Tuesday, December 24, 2024
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Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Milwaukee Press Club 'Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism' 2020 & 2021 Award Winners

The Collins Agreement: How The ACLU Lawsuit Destroyed Proactive Policing in Milwaukee

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Top Facts
  • Since the 2017 ACLU lawsuit that resulted in the Collins Agreement against the Milwaukee Police Department, field interviews conducted by Milwaukee police officers have decreased 90%.
  • Since 2012, the year after a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel expose started putting the pressure on by implying police were racist, field interviews, also known as “subject stops,” plummeted a shocking 98%.
  • Field interviews are now so rare that MPD only did 41 of them in December 2022. In 2012, MPD conducted 71,659 field interviews.
  • Traffic stops decreased 79% since the ACLU lawsuit against MPD.
  • Reckless driving has become a crisis. Homicide numbers exploded.
  • Retired and current Milwaukee police officers described a nightmarish scenario of retribution, plummeting morale, and stifling rules that have all but stalled proactive policing in the city.

In all of the hand-wringing over Milwaukee’s skyrocketing crime numbers, one major factor is left out of the conversation by the media and city leaders: The impact of the ACLU lawsuit and subsequent 2018 “stop-and-frisk” settlement against Milwaukee police. It’s been disastrous.

“Why be the only variable in the broken justice system who cares, only to our own personal detriment? I’m just counting the days to retirement. Then they can pay me to stay away until I die,” a Milwaukee police officer told us.

Field interviews have ground almost entirely to a halt, data obtained by Wisconsin Right Now shows. They dropped 90 percent in 2022 since 2017, the year before the Collins Agreement into the ACLU’s claims that the department engaged in unconstitutional stop-and-frisk policies. Since 2012, field interviews, also known as “subject stops,” plummeted a shocking 98%.

Traffic stops have plunged dramatically; they were down 79% in 2022 from 2017. Traffic stops dropped 84% in the past 10 years. Not only have we not seen these numbers reported anywhere, they were tough to come by and had to be cobbled together from MPD use-of-force reports.

Collins agreement

At the same time, reckless driving and violent crime, especially homicide, have escalated in recent years. This created more victims and, in Milwaukee, blacks are disparately victimized.

More than 80 percent of Milwaukee County’s homicide victims in 2022 were black, according to the medical examiner, most in the city (Copy of Homicide Deaths by Year and Cause 2022). Perhaps, rather than being racist, more aggressive Milwaukee police policies were saving black lives by concentrating on the neighborhoods with the highest crime disparities.

As reckless driving soars, costing lives, we set out to gather statistics and the voices of Milwaukee police officers on the topic. These are voices left out of the conversation. We spoke to numerous patrol officers and commanders, retired and currently on the job.

“I used to be very proactive,” one officer told us. “Now, I act like a fireman. I sit and wait for a call, go take that call, then go back to waiting for the next call. I, and most cops, no longer do ANY proactive policing.”

The cumbersome, redundant, and ultimately unworkable Collins Agreement, officers said, is preventing Milwaukee police from conducting proactive policing, namely the field interviews and traffic stops.

Officers believe the Collins Agreement is imperiling homicide investigations, crushing morale, endangering cops, resulting in witnesses not being interviewed, causing more victims, and increasing crime. It’s tying up officers and supervisors for lengthy periods of time reviewing body camera videos and filling out reports.

It’s worth reading their comments to the end because we guarantee you’ve never heard officers this candid in the media before about a policy or this frustrated. They give voice to the numbers.

“It’s my opinion that this agreement is one of the five or so reasons violent crime is so out of control,” an officer told us. “It has really caused the demise of a lot of aggressive and proactive patrol tactics and strategies often used to target and combat violent crime areas simply because cops don’t want to deal with all of the ‘extra’ work and ridicule…I believe that is by design and very intentional.”

Yet the media have ignored this connection, choosing to largely blame COVID for continuing crime spikes and continuing to paint the police as racist. The oversight agency’s research into the Collins Agreement fixates on the percentage of officers still not complying with the laborious documentation requirements.

We aren’t saying the ACLU lawsuit is the only cause of crime explosions; we are suggesting that it’s a factor. Officers who deal with it, day-in and day-out, believe it’s a major one. We think the depleted number of officers on the force and the court backlogs are among other factors driving up crime, although some categories are finally starting to tick back down.

