, don't pull some Giuliani shit on us and ruin what made Milwaukee famous. That's cheating, fix crime without fucking the city. Milwaukee is a unique place, we're a city of festivals, a great place on a great lake, don't turn us into genuine America.
And if you want to know what bars to hit up, holla at your boy.
