Milwaukee's policy to limit chases sparks surge of pursuits in neighboring communities

On a Monday last October, police officers from suburban communities across Milwaukee County sped after drivers eight times.

Early in the day, Glendale, River Hills and Wauwatosa officers engaged in a series of chases that each exceeded 90 mph. Then Greenfield officers chased a driver in the afternoon. Then officers from Greendale, St. Francis and Wauwatosa — again — pursued drivers.

One chase of a traffic violator in St. Francis continued for more than two miles and reached about 85 mph before officers called off the pursuit.

For more than a decade, Milwaukee County agencies have typically chased no more than a couple of drivers a day, state transportation records show.

But on that October day, the tally hit eight. Three weeks later, it hit eight again.

The incidents highlight a trend among police agencies across Milwaukee County — and some in neighboring counties — to increasingly chase fleeing cars.

Over the past five years, the number of chases in Milwaukee County suburbs grew tenfold, from 75 to 747, driving a statewide increase of nearly 200% percent, a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin analysis found.

Police officials attribute the surge to increasingly brazen car thieves and drug dealers. Several say the Milwaukee Police Department's decision to sharply limit pursuits has had a spillover effect into their communities, as drivers flee city officers believing they are unlikely to be chased.

Several Milwaukee suburbs have logged sharp increases. The combined number of chases logged by the Glendale, Greenfield, Wauwatosa and West Allis police departments shot up from 41 in 2013 to a total of 538 last year.

The four agencies accounted for about a fifth of all pursuits reported statewide, though some agencies haven't yet reported their totals from 2017 to state transportation officials.

In Glendale alone — a community of just 13,000 that neighbors Milwaukee's northwestern side — pursuits last year caused about $226,000 in damage and injured 25 people. Ten of the injuries stemmed from one incident involving a stolen car colliding with a school bus.

Pursuits have gradually climbed over the past five years in Germantown, Brookfield, Menomonee Falls, New Berlin and Waukesha, the analysis showed.

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Last year's chases in Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties resulted in at least 105 injuries, the analysis found. The injured included at least 34 bystanders and nine police officers. At least five fleeing suspects died, exceeding the number of pursuit-related deaths reported over the previous four years combined.

In Brown Deer, pursuits climbed tenfold over the past five years partially due to Police Chief Michael Kass changing department policy when he was hired in 2014. Brown Deer officers were previously allowed to pursue only in cases involving violent felony suspects. Now, Kass said, officers may chase drivers suspected of any crime.

Brown Deer's chases grew from three in 2013 to 33 last year. Nearly 40% of last year's chases were initiated over traffic violations, according to state data.

For the four-county region as a whole, at least one-third of the chases that resulted in injuries were initiated over a suspected traffic violation, data shows.

On March 1 of this year, a chase involving Greenfield police ended with a crash that killed Nicholas O'Brien, 25.

The pursuing officer, who before the crash had pushed O'Brien's car with his own vehicle using an intervention method, is on administrative duty. That is routine when officer-involved deaths are under review.

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Patchwork policies

At the heart of policy differences across Milwaukee County is a debate over the risks of pursuing drivers vs. letting them go.

Some agencies limit officers from pursuing drivers over minor offenses to reduce the risk of injuring suspects, officers or bystanders. Other agencies say letting drivers go sends the wrong message and risks lawlessness.

"We need to stop these cars before they become a danger and get up to super-high speeds driving through intersections and red lights and causing damage and injuries to other bystanders that have nothing to do with the call," said Greenfield Police Capt. Ray Radakovich.

Other officials see it differently. The village of Bayside only allows officers to pursue when a felony or serious crime has been committed.

"When you have a kid driving 80 or 90 mph through a red light, it doesn't justify the end result," former Bayside Police Chief Scott McConnell said in an interview before his retirement Jan. 9. "To me, it's not worth putting innocent lives in peril."

A USA TODAY investigation published in 2015 found more than 5,000 bystanders and passengers were killed in police pursuits nationwide from 1979 to 2013, and tens of thousands of others were injured. The report noted Milwaukee policies at the time limited chases to felons and "clear and imminent" threats.

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Police Executive Research Forum, said policies limiting pursuits for minor offenses are common for major law enforcement agencies across the nation and key to protecting the public from needless risk.

"It’s this whole notion of proportionally," Wexler said. "Why would you pursue a stolen car at a high rate of speed through a heavily populated area when the consequences of a stolen car are so small compared to the consequences of endangering people in that area?"

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'Caused a ripple effect'

Some suburban authorities blame rising chases on Milwaukee Police Department policies that limit officers from chasing drivers for minor offenses. They say the policies mean criminals and reckless drivers across the region think officers in other jurisdictions won't chase either.