Officers stressed their desire to do proactive policing but feel they can no longer risk it. The Collins Agreement resulted in officers going strictly from call-to-call if they weren’t tied up in endless med runs. This marks a return to the squad-bound 1960s-style policing that Broken Windows was meant to upend. It marked the end of “Broken Windows” policing in Milwaukee, the philosophy that intervening in lower-level disorder will stop major crimes from occurring and get guns and drugs off the streets. It didn’t always result in ticketing. It was about intervention and visibility; it was about keeping the pressure on the criminals.

Field interviews are an important point of contact for officers in preventing and investigating criminal activities. They stop crimes, develop intelligence, and find people with guns and drugs on them. It IS violence prevention; it deters crime. Yet they have ground to an almost halt.

The ACLU touts the Collins Agreement on its website, claiming it was sparked by the Police Department’s “vast and unconstitutional stop-and-frisk program” and alleged rampant racial profiling. The city paid the ACLU $3.4 million as a result of its so-called “stop-and-frisk” policy.

Chief Jeffrey Norman “has continued to stress that compliance with the Collins Agreement and providing high-quality constitutional policing is one of MPD’s highest priorities,” Milwaukee police wrote in a 2021 press release.

The result, officers say: Crime exploded. Morale plunged. Proactive policing screeched to a near halt. More blacks have become victims. No one is willing to talk about that.

The pressure from the media is all in the other direction: “Milwaukee police stop & frisk numbers are down, but not enough,” blared a WISN-TV headline on the topic.


Officers Speak Out

The officers’ comments are stunning. It’s our hope that the Collins Agreement becomes part of the crime discussion in Milwaukee, and that the practical impact on the streets – and on proactive policing – becomes part of the conversation.

“The ACLU (Collins Agreement) has destroyed proactivity within the department, which the crime stats show in my opinion,” a former MPD officer told WRN. “I now work in a suburban department out of Milwaukee County, and let me say it’s a night-and-day difference. We get to be police officers and catch the bad guys.”

Another officer told us: “The citizens of Milwaukee would be blown away by the amount of time police officers are spending behind computer screens dealing with these Collins’ related forms (which are redundant anyways) and not being the watchmen (and watchwomen) they need.”

And yet another officer said: “Violent crime has grown dramatically since the Collins Agreement, and we are scrutinized more drastically. Why can’t we search a car that has the odor of fresh marijuana? Why couldn’t we in prior years pull over cars for not being registered? Why is it an SOP that we cannot pursue a stolen vehicle if we know it is being driven by a juvenile? – which is a large reason the Kia kids exist. How come when we arrest Kia kids, they are out of custody the same day? Why are we arresting the same kid for stealing cars 5 or 10 times?”

This is coming at a time when the Milwaukee police force has already been decimated by at least 18% since 1995.

“The department targets tens of thousands of people without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, the legal requirement for a police stop,” the ACLU claims. Its class action lawsuit showed “significant disparities between police stop rates for white people and for black and Latino people,” the ACLU says.

Between 2007 and 2015, the ACLU says, the MPD “almost tripled their traffic and pedestrian stops, from around 66,000 to around 196,000.” What the ACLU fails to mention, of course, is that key crime categories also plummeted during that time frame. It was the deployment of Broken Windows policing.

“Most officers I know listen to their radio and respond to what they are sent to. Very few people want to be proactive because of Collins,” an officer told us. “We are very capable of lowering crime, but the city, the Department, Collins, the DA’s office, etc. don’t seem to want that. They push their own agenda or go with the flow, which has allowed this to happen.”

The foundation for the ACLU lawsuit was, in part, a 2011 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story documenting racial disparities in traffic stops and field interviews. In that story, police explained that racial disparities were due to a focus on neighborhoods with higher victimization and offender rates.

The approach derived from a famous strategy pioneered by a Milwaukeean, George Kelling, who wanted to free officers from squad cars to hit beats and do proactive policing. It was used in New York City with great fanfare and success years ago. In Milwaukee, it resulted in dramatic crime decreases.

The goal was to intervene to drive down crime, and that was working. Today, the city’s approach to violence prevention is funneling millions of dollars into an office that doles out T-shirts and holds virtual summits.

However, aggressive policies provoke controversies, and no one is arguing the police were always perfect.

“A black Milwaukee driver is seven times as likely to be stopped by city police as a white resident driver,” the Journal Sentinel wrote.

In 2018, the city reached a settlement in the lawsuit, which is known as the Collins Agreement. A federal court entered an order adopting it.

The order requires, among other things, that officers “document every stop and every frisk conducted by officers, the reason for the encounter, and related demographic information, regardless of the outcome of the stop,” as well as additional “auditing of officers on stop and frisk and racial profiling issues, and provide for discipline of officers who conduct improper stops or fail to document those stops.”

