Police Unveil Report On Use Of Force, WISN.com 1801 02 June 2010

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http://www.wisn.com/news/23773651/detail.html

MILWAUKEE -- [/b]The Milwaukee Police Department has released a report detailing each incident that involved the use of force in 2009.The report states the department arrested nearly 35,000 people and only about 1 percent of those arrests involved the use of some kind of force. The use of force could range from physical confrontation to gunfire.Critics said the report fails to explain why some officers are repeatedly involved in use-of-force incidents.Last year, Milwaukee police were involved in 459 incidents in which officers used force. The report states 12 percent of those incidents involved a firearm.The Fire and Police Commission members said they consider that remarkable."It's a very rare event that the use of force is exercised by Milwaukee police officers," Fire and Police Commission member Michael Tobin said.A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor prepared the report. The goal was to give the department a baseline from which to spot trends. Researchers said while the incidence of force is low, it is not uniform.The highest incidence of force occurred in the Seventh Police District. It was involved in one-third of the use-of-force reports.The lowest incident rate was in Police District 1 at only 2.8 percent of all arrest incidents."I see them use force all the time. I think they corrupt if you ask me," resident Marcus Roberts said.In the hardest hit neighborhoods, opinions on officer use of force differed."They need to use it when there's a cause to use it, if someone's being aggressive at the police, then, yes, the police should be aggressive back," resident Sindy Marylou Johnson said.Attorney Jonathan Safran represents Frank Jude, the man beaten by several Milwaukee police officers, several of whom were assigned to District 7."Someone needs to look at, is there a culture at District 7? Is there something that would make District 7 have such a variance compared to other districts," attorney Jonathan Safran, said.Safran said what he found most troubling about the report was the number of officers involved in multiple incidents of use of force.Twenty percent of Milwaukee officers used force last year and 40 percent of those involved were involved in multiple incidentsTobin said the report is just a starting point and will help the department target problem spots and officers."The report is going to help us looking into the future look at all of the use of force incidents and helping guide the pd in developing their policies, making sure the procedures the police are following are the correct ones," Tobin said.The commission said the report is the most in-depth analysis the department has ever undertaken and a rarity for similar-sized police departments.The professor who authored the report will present it at a public meeting of the Fire and Police Commission on Thursday at 6 p.m. at Alexian Village.

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If you are curious to know which district you are in click the link below.


http://www.milwaukee.gov/PoliceDistricts

Click on the districts to get a more detailed map of their coverage. Be warned, they seems to be old maps. According to these maps, my street doesn't exist.




*quickly checks to see what district I'm in..*

Yay, I'm in district 3. Crap, the border to district 7 is just up the street...

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http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/95588724.html

Milwaukee police officers used force in only 1.07% of arrests made in 2009, according to a report presented Thursday to the city's Fire and Police Commission.
The relatively infrequent use of force by the city's police officers contrasts with a general perception that police use force much more often, said Michael Tobin, the commission's executive director.
"The reality of the statistics doesn't reveal that at all," Tobin said. "The statistics show that (the use of force) is a relatively rare and unusual event."
One of the goals of the study was to "document reality as opposed to a lot of the perceptions and myths that exist relating to police use of force," said the study's author, Steven Brandl, who chairs the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
"This is completely in line with other research that's been done at other departments that's come to the conclusion that the use of force is a relatively rare event," Brandl said.
The study was based upon Police Department reports that must be filed any time an officer uses force, ranging from an officer firing a gun to an officer using bodily force on a person.
The study analyzed 459 use-of-force incidents that occurred in 2009. The analysis excluded six incidents in which an officer's gun or Taser was fired accidently and 20 incidents in which an officer shot an injured or sick animal.
Seven people suffered fatal injuries last year during incidents in which officers used force, according to the study.
Officers used force during less than 1% of both traffic stops and interviews with people on the street, according to the study.
About 20% of all Milwaukee police officers, or 387 officers, were involved in the 459 use-of-force incidents analyzed in the study.
According to the study, 27 officers were involved in more than three use-of-force incidents in 2009.
The most use-of-force incidents - nearly 34% - occurred in District 7, on the city's north side, according to the study.
Brandl, the study's author, said it is premature to assume that some officers assigned to District 7 or officers who were involved in more than one use-of-force incident in 2009 are more reckless than other officers.
Officers who work in high-crime areas or make more arrests than other officers are more likely to have to use force, Brandl said.
"Maybe it's just a function of their activity and where they work," he said. "I think that's critically important. A critic of the police is going to take a different angle on that sort of finding, but that's completely short-sighted."
The study suggests that more research be done on individual officers' involvement in use-of-force incidents.
City officials plan to use Brandl's study as a baseline for more frequent studies of the Police Department's use of force, Tobin said.

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Their definition of 'force' is when someone is injured during the arrest.
So if they twist your arm or sit on you or tackle you, and you don't
claim an injury, they didn't (by their definition) use force. I want to see
the real numbers, how often they do something more forceful than
say 'pretty please' and point their gun at a perp.

(I'm not saying that the police shouldn't use force, or even that they
use it too often, although sometimes I think it's a bit severe, like the
shooting in Oak Creek. I just want to know the real numbers.)

And that 7th District that they mention? That's where I live. High crime
area, gunfire isn't uncommon. I'm hoping I never again have to call 911
& yell to someone coming upthe stairs to my bedroom toget out of my
house.:what: Of course, if it happens again, and they keep coming, I'll
have a mess to clean up. But I wanted to get rid of that carpet anyway...

A woman living alone in this neighborhood, especially one who doesn't
look like most of her neighbors, needs to have a gun.

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Not to mention the possibility of the people who didn't report abuse of power from LEO's that intimidate and threaten after the use of force...