Sheriff's task force to search cars in Milwaukee for guns

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ^ | 7 May 03 | Reid J. Epstein

[Mr. Silverback]

Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. announced Tuesday he has established a gun crime task force that will rely on so-called consent searches of cars in the city, a practice that has been restricted among Milwaukee police.

Police Chief Arthur Jones was conspicuously absent from Clarke's news conference, attended by Mayor John O. Norquist, County Executive Scott Walker, U.S. Attorney Steven M. Biskupic and others. Clarke said Jones was "not invited, for no particular reason."

The chief said later that he didn't respond to Clarke's earlier effort to involve him because "it wasn't necessary," and that he hoped deputies' searches don't violate the rights of innocent citizens.

Consent searches, in which police get drivers' permission to search vehicles stopped for minor infractions, can turn up evidence of more serious crimes. Proponents say the tactic helps police find drugs and guns.

But critics say the practice invites abuse. In 1999, as concerns about racial profiling heated up nationwide, Jones changed Police Department policy to require that officers be able to demonstrate a "reasonable and articulable suspicion of evidence of contraband contained within the vehicle" if they seek consent to search.

Both Clarke and Jones have been mentioned as possible candidates for the 2004 mayor's race, but Clarke said Tuesday's announcement had nothing to do with politics. He said he has been planning the gun initiative for six months because he wanted to give deputies "every resource at our disposal" to combat gun violence.

"Our officers aren't going to need 17 stamps of approval to get things done," he said. "They're going to be able to make decisions themselves."

Clarke calls the new task force the Gun Reduction Interdiction Program, or GRIP. Sixteen deputies, who have taken an extra 40 hours of constitutional rights training, with work in pairs from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. and wear special black uniforms, rather than the standard brown.

Clarke said new scanners will allow GRIP deputies to monitor Police Department radio frequencies to better determine where illegal gun activity is taking place. Deputies and police officers cannot communicate with their standard radios - and still won't be able to.

"It's very silly, but we can overcome these things," Clarke said of the communication barrier.

Jones' absence 'telling' Robert "Woody" Welch, the chairman of the Fire and Police Commission, called Jones' absence from the task force "telling."

"One of the primary duties of a chief of police is to work cooperatively with other forms of government," Welch said.

In a March 18 letter to Jones, Clarke invited the Police Department to join the gun program, which he launched April 1.

"Our agencies working together in a cooperative effort by sharing intelligence and manpower would be a very positive step toward the prevention, control and reduction of crime in the city of Milwaukee," Clarke wrote. He said Jones has yet to respond to the letter.

"I don't want to read into the fact that I haven't heard from him," Clarke said. "But what do I have to do?"

Jones said he spoke with Clarke last week about an unrelated matter. "He never mentioned this to me," Jones said.

He expressed concerns about aspects of GRIP.

"Allowing officers to stop and search people, I don't think that that's in the best interest of the citizens of the city of Milwaukee," Jones said.

At the news conference, Norquist said the sheriff's initiative will help deter violent criminals.

"The main reason criminals commit crime is they think they can get away with it," Norquist said.

Some aldermen later expressed general support, though at least one shared Jones' concerns.

Ald. Tom Nardelli, chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, said everyone can support reducing the number of illegal guns on city streets.

"It really doesn't make a difference who's doing it," he said. "If the sheriff has the kind of resources in his department, and the backing of Scott Walker and the County Board to do it, that's great."

Ald. Willie Hines agreed, with one caveat: "I would hope, however, that innocent individuals aren't harassed and their rights aren't violated in the process."

In December, the Fire and Police Commission directed Jones to develop a plan to fight violent crime. In response, Jones placed up to 300 officers per day on overtime, later reducing that to a maximum of 186 officers. Last week, he cut the extra patrols back to between 4 p.m. and 4 a.m.

Under the sheriff's initiative, deputies are exclusively assigned to gun crime.

"This will be their sole focus," he said. "I can't have them tied up for two or three hours investigating a traffic accident."

Clarke said Milwaukeeans are "not safe in our own homes. We're hostages behind security systems and locked doors.

But police department statistics show violent crime in the city is down 17% compared with last year, with shootings down 26%, the number of people shot down 19% and the number of gun-related incidents down 21%. As of Tuesday afternoon, there have been 33 homicides in Milwaukee, vs. 34 at this point in 2002.

"David Clarke's assertions are not true," Jones said. "The Milwaukee Police Department is effective in reducing crime in city of Milwaukee," Jones said. "The numbers speak for themselves."

Greg J. Borowski of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

[Mr. Silverback]

I would suspect that you believe in the Darwin theory survival of the strongest. Just do not disarm the honest american citizens so they can bring a gun to a gun fight.

I would suspect you're shooting your mouth off without knowing who you're talking to or what you're talking about. I think Darwin sucks it. And I stand for disrming felons, not citizens. Next time, try putting your brain in gear before engaging your keyboard.

[Kryptonite]

I have listened to Charlie in awhile, and missed that segment. But Clarke sure is refreshing to me!

[Chemist_Geek]

If the text of this thread indicates the sort of arguments you folks are using outside this forum, you might as well start sending donations to Jim and Sarah Brady and make it a complete package. You don’t sound like defenders of the Constitution, you sound like you work for the ACLU but momentarily forgot that they don’t like guns.

That's right. Too many Second Amendment absolutists forget that we live in a civil society, and that while we may have rights, we also have responsibilities.

Also, you're very right. We will never mke progress in the poilitical arena by stomping our feet and holding our breaths, by being brazen and intimidating and camoflague-clad. That merely drives the middle away, into the arms of the serious gun-grabbers.