The Collins Agreement was to be in force for “at least the next five years.” It is “being monitored by Plaintiffs’ counsel.”


Proactive Policing at a Standstill

After we publicly asked officers for their opinions, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel rushed out a story on the topic just days later. Predictably, that story spun the issue AGAINST police, implying, again, that they are racist, and arguing the agreement is not fully being met.

Left out of the story: The perceptions of average cops.

“Why would I want to risk my job and how I provide for my family just to stop a car? It’s sad, like I said before a lot of us still want to help our community but aren’t willing to risk being proactive for it,” an officer told us.A lot of us just say screw it, let dispatch send us hitch-to-hitch.”

The Crime and Justice Institute writes annual reports on the Collins Agreement. This year’s report says, “The Defendants focused more intently this year on the annual data analysis proscribed by the Settlement Agreement, which continues to conclude that there are racial and ethnic disparities in encounters between MPD and the public. We applaud the Defendants for trying to find a suitable, additional analysis of the encounter data that will help identify the drivers of these disparities.”

“Our data analysis continues to find racial disparities in stops and searches. People, mostly Black people, continue to be stopped and searched without cause. Racial and ethnic disparities in police stops continue to occur.”

“Finally, we again find convincing evidence of significant racial and ethnic disparities in police encounters in Milwaukee. Unfortunately, we do not see progress in reducing disparities in police encounters specifically for Black residents of Milwaukee as compared to white residents.”

The media dutifully picked up this narrative without bothering to study the other side of the coin.

Who runs the Crime and Justice Institute?

Spurgeon Kennedy, the vice president, has focused his career on “helping adult justice systems implement fair, legal, and effective practices that respect the rights of justice-involved individuals and the safety of local communities,” his bio says. He’s worked on bail issues and “alternatives to incarceration.”

Other team leaders have focused their careers on “criminal justice reform.”

The annual report states: “Police encounter reports are required to include the following information per the Settlement Agreement:”

• Subject’s demographic information
• Location of encounter
• Time and date of the encounter
• Legal justification for the encounter
• Whether frisk and/or search was conducted and resulted in seized contraband, the type of contraband, and the legal justification for the frisk or search
• Legal justification if the use of force was used and type/level of force
• Outcome of the encounter
• Relevant suspect description
• Names and identifying numbers of all officers on the scene

Here’s what officers say the practical effect is on Milwaukee policing:


Officers Unload

Officer #1: ‘It’s been a disaster’

“It’s been a disaster!! What we found on the drug units was that we couldn’t find officers on the streets to do traffic stops for us because they either didn’t want to do the reports or couldn’t articulate the reason for the stops.

We had a real hard time identifying the mobile drug dealers because of the reluctance to do the stops for identification. The cases took much much longer and harder to seize the drugs because of the rate at which they change cars and use rentals. They definitely went mobile after the no pursuit policy. But back then, we still had the uniform cop buy in and they would attempt the stop and be willing to pursue.

After Collins, the uniform cops didn’t want to take the chance of getting the NDC, (non-disciplinary counseling). And, of course, the undercovers couldn’t make the stops so we eventually began using outside agencies to make the stops.

Frustrating. Caused some animosity between patrol and the specialty units. And mistrust between the two.

Not to mention the safety issues I saw watching bodycam and cops afraid to search suspects because they felt they were going to violate the agreement. On bodycams, I watched cops put shooting and homicide suspects in the back of squads not searched. And they were afraid to hold on to witnesses of homicides too long and would let them leave never to be seen again because of the agreement.

Lots of unsolved homicides because of lack of witnesses. When we watched surveillance cameras, we would see cops with witnesses and just letting them go.”


Officer #2: ‘Now I Act Like a Fireman’

“I’m a Milwaukee police officer, and I have pulled only a few traffic stops and field interviews since the ACLU agreement.

It’s self preservation really. The extra reporting, if not filled out correctly, is a one way ticket to IAD (internal affairs division).

I used to be very proactive. Now, I act like a fireman. I sit and wait for a call, go take that call, then go back to waiting for the next call. I, and most cops, no longer do ANY proactive policing.

The ACLU wants us to leave black people alone. OK. So… Don’t b*tch about 194 homicides. If we could police like we used to, without excessive scrutiny, we’d clean up the streets.

But there are so many forces seeing that we don’t do our job anymore. The ACLU, MPD, the DA’s office, and liberal judges.

