MILWAUKEE—Milwaukee Police Association President Alex Ayala says the city’s new plan to address downtown violence may be putting more strain on already short-staffed officers.
The plan calls for a multifaceted approach, including increased police presence in high-traffic areas. But Ayala says that means pulling officers from other districts, leaving some neighborhoods vulnerable to more crime, and fewer patrols.
“You’re going to rob Peter to pay Paul,” Ayala said. ”You’re going to have to grab. And that’s what they did already. They’re grabbing this. They’re grabbing off staff from everywhere else in the city and they’re putting them downtown. They’re grabbing specialty units that should be doing other things, that should be going after, you know, the most violent felons, people that are wanted for homicide and, you know, rape and all these other things. They’re grabbing those people and making them work.”
Ayala also says officers are exhausted from working overtime and that the department is about 250 positions short. He’s urging the city to settle the police contract and raise wages to attract new recruits.
While the mayor’s plan also includes mobile booking facilities to speed up arrests and keep officers on patrol, Ayala says those efforts can’t work without more staffing.
“They already have one squad squat to cover, like 50,000, you know citizens that live in that area,” Ayala explained. “So now you’re gonna grab two more squads from that already depleted area to send them downtown. Now, I get it, downtown needs attention, but that’s not how your gonna do it. Because now you call 911, and no body’s gonna show up.”
Ayala also speaks on the mobile booking facilites and how they will be more pointless than helpful.
“No, the mobile booking is not going to curb your violence. The mobile booking is just going to probably ease your. Your processing system. You know, obviously, when you arrest somebody, you know, you got to process them, you got to give them their tickets, they got to take their fingerprints, you got to take their pictures. So instead of taking an officer and taking them downtown, you’re processing the people there. But what are you doing after that? Are you releasing them back into the crowd, or are you taking them downtown, where you’re still going to book them and process them? So the mobile booking is only an administrative ease for the opposites that are there. That’s not gonna occur any violence whatsoever.”
The safety plan follows nine shootings downtown last month, three of them deadly.