[SJSAMPLE]

I'll say it again, but in clearer terms:
You are an IDIOT if you ever consent to a voluntary search of your vehicle and your premises. It only makes you a FOOL and the cops LAZY. If they've got probable cause, good for them. If they don't, then they're looking for an easy score. Name one good thing (for you) that can come from it? Will he give you a medal or a Scooby-Snack for having a clean, well-maintained and properly registered and insured vehicle? Not likely. If he really looked, could he find something that might cause you severe headaches and loss of income? You're Goddamn right! It doesn't take much. If you've ever lent your vehicle to a wayward brother, you're asking for trouble if you give that officer carte blanche to snoop around your vehicle.

That's not cop-bashing or paranoia. That's just the way things are in an adversarial system. Like it or not, it's them (just doing their jobs and trying to bust perps) versus you (minding your own business and not looking for trouble). However, in such a system, paths cross and it sometimes becomes a zero-sum game. He don't know you and you don't know him.

That said, it's better to eat the ticket, refuse the search and each of you go your own separate ways. No hard feelings or resentment. And that's if you're innocent. If you're guilty, then you're DOUBLE STUPID (?) for granting a search.

[Squantos]

Please tell me what part of my posts offended you..........

[Paul C. Jesup]

Then what do you call pinging over a dozen or so people, including me, at once?

[Yeti]

I think you are a loon looking for attention or trolling or something.

No way does your comment follow from my mine on this thread.

... consider the conservative, duly-elected and recallable Sheriff of Milwaukee County to be a greater threat to public safety and freedom than a huge batch of murderous thugs...

I must have missed the "muderous thugs only" provision in the policy.

[BraveMan]

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

I don't think the police are Nazis. In fact I'm trying to become one. But let's face facts. These classes may on their face be about preserving the Const. rights of the individual but what they end up being is "how can I get to search this vehicle without having it thrown out by a judge".

It's the game played by both sides of the system. Defense Attorney's try to find every nook and cranny in the law to squeeze their clients through and Prosecutors and LEOs are trying any method that won't get them fired or their case tossed to get the goods on the suspects.

My comment on brownshirts to blackshirts is pertinent to conversations I've had with the other person I was replying to and I can understand how you could have taken it the way you did.

I, and some others on these boards, are concerned with the militarization of our Police Forces. The militarization of our P.F. is one of the things we don't like and it coincides with the LEOs moving from Peace Officers to strike teams that wear black uniforms and dress like ninjas.

We've gone from Prohibition to chasing guns to chasing drugs ad now we're back to chasing guns again it seems.

I don't think the Police are our enemy just that some of the trends in Police tactics that have worked well to safeguard LEO lives wouldn't be necessary if we had a different set of priorities.

p.s. I'm not some drug using hempphile who thinks the WOD is a war on the Constitution and everybody's rights to medical marijuana. I think some aspects of the WOD has lessened our freedoms and pose a threat to some other freedoms of our nation.

[Teacher317]

I don't think the police are Nazis. In fact I'm trying to become one.

Why would you want to become a Nazi? ;^)

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Ha ha! Thanks for pointing that out. I, of course, meant I was trying to become a LEO; not a Nazi.

[Mr. Silverback]

Then what do you call pinging over a dozen or so people, including me, at once?

I call it responding to your loonball assertions in this thread. Try reading my post.

[Mr. Silverback]

I never recommended consenting to searches. I simply was making the point that it hurts the pro-2nd Amendment cause for us to act like these searches are Gestapo tactics. It is very easy for the real gun-grabbers to portray us as "gun nuts" when we do that sort of thing.

[Paul C. Jesup]

You got a lot nerve defending that hypocrite.

[The Red Zone]

Yes that would be a wonderful ideal, and that will happen when pigs fly.

[SJSAMPLE]

But random searches are exactly the tools of JBTs. The original JBTs would randomly, or by targeting certain groups, search anything and everything they wanted. We're not far from mandatory searches, on street corners, in our cars or in our homes. We're already being stopped in our vehicles for drug and alcohol sweeps. Consenting to a search is consenting to future incursions. It's up to everybody to take a stand and say "No, thanks."

[Mr. Silverback]

And you have a lot of nerve calling a man a hypocrite when he enforces the law.

[Paul C. Jesup]

A cop who enforces anti-gun laws is a hypocrite because he himself carries a gun.

[Mr. Silverback]

I think you are a loon looking for attention or trolling or something.

No, people who are supposed to be defenders of the Constituion are calling a fellow defender of the Constitution a Nazi and are making just the sort of arguments gun-grabbers love to hear us make. If everybody in America read this thread, the cause of gun-control would be advanced. I'm standing up against that.

I must have missed the "muderous thugs only" provision in the policy.

Consent searches were used to great effect against Milwaukee's gangs until police chief Art Jones came along. He broke up the gang unit and he stopped the consent searches for racial politics purposes. Every time his shoddy law enforcenment techniques, lack of leadership, promotion of cronies, incompetent/reckless tactical commands and his allowance of jack-booted-thug tactics by officers he likes is questioned, he screams racism, and he has even decided not to return the city council's calls any more. Clarke is taking up the enforcement slack this clown has left.

You are standing with an incompetent race-baiter to oppose Constitutional enforcement of existing laws targeted at gangbangers. You must be sooooo proud.

[Mr. Silverback]

That is the silliest bloody argument I've ever heard. It makes the bilge that comes out of Sarah Brady's mouth seem reasoned and 2nd-amendment friendly. That's like saying he's a hypocrite to enforce murder laws because he might himself shoot somebody someday. It's like saying that an usher has no right to object to you yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater because he works in a theater. If you think that felons should have guns, than write your congresscritter about it. Don't condemn the person who enforces the law. You sound like a buffoon, and if the paranoid arguments against Clarke in this thread were read by every American, gun-grabbing pols would be getting more votes.