Why be the only variable in the broken justice system who cares, only to our own personal detriment? I’m just counting the days to retirement. Then they can pay me to stay away until I die.

The ACLU is hurting the specific people they are claiming they are protecting, solely to control and shakedown our department for years or until they deem we are ‘successful.’

It’s all about control rather than fighting for the few aggrieved.”


Officer #3: “Most Proactive Police Work Has Gone Out the Window”

“Since the ACLU got involved, most proactive police work has gone out the window. The main reason behind this is this. If you do a traffic stop and or FI stop, FI means field interview, you now have to fill out these forms. Now you might think these forms are easy and only take a few seconds to do. Wrong, these forms have a lot of detail, but that’s not even the issue.

The issue is if you fill out the forms wrong as in don’t word them the way they want, or miss even 1 little bit of information, you get written up. If you get written up a few times for the same thing, it turns into an internal investigation with possible suspension days from it.

So most cops now are not going to risk getting a suspension for filling out forms correctly, but then they find 1 error that’s really not an error, and you get written up for it. It’s mainly the newer cops with little to no time on that are doing anything proactive on this job. In fact, since they started this, I have done almost no traffic/FI stops since then.

Not to mention, we are extremely short-staffed due to defunding us by not hiring cops for multiple years. So we are extremely busy every day with really no downtime. This is the short version of this issue. The ACLU settlement really hurt Milwaukee and the increase of crime is the cause of it. It hurts the neighborhoods that the ACLU wants to help. They don’t see it that way.”


Officer #4: “Hyper Micro-Manage…Street Cops From Doing ANY Proactive work”

“Regarding the Fubar ACLU-Collins agreement… From the start, everybody involved with accepting this knew it would severely handicap MPD. The whole point of the agreement is to hyper micro-manage any policy from the street cops from doing ANY proactive work. I was a street cop under this policy then a street supervisor, so I saw both sides. I do not know any cop or supervisor that said the agreement was a great idea or would help MPD in any way.

The agreement’s purpose was to strongly discourage street cops from being proactive. The agreement created tons more documentation regarding traffic stops, person stops and arrests. This unnecessary documentation tied up cops and supervisors for hours of their shift, thus keeping them off the street. As a supervisor, myself and many other bosses would contact the Inspections Division, which oversaw the policy. Cops and supervisors wanted to correctly follow the policy but the rules seemed to change daily and were extremely unclear.

Nobody seemed to know what the rule of the day was. I knew some street supervisors that would spend nearly their entire shift attempting to review all of the documentation. Street supervisors should be on the street monitoring everything and assisting the cops. Eventually, cops showed they were not doing proactive work because they didn’t want to get reprimanded or transferred.

Initially, when the agreement started, the top brass stated there would be no penalty for making honest mistakes. But after a few years, cops and supervisors were getting reprimanded and/or transferred. Since nobody wanted to get reprimanded, many of the officers extremely slowed their proactivity because they realized the whole point of the agreement was to make them jump through an extra thousand hoops to perform their job and, if one hoop was missed, there would be consequences.

The ACLU knows that proactivity slows crime, and many more offenders will be arrested. The same exact thing is happening in Chicago and other cities that are under agreements. We both know the crime rates in these cities. MPD is controlled by the WOKE MOB and shame on those who allow it to happen!!!”


Officer #5: “The Mass Confusion Began”

“I worked for MPD. When I graduated from the academy before a lot of the ACLU stuff took effect, I loved doing traffic stops. I loved being a cop and making stops and being proactive. Then the mass confusion began.

We had sergeants calling us in to the district to fix past forms. I personally spent two days inside the district fixing these contact summary forms for prior traffic stops. Then after working on those, the sergeants said they were done wrong. Because the 7th floor (command staff) and inspections and the academy weren’t communicating about what was needed.

I’ve sat through multiple in service training sessions in which the ACLU agreement took most of our training time. We would be taught one thing about these FI CARDS and contact summaries and six months later be told forget that, this is actually how it is supposed to be.

Before I left, it got to the point that you would have multiple supervisors review a FI stop (Terry stop) report, and they would fight about what needed to be put. The ACLU (Collins Agreement) has destroyed proactivity within the department, which the crime stats show in my opinion.

I now work in a suburban department out of Milwaukee County, and let me say it’s a night-and-day difference. We get to be police officers and catch the bad guys.

The department itself is hemorrhaging officers with 10 years and under on the job. Besides myself, one district has lost 5 or 6 officers leaving for lateral transfers for suburban departments.”


