The 300-year-old Stradivarius violin that was stolen from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster in an armed robbery last month was recovered last week. Credit: Mike De Sisti

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Shortly after the Lipinski Stradivarius was stolen from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concertmaster, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn put the edict out to his department: Do what it takes to solve this crime, arrest the perpetrators and find that violin.

The job largely fell to the detectives of the department's Metropolitan Division — most of whom normally investigate homicides.

Over 10 days, all of the division's roughly 40 homicide detectives contributed to the violin investigation in some way, according to department insiders, who asked not to be identified.

"It was all hands on deck, 24 hours a day," one source said. "Unless they were out sick or on vacation, they were on it."

Police spokesman Lt. Mark Stanmeyer said assigning the job to that division made sense given their veteran expertise, adding "this investigation belonged in the hands of those detectives."

"This is the same division that investigates homicides, bank robberies and other major crimes, and they are in the best position to investigate a crime of this magnitude," Stanmeyer said. "They are highly skilled and their successes include having an extraordinarily high clearance rate for any major city."

The detectives delivered.

Inside 10 days, they had two suspects in custody and the violin back in the hands of concertmaster Frank Almond. They were helped by the fact that the suspects used a Taser on Almond, leaving behind confetti with a serial number. The case also came down to old-fashioned source work, according to the criminal complaint.

The homicide detectives didn't solve the case alone. They were joined by FBI agents and other detectives and patrol officers from different divisions in the department.

But the insiders said it was the homicide detectives who formed the backbone of the investigation, which generated more than 80 supplemental reports, a remarkable number for any case, much less a robbery, or as several of the sources called it, "a property case."

The case comes after years of Flynn downsizing the detective corps, from the department's full strength of nearly 250 to about 150. The chief recently promoted a class of about 30 detectives, but the department is still short about 60 to 70 detectives, according to Michael Crivello, head of the Milwaukee Police Association.

"There has been an impact," Crivello said of Flynn's approach, adding he did not have specific information about the violin investigation.

The insiders couldn't recall a similar case where such a directive was issued except for cases of the homicide of a child, a missing child or a police officer getting shot.

There was an impact on court cases, according to the sources. Detectives were not available to meet with prosecutors preparing for trials. It didn't result in any suspects being released, but it slowed the prosecution, they said.

Milwaukee Assistant District Attorney Mark Williams, head of the homicide unit, declined to comment.

However, supervisors in the unit demanded that the detectives continue to investigate open homicides while they hunted for the violin.

There were two homicides committed during the days detectives were searching for the violin, according to records. Detectives responded to those as usual and managed to clear a couple of other cases with arrests, the sources said.

The directive required long hours and overtime.

"It was strained. They were cracking the whip," one department member said. "We were told, 'Get it done.' And we did."