That, they say, has actually led to more chases.

"Some of them don't know they aren't in Milwaukee," Brown Deer's Kass said. "The criminal element knows (Milwaukee) police aren't going to pursue, and they are more emboldened."

Radakovich, the Greenfield police captain, agreed.

"This has caused a ripple effect into the surrounding communities ever since those decisions were made," he said.

Former Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn sharply limited his agency's chase policies in 2010 after several fatal crashes. Flynn argued chases were too often putting public safety and officers at risk over traffic infractions and other minor violations.

Milwaukee officers complained that the policies handcuffed them. As word of the change spread on the streets, criminals exploited the limits, knowing they could get away from Milwaukee police as long as they went fast enough far enough.

In a recent interview, Attorney General Brad Schimel also blamed the increasing number of pursuits across the region on Milwaukee Police Department policies. Schimel oversees the state's Law Enforcement Standards Board, which certifies officer training programs.

"People committing crimes don’t necessarily know their geography very well," Schimel said. "They don’t get chased in Milwaukee, maybe (they think) they won’t get chased in other places for stealing a car or for committing traffic violations. Sometimes they’re just trying to rush back to the City of Milwaukee to avoid having a pursuit."

Schimel called Flynn's policies a "terrible idea" and argued agencies should address concerns over traffic violation pursuits through training rather than policy.

"I think what you do is you work with your supervisors to enforce the policy, to enforce the balancing test that you don’t create (an) unreasonable risk of injury to civilians by a pursuit," Schimel said. "The problem is (Flynn) issued a blanket policy that the bad guys all found out about."

Flynn loosened the department's policy last year and now officers can chase if the car or occupants are linked to violent crime, drug dealing or reckless driving. Acting Police Chief Alfonso Morales has said he will not immediately propose further changes to the policies.

Milwaukee officers engaged in at least 369 chases last year, with at least 52 chases involving injuries and two involving deaths, department spokeswoman Sgt. Sheronda Grant said. By comparison, the department logged 280 pursuits and 82 injuries with state transportation officials in 2016. No deaths were reported.

Grant said many believed the Milwaukee Police Department's previous pursuit policies emboldened reckless driving. She said officers may engage in more pursuits now but "must still be mindful of the balance between achieving the goals of law enforcement while maintaining the public’s safety."

'Rolling drug house phenomenon'

In 2015, unsealed court documents obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel brought to light the phenomenon of rolling drug houses in Milwaukee. Gangs were selling heroin and cocaine from cars, shifting their trade away from drug houses and sales on foot.

The groups, including one that called itself Big Money Addicts, were taking advantage of the limited pursuit policy, the documents said. For instance, they would heavily tint car windows — to a degree prohibited by city ordinances. The tint is enough for police to pull over the cars, but also to obscure the evidence — guns or drugs — that might allow a pursuit.

In West Allis, Deputy Police Chief Bob Fletcher said the practice of using stolen cars to sell drugs has expanded from Milwaukee into his community.

"There seems to be a rolling drug house phenomenon that probably has the biggest impact on the number of people fleeing," Fletcher said. “In most of the cars we stopped (before 2015), if we found drugs it was in amounts that were more for individual personal use.”

To deal with the increase in the number of cars speeding away from police, Fletcher said his officers are trained in tire deflation devices, commonly known as "stop sticks" or "spike strips." Officers stretch the devices in the paths of fleeing cars, puncturing the car's tires as they roll over them.

Authorities across southeastern Wisconsin created a suburban violent crime task force in response to criminals becoming more mobile. In December, the group announced 50 arrests, including 27 youth, and said they had recovered 17 stolen cars.

Glendale police logged 130 pursuits last year, more than double the 51 from two years earlier. Authorities there blamed the surge in police pursuits on youth driving stolen cars.

In one of Glendale's high-profile chases last year, the driver of a stolen Acura fled officers around 6 a.m. Oct. 6. The driver fled south toward Milwaukee, running several red lights and veering multiple times into the wrong lane, hitting speeds that topped 100 mph.

The chase ended when the car crashed into a school bus on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive at Locust Street. The woman driving the school bus, her 2-month-old baby and two other children, ages 11 and 12, were treated for minor injuries. Six teenage boys in the Acura where arrested and taken to a hospital.

The case was an extreme example of what Glendale police are seeing more often.

"All they are interested in is getting away, and they don't care at what cost," said Glendale police Capt. Mark Ferguson. "They are a menace to the public."

Reporters Bob Dohr, Jane Ford-Stewart, Tyler Langan, Karen Pilarski, Jeff Rumage and John Diedrich of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin all contributed to this article.