Officer #6: “A Minefield Not Worth Crossing”

“The Collins settlement agreement requires very specific reporting for every traffic stop, and Terry Stop (field interview/investigative interview of a citizen suspected of possibly committing a crime or violating city ordinance). This additional reporting is on top of other reports such as the CAD, officer’s police report, and arrest paperwork, as well as citations or warnings that may be issued, that have historically been the way interactions were documented.

This additional required ‘contact summary’ report for traffic stops, and ‘field interview’ report for Terry Stops, is redundant and regurgitates information that would be contained in a CAD, police report or arrest report. These additional reports required by the agreement add an additional 15-30 min worth of paperwork to the officer’s laundry list of other required documentation. These forms also require the officers to review their body cameras of the stop to make sure they didn’t miss anything or misreport their actions. Depending on the length of the stop, this could be a 15-30 minute video.

In addition, the officer’s body camera typically takes a period of time to download to the server, prior to the officer being able to watch the video. These tasks are all required to be completed prior to the officer going home for their shift. You can imagine that this increase in officer inactivity on the street, and mundane redundant reporting of facts, and review of video can cost officers of anywhere between 30-60 minutes per interaction. This is time that could be spent responding to calls, patrolling, or conducting further police contacts.

Further, the additional forms required by the agreement, are required to be typo and error-free. Unlike other police reports and documentation, which are not scrutinized to this level and take into consideration human error, these reports are declared non-compliant if simple errors are made.

These errors result in NDCA’s or Non Disciplinary Corrective Actions. These NDCA reports must be filed by supervisors (which typically take 30-45 minutes), and require a thorough examination of body cameras as well. These NDCA’s are tracked by Internal Affairs Division, and continued NDCA’s have the threat of internal investigation/discipline behind them.

This fear by officers that they may fill the form out wrong or make an error on the report, which could lead to an internal investigation, puts many officers in the mindset that it is a minefield not worth crossing, and they avoid the reporting requirement altogether by simply not making stops. Additionally, some supervisors have encouraged officers that the best way to not get NDCA’s is to not make stops.

You can see how a police force that lacks the desire to do proactive stops, leads to fewer police interactions, and can directly influence crime numbers.

Lastly, these forms require supervisor approval, and supervisors to review all body cameras from each interaction involving traffic stops and Terry Stops, even though the officers have already reviewed their own cameras. This doubles already existing redundancy and takes supervisors off the street where they could be supervising officers in the field.

The citizens of Milwaukee would be blown away by the amount of time police officers are spending behind computer screens dealing with these Collins’ related forms (which are redundant anyways) and not being the watchmen (and watchwomen) they need. Further, since there are required time frames for when these forms must be submitted and approved by supervision, there has been tons of hours of overtime paid out by the city just so officers and supervisors could complete these redundant reports and fulfill the body camera viewing requirement of the Collins settlement.

The department (which is incredibly shorthanded officer resources) is utilizing officers and supervisors to staff an inspections division whose sole purpose is to ensure compliance prior to the forms being sent to CJI (the woke institution reviewing our compliance to the court order).

What blows my mind is when a simple error is made to a report, officers or supervisors can not go back and correct the error once it is submitted. This is clearly not designed to seek truth, but to be an ‘I got ya’ study into the police department.

The department has also created a full-time position at the office of the chief for a former city attorney to review all of these submitted forms.

Lastly, CJI is the 3rd party company that reviews our compliance on the forms that are submitted and even determines if officers’ justifications of reasonable suspicion for stops, probable cause for searches, and reasonable fear for pat downs (fields that need to be filled out on the required reports) are valid or ‘agreeable.’ CJI is clearly a woke, reform the police organization…one only has to look at their website to see what they support and fight for.

With the blatant political motives gleamed from their website (A mural of George Floyd is prominently displayed right on their homepage) it is clear the Milwaukee Police are submitting these forms to an agency with an anti-police ‘bias.'”


Officer #7: “Being Proactive Comes With Negative Marks”

“After Collins, for traffic stops, we have to fill a field in our traffic stop for ‘how many non black occupants’ were observed in the vehicle. There are no fields to fill out for any other race.

We get a ‘use of force’ ding on our record for having our guns out of our holsters while near someone else that is affecting an arrest, or another ding for not handing out a ‘contact card’ that has the number to our Internal Affairs on the back explaining how to file a complaint on us – but to combat this, the Department gives out what… 50ish awards per year?

