On Friday an inquest jury unanimously recommended a Milwaukee police officer be cleared in the shooting death of William Javier Prado.
Prado had allegedly engaged an off-duty officer in a traffic encounter in March, tailing the officer as he drove home from work. While many of the facts seem contradictory, and even the officer admits to being confused about the chain of events, two things are not in dispute:
First, that the officer fired nineteen times, hitting the unarmed Prado eight times in the back and killing him.
Second, that no inquest jury has recommended charges in an officer related shooting for more than twenty years.
Like most of this city I paid scant attention to the Prado case. I barely remember hearing about it, and I certainly couldn’t have recited any details until the inquest made headlines this week.
Some of that is, shamefully, because it didn’t seem all that important of a story to me. By nature and by upbringing I tend to trust the police, and so I gave them the benefit of the doubt without much thought.
But some of it was because another case was crowding the local news outlets.
On October 24th, 2004 several off-duty police officers accused Frank Jude, Jr. of stealing one of their badges at a party.
When he denied it he was dragged out of his truck, beaten, kicked, stripped naked, and threatened with a knife - allegedly by as many as a dozen off-duty officers.
On-duty officers who responded - and who found no badge among Jude’s belongings - didn’t call an ambulance. Instead, after letting the suspects converse and wander around the crime scene, they arrested Jude.
The charge? That he had resisted and fought the officers, a charge denied by witnesses and rejected by prosecutors who refused to file charges.
It wasn’t until four months later that the case progressed, as the investigation was stopped cold by a ‘wall of silence’ - officers who refused to speak against their own.
This Tuesday - seven months after the beating - nine officers were fired and four others disciplined for the events of that night.
This follows a year that’s seen Milwaukee officers accused of evidence tampering and extortion, falsifying reports when injured sledding on the clock, and other abuses of their power.
In all, 21 officers have been fired since Police Chief Nannette Hegerty took office in November of 2003.
Eighteen officers were fired in the seven years her predecessor was in office.
The temptation, of course, is to hold the uniform in contempt and distrust those who wear it. That’s understandable, but near-sighted.
Someone said to me last night that 95% of cops are good people, and the other 5% ruin it for them.
I’d go one step further: I’d say 95% of local cops are good people who’ll spend their career avoiding a front page headline or the glare of a TV camera .
Another 3% are good and honest people who’ll have the same mistake filled workday we all have from time to time - only in their line of work, mistakes cost lives.
The final 2% have no business wearing a badge.
Truth be told, I have friends who are Milwaukee officers. While I’m a little old to idolize anyone I’ve had over for a barbeque, I respect them for the dangerous work they do.
I hope that the past eighteen months are an anomaly, and the Department rights itself before it’s reputation takes another hit.
Both the citizens of Milwaukee, and the officers that risk their lives to protect it, deserve no less.
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