Photo credit: Michael Carriere
Over the past five days, the dominant narrative emerging to make sense of the protest movement in Milwaukee is that, while the actions taken during the day have proven peaceful, things turn violent in the evening. There is undoubtedly some truth to such a version of recent events: after all, arrests have been made, fires have been started, and stores all have been looted – all after the sun has gone down. In a striking parallel to the way that many discuss those who engage in police brutality – “it’s just a few bad apples” – explanations for such actions tend to focus on the individual motivations of a minority of “looters.”
Overlooked in such accounts is the role of a myriad of police officers and departments in escalating the interactions between law enforcement and the protesters, starting on the evening of Sunday, May 31 and going through to the afternoon of Tuesday, June 2. On Sunday, a small group of protesters damaged a police cruiser at the intersection of Oakland Avenue and Edgewood Avenue. Those individuals, however, were long gone by the time a large police presence arrived on the scene. These officers seemed both overly aggressive (I witnessed one officer pointing a tear-gas gun directly at spectators on the sidewalk of Oakland Avenue) and ill-prepared (I also saw officers teaching fellow officers how to properly put on riot gear after it fell off on to the street)—a dangerous combination.
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Individuals peacefully walking in the street, including Milwaukee County Supervisor Ryan Clancy, were physically moved from Shorewood, where there was no curfew, into Milwaukee, which had a 9 p.m. curfew. They were then arrested for violating that curfew, often after being tackled to the ground.
Confrontational Approach
The evening of Monday, June 1 found law enforcement seemingly set to continue this confrontational approach in dealing with protesters. Police officers from as far away as Washington County gathered at the downtown Aurora Health Center; well over 30 police vehicles quickly gathered in the parking lot of the health care facility, waiting to be called into action. Officers with large weapons patrolled Water Street, as SWAT vehicles drove down Commerce Street. A handful of arrests were made as the protesters made its way down Water Street (no arresting officers wore face masks or gloves as they handled the detainees. There seems to be no MPD policy on working to stop the spread of COVID-19; I have yet to see any police officer wearing a face mask). But the caravan was allowed to continue. Over the course of the night, it traveled across the East Side, through Shorewood, and into Whitefish Bay. Police worked to direct traffic, but they didn’t actively confront the marchers.
Did this absence of confrontational policing tactics lead to mass violence and looting? It did not. For over well over five hours, the protesters marched peacefully through the North Shore suburbs. When the march ended at close to 3 a.m., participants began to disperse peacefully. Yet those who were not so quick to leave were boxed in by police officers near Capital Drive and Port Washington Road. Once again, police officers chose to escalate, detaining a handful of individuals while launching tear-gas canisters into the dwindling crowd.
Sadly, this same script played out on Tuesday, June 2. After a peaceful march that began in Bay View and made its way throughout large swaths of the city, a group of protesters attempted to cross the Hoan Bridge. One can disagree with such a strategy, but police officers did little to de-escalate the situation. Instead, they attacked protesters from behind, striking those in the back of the crowd with batons. Officers then pointed tear-gas guns directly in the faces of a number of protesters—who had nowhere to go once those guns were fired. As on Sunday night, it seemed like no one was in charge of the police response, and the look of fear in the faces of officers was palpable.
Lack of Dialogue
Such episodes are indicative of a profound lack of leadership among city officials. Particularly noteworthy is the relative silence of Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales. Such a lack of a desire to enter into actual dialogue with protesters has set the tone for the officers under Morales’ control: I have yet to see a single officer attempt to engage protesters in any substantive discourse at any of these events. Instead, the only word uttered by officers is “MOVE” as they attempt to push protesters back. The police seem only to see themselves as soldiers now, not as servants of the community.
What makes this silence especially troubling is that there are organizations participating in the protest that are putting forward substantive ideas on how to address real concerns with the criminal justice system. Groups like The New Milwaukee have worked to ensure the safety of protesters, while youth organizations such as Leaders Igniting Transformation (LIT) have issued documents detailing exactly what they want to see come out of these protests, including a shift of funding allotted to law enforcement to public health equity efforts focused on the city’s black and brown residents. One side, in other words, is ready to talk. Here’s hoping that representatives of the state will soon reach a similar conclusion.
For more of our coverage of the protests occurring across Milwaukee, click here.
Michael Carriere teaches history at Milwaukee School of Engineering.