So we can get several bad marks on our record per year, but even when you do an outstanding job they won’t give you a positive mark? Why would you do proactive policing? The positive marks protect you from the negative. Being proactive comes with negative marks based on the policies since Collins. But the Department will not protect you with positives.

When you are patrol and take it upon yourself and do proactive activities, you’re going to earn bad marks. That’s the job, you go after homicide, sexual offenders, burglars, etc. You are generally going to be in a use-of-force situation. Do you politely knock on a door of a homicide suspect? Or do you have a gun in your hand knowing they may not want to go to jail for 20 years? Boom. Use of force, a negative hit on your career. All for trying to do the correct and brave thing. You could have sat in your car and not been proactive.

Most officers I know listen to their radio and respond to what they are sent to. Very few people want to be proactive because of Collins. We are very capable of lowering crime, but the city, the Department, Collins, the DA’s office, etc. don’t seem to want that. They push their own agenda or go with the flow, which has allowed this to happen.

Dozens if not a hundred or more left the Department over the past year. Other departments treat their police like police officers. They are paying better with much better work conditions. We’ve had what? Close to 1,000 fatal or nonfatal shootings this year?

Put that to a 25-year career. 25,000 shooting or homicide victims alone per career duration. I don’t know how that averages per officer, but we do the most dangerous job in the state, we are not paid the highest, we do not get awarded appropriately for good work, we are dinged for everything, we see multiple times more horrific things than anyone else that lives in the state, we are in danger when we get in our squad cars, and we are supported by a chief that tells us the thin blue line is racist…”


Officer #8: ‘Punishments Are Getting Worse’

“I work for MPD, and the Collins Agreement is garbage. We all want to police and do our job, but none of us wants to risk putting our job on the line to do traffic stops or field interviews and get NDCA’s.

The ACLU has continuously pushed the line of what they want, first it was this or that, now it’s that or this. It’s gotten so bad that a lot of cops don’t even know how to do just a standard traffic stop because of all the nonsense.

Punishments are getting worse too. We had been told that we could get 4 NDCA’s in a year for the same thing and that if that happened we would get remedial training, if it continues to happen the punishment would progress, including getting an internal, and that it would reset after a year.

Now, just a couple weeks ago, they informed us that the supervisor union and the MPA agreed that if officers get I think 4 NDCA’s for the same thing in THREE YEARS…internal.

Why would I want to risk my job and how I provide for my family just to stop a car? It’s sad, like I said before a lot of us still want to help our community but aren’t willing to risk being proactive for it.

A lot of us just say screw it, let dispatch send us hitch to hitch (which we are so busy and short-staffed that, that’s how a normal day is, almost don’t have time for traffic stops).

A lot of us also feel that the command staff doesn’t have our back. We see more things coming out at roll call targeting the cops instead of trying to assist us in doing our jobs. I mean (Chief Jeffrey) Norman did say that if a cop’s body-worn camera isn’t on, they aren’t credible.

For example: I put in the narrative part of a traffic stop form (not the ticket narrative, some other ridiculous part because of the Collins Agreement): ‘operator disregarded a red traffic signal.’

That would get kicked back because there isn’t enough justification, though a 12-year-old would understand that. They want the direction the car was traveling, the cross streets, all sorts of stuff that have nothing to do with the elements of the crime. It’s pretty wild.

But regardless, without the basic traffic stops and field interviews, I feel that’s why crime is running rampant. Broken windows theory does work. But our city and department leadership doesn’t think so, or care…or both it seems.

Another thing that I was thinking about is how the public doesn’t know what the Collins Agreement is. A lot of people I talk to have never heard of it. It would be nice if some light was shed on it, and how when it started crime started to spike in Milwaukee.”

Wisconsin Violent Crime Rate

From Venezuela to Dallas to the Dakotas, Gang Members Involved in ATM Theft Ring

Illegal border crossers from Venezuela with confirmed ties to the violent prison gang Tren de Aragua have been connected to an ATM theft ring in multiple states. The latest arrests occurred in North and South Dakota.

One recent arrest was made by West Fargo police of a 25-year-old man outside of a Gate City Bank branch. He was initially pulled over for a broken taillight but was arrested for felony theft after police discovered he was allegedly involved with bank ATM thefts in the Red River Valley.

“During that traffic stop, [the officer] starts talking to the individual, who is here illegally, who is not a citizen of the United States. As he questions him, he ends up finding that there was over $24,000 cash in his vehicle,” West Fargo Police Chief Pete Neilsen told Valley News Live. Upon searching the vehicle, police found facemasks, black latex gloves, a computer keyboard with several cables and wires, and more than $24,000 in cash. According to court documents, he admitted to being involved with a group of hackers who "jackpot" ATMs to steal money.

