Posted on 06/29/2015 3:06:21 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
MILWAUKEE, WI — Amid alarming homicide statistics and dwindling officer morale, Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn could soon be getting a contract extension.
While there were rumors circulating Thursday that the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission had all but decided a two-year contract extension for Flynn, a commission official said that’s not the case. Contract matters must be discussed and voted on in public.
The commission could do just that at its next regularly scheduled meeting July 2. An agenda is slated for release early next week.
Flynn’s contract is up in January.
[CHIEF CONCERNS: Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn is up for reappointment as his department deals with low officer morale and soaring homicide numbers.]
A possible reappointment vote comes as Milwaukee’s homicide rate continues to escalate. The city recorded its 70th homicide Thursday, when a 48-year-old Milwaukee man was shot inside his residence in the 1500 block of N. 30th Street, according to police.
Milwaukee is on pace to shatter its totals for 2014, when there were 87 homicides recorded. There were 38 homicides last year between Jan. 1 and June 25, according to Milwaukee Police Department crime statistics tracked by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“The homicide increase has been very concerning. We’re doing everything we can to turn that around,” Flynn told Fox6 last month.
Wisconsin’s largest city ranked seventh on a list of Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities. Milwaukee’s violent crime rate of 1,364 violent crimes per 100,000 people drove the ranking.
“We are putting out so few officers patrolling the streets … and they are out there by themselves. It’s dangerous,” said Mike Crivello, president of the Milwaukee Police Association.
The union is opposed to reappointment of Flynn for any amount of time, something Crivello articulated in executive session of the Fire and Police Commission earlier this month.
A CEO in the corporate world with a comparable record of failure would have been fired long ago, Crivello said.
MPD is at 200 officers less than its authorized strength, Crivello asserts, but he estimates misuse of the force puts the number at closer to 300. And the department continues to furlough offices at a rate of three days per year.
Governing magazine, however, in an analysis of 2012 FBI data, found Milwaukee’s 31.8 officer per 10,000 residents ranks among the highest rate in the nation.
“If you look at the statistics, if you talk to the officers who have to perform their duty and you gauge the morale of the officers, there is no way he will be reappointed,” Crivello said, before quickly adding: “How could he be reappointed? Politics.”
In October, 99.3 percent of MPA members expressed no confidence in Flynn in a nonbinding vote.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett stood by his guy, calling the no-confidence vote a “tactic” by MPA leadership.
“I have complete confidence in Police Chief Flynn and the hard-working members of the rank and file,” Barrett said in a statement.
Flynn, too, shrugged off the vote as “union politics.”
“I’ve encountered no-confidence votes before. Any police chief worth his or her salt has. I’m not in the business of pleasing the union; I’m in the business of accomplishing the mission of the police department,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at the time, referring to a similar action by officers he lead in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in the mid-1990s.
"A CEO in the corporate world with a comparable record of FAILURE would have been fired long ago!"
Reminder: Mayor Tom Barrett is the DEMOCRAT Mayor who has challenged Governor Scott Walker twice.
And lost both times.
Milwaukeestan is an absolute mess. 7th most dangerous city in the USA!
I grew up in Milwaukee. It’s fallen into ruin in a short 40 years. Thanks, Democrats! *SPIT*
I thought Milwaukee bent over backwards to do some pretty politically correct things over the past year or so.
You mean these liberal ‘warm fuzzies’ don’t stop crime? Well, whadda ya know about that!
Police have nothing to do with homicide rates going up. People are gonna kill, pure and simple. However, there are a few things they can do to respond.
1. They can clear the case with a legitimate arrest of the murderer. The rest is up to the prosecution, evidence and witnesses.
2. They can be aggressive with their enforcement, while not being an occupying force. However, now, with incidents like Baltimore, NYC, Ferguson, cops aren’t about getting out there and doing their jobs.
3. They can do what they can to get violent offenders off the street anyway they can, whether it be for spitting on the sidewalk or agg assault.
But, all of that is an exercise in futility if the court system can’t do it’s job, due to a citizenry that doesn’t give a damn. If the folks don’t care, then the lives they live are they lives they want. Ya’ can’t fix stupid.
Mayor Barrett got the stuffing knocked out of him by a thug at our Wisconsin State Fair a few years back.
I guess Liberals need to be mugged NUMEROUS times to change their hearts and minds!
*SMIRK*
So let me understand your thinking. Because the citezens dont give a damn, and the courts are effed up, a chief who is also not doing his job gets a pass? I mean he’s Massachusetts scum, but he can stay on, because in te land of the blind, the one-eyed chief is king?
New movie coming to Milwaukee soon. “In like Flynn, Out like Flynn: The new popular uprising”.
Milwaukee is run and ruined by fools. It is enough to drive one to drink.
Oh no, I never meant that he should stay. He’s a scumbag from the word go. If I’m not mistaken he’s a staunch advocate for gun control, which obviously comes from him Massachusetts history. He had his claim to fame when he called out the reporters one night about some black kid getting killed. Other than that, he can go sh*t in a hat for all i care.
My point being, having been in law enforcement for the last 18 years, there ain’t much a cop or cops can do to prevent a killing, short of being there the moment right before it happens. And with all that’s going on with police today, some of it deserved I might add, the police aren’t going to be out there working like they used to. That is, when the public finally has had enough and takes the leash off and lets them to their job.
But to Flynn, he can go f*ck himself. Which is kind of ironic considering who the sheriff is up there. Must be some interesting conversation between the two.
“Milwaukee is run and ruined by fools. It is enough to drive one to drink.”
My family left in 1970. I thank my Dad (I take care of him now in his declining years) WEEKLY for moving us out of there, even back then.
All of my Uncles are Firemen, Cops or Brew Masters (Miller, Pabst, etc.)
It was a fun time while it lasted. Socialism ruins EVERYTHING it touches!
As usual, ‘If you build it*, they will come.’
*Welfare State, Freebies for Everyone from Chicago and the Twin Cities, even as far as St. Louis, MO!
Grrrrr!
Ed Flynn is the Boston transplant who keeps laying off members of his own police force and cutting his and sheriff Clarke’s budget while the crime rate rises. This led to Clarke’s warning to the citizens to arm themselves because they could no longer count on the police to respond.
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
“My point being, having been in law enforcement for the last 18 years, there ain’t much a cop or cops can do to prevent a killing, short of being there the moment right before it happens.”
We’re on the same page! And it’s interesting how some LEO’s are starting to see the wisdom in people being able to protect themselves. A LEO’s firearm is there primarily to protect him or her. If, as you postulate, cop happens to be at the scene of a crime before the perp gets off his first shot, then he can not only protect himself, but anyone else who happens to be there. I believe that the current Chief in Detroit who came there from Los Angeles by way of some town in Maine (where he was introduced to the firearm as a means of protection for citizens). Now, he’s brought his newly developed policies regarding firearms to Detroit. We need to clone Sheriff Clarke ten thousand times over!
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