He also allegedly gave up the name of two others involved in the theft ring that involved targeting banks in Fargo and West Fargo who were arrested on I-29 near Watertown, South Dakota in Codington County, KXLG News reported.

“When you have someone that comes into your community and steals $150,000, and that’s an illegal alien, and then leaves, one would think that the Feds would step in and say, ‘You know, I’m going to take this one,’” Nielsen said.

Last month, Farmers Branch Police Department in a Dallas suburb arrested five Venezuelan men illegally in the country believed to be part of a national ATM theft ring, The Center Square reported.

The arrests in Dallas are part of a multi-agency national ATM theft investigation in multiple states including Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, South Dakota and Wyoming. Investigators with the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Secret Service are involved.

As are investigators from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Financial Crimes Intelligence Center, Colorado Bureau of Investigations, Colorado State Police, the South Dakota Prosecutor’s Office, and officials in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Campbell County, Wyoming, Meade County, South Dakota, Dona Ana County, New Mexico, and the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office.

In July, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated and sanctioned TdA as a transnational criminal organization. In September, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott designated TdA as a foreign terrorist organization, launching a major initiative to target their operations, The Center Square reported.

The U.S. Department of State is offering up to $12 million in rewards for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of several TdA leaders “for conspiring to participate in, or attempting to participate in, transnational organized crime.”

TdA gang members are known for violence, murder, kidnapping, extortion, bribery and human and drug trafficking and are linked to hundreds of law enforcement investigations nationwide.

Under the Biden administration, the greatest number of Venezuelan illegal border crossers were reported in U.S. history, more than one million, The Center Square reported.

They’re also among millions of illegal foreign nationals identified to be deported and more than 662,000 with criminal records identified to be deported that haven’t been, The Center Square reported.

Guatemalan Illegal Immigrant Charged With Murder After Setting Woman On Fire

A Guatemalan foreign national in the U.S. illegally was charged Monday in the murder of a woman he allegedly set on fire on a New York City subway over the weekend.

Sebastian Zapeta, 33, was charged Monday with first- and second-degree murder and arson.

Zapeta previously was deported under President Donald Trump's administration after illegally entering the U.S. in 2018 in Arizona, Just the News reported. It was unclear when and where Zapeta reentered.

The homicide occurred on the F Train in Coney Island, Brooklyn.

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Victims Named in Madison’s Abundant Life Christian School Shooting

(The Center Square) – The teacher and student who were shot and killed on Monday at Madison’s Abundant Life Christian were identified as 42-year-old teacher Erin West and 14-year-old student Rubi Vergara by the Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Vergara was a freshman at the school. The two were determined to have died due to “homicidal firearm related trauma” from another student shot, who died from self-inflicted wounds.

Two students who were injured in the shooting remain in the hospital with life-threatening injuries while three students and a teacher who were also injured have been released from area hospitals.

Police determined the freshman shooter opened fire in a mixed grade study hall classroom on Monday. Two guns were found at the school but only one – a handgun - was used in the shooting, according to Madison Police.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traced the weapons but police are not releasing the results of that search at this point.

“Detectives are still working to determine a motive,” Madison Police said in a statement. “As in any investigation, they are reviewing the shooter's social media activity and evidence collected at her home. They are aware of the documents and photos circulating around the internet and are working to verify their authenticity.”

After the shooting, officers went to the shooter’s home and entered the residence without a warrant due to concerns of the physical well-being of anyone inside. Officers later received consent to search the residence.

STRIKE: Amazon Workers Launch Historic Strike Just Before Christmas

The Teamsters Union announced an Amazon workers strike beginning at 6 a.m. Thursday as Amazon is in overdrive in shipping and delivery for Christmas.

The Teamsters say they have 10,000 workers in their ranks, though Amazon boasts about 1.5 million employees in the U.S. They say Amazon ignored a Sunday deadline to respond to their demand for “higher wages, better benefits, and safer conditions at work.”

“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said. “We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it.”

Amazon has reportedly said they do not expect delays.

“For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers,’” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement to media outlets. “They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative.”

The Teamsters said workers in Atlanta, New York City, San Francisco, Southern California and Slokie, Illinois, will join the strike and that “other facilities are prepared to join them.”

The union said local Teamsters unions are also setting picket lines at hundreds of shipping sites around the country.

“These greedy executives had every chance to show decency and respect for the people who make their obscene profits possible. Instead, they’ve pushed workers to the limit and now they’re paying the price,” O’Brien said. “This strike is on them.”

Trump Attorney: Willis Decision Ends ‘Politically Motivated Persecution’

The decision by the Georgia Court of Appeals to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from an election interference case involving President-elect Donald Trump "puts an end to a politically motivated persecution of the next President of the United States," Trump's lead attorney on the case said.

The court said in a 2-1 decision on Thursday that "no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings." Willis had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the man she appointed as lead prosecutor on the case.

A Fulton County judge ruled that Willis could continue on the case as long as Wade stepped down, which he did. The appeals court reversed that ruling but did not dismiss the indictment.

"The Georgia Court of Appeals in a well-reasoned and just decision has held that DA Fani Willis’ misconduct in the case against President Trump requires the disqualification of Willis and her office," Steve Sadow, Trump's lead attorney, said in a text message to The Center Square. "The court highlighted that Willis’ misconduct created an 'odor of mendacity' and an appearance of impropriety that could only be cured by the disqualification of her and her entire office. As the court rightfully noted, only the remedy of disqualification will suffice to restore public confidence."

The Center Square was unsuccessful getting comment from Willis' office before publication.

Trump and others are accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden. Michael Roman, one of the co-defendants in the case, discovered the romantic relationship between Willis and Wade.

Willis was first elected as district attorney in 2020. She was reelected in November defeating Republican Courtney Kramer after having staved off a challenge in the Democratic primary from Christian Wise Smith.

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Police are investigating a shooting that led to five dead, including the juvenile shooter was a student, at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison.

Seven people were taken to the hospital, including two who died, with injuries from the shooting at 10:57 a.m. local time on Monday. The injuries range from minor to life-threatening.

“Today is a sad, sad day,” Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said at a news conference shortly after noon. “Not only for Madison but our entire country.”

Barnes said he was dismayed at what occurred, especially near Christmas. Barnes said the Madison Police train for school shootings quarterly, most recently two weeks ago.

Police did not fire their weapons and the injuries to the shooter were believed to be self-inflicted, Barnes said.

“This is something that we all prepare for but hope we never have to do,” Barnes said.

Barnes added that the Madison Police are working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to determine the origin of the shooter's gun.

Barnes said that he believes every person in the building is now a victim and will be a victim forever.

"I am closely monitoring the incident at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison," Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers wrote on social media. "We are praying for the kids, educators, and entire Abundant Life school community as we await more information and are grateful for the first responders who are working quickly to respond."

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Report: Wisconsin Needs Solution to Road Construction/Repair Funding Gap

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin will need to find an additional funding source for road repairs and transportation spending or the quality of the state’s road system will decline, according to a new report.

Gas tax collections, which fund transportation spending, have progressively declined while the cost of road repair has increased significantly, according to Wisconsin Policy Forum.

“Either the state will have to forego spending and sacrifice road quality over time, or it will have to tap one of a few available funding sources such as the gas tax, vehicle fees, general tax dollars, mileage fees or local taxes and fees” the report finds.

The gas tax stopped being increased along with inflation after a 2005 law change and since then the state has used $2.6 billion of general funds between fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2025 on road work including $749.7 million in the 2023-25 biennial state budget.

Wisconsin has spent $821 per person in state and local funds over the most recent three years with data on road work compared to a national average of $811.

“While little of the analysis or warnings about the condition of our transportation funding system are new, we are reaching an inflection point–fiscally, technologically and demographically–that makes the stakes of ignoring long-term reforms to fund our roads, bridges and highways even higher than ever,” Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association (WTBA) Executive Director Steve Baas said in a statement regarding the report.

The cost of construction has gone up 56.8% nationally and 26.6% in Wisconsin since 2020.

The report suggests that some options to fix the funding gap include increasing the state general fund transfers, increasing the gas tax and vehicle registration fees, switching to a mileage-based fee used in pilot programs in several states or begin collecting tolls.

“Our economy stands on manufacturing, agriculture and tourism – all are incredibly dependent on roads and transportation,” Baas said. “If we are going to grow the state’s economy, creating a sustainable sufficient funding model to support smart asset management is an imperative. “The cost of doing nothing is prohibitive for Wisconsin communities and the Wisconsin economy.”

Mileage-based pilots have occurred in Oregon, Utah and Virginia with other states considering them for the same reasons.

“These little-used programs show mileage-based fees are technologically feasible, but remain relatively untested nationally and seemingly unpopular with motorists,” the report said.

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