Photo by Tom Jenz
Ed Fallone
Ed Fallone
Ed Fallone is a public intellectual and a progressive activist. He is also political, having twice run for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Fallone’s full-time job is as a professor of corporate law at Marquette University. His faculty statement espouses his teaching philosophy—“I teach these cases (corporate crimes) as human tragedies involving greed, betrayal and corruption. In my view, the law in this area serves the classic end of all laws: to protect ourselves from our own worst impulses.”
In July of 2021, Mayor Tom Barrett appointed Ed Fallone to the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission, which has been steeped in controversy after it stumbled in the hiring of a permanent police chief. On Nov. 4, led by Fallone as chairman, the seven-member commission finally named Acting Police Chief Jeffrey Norman to be permanent police chief on a four-year contract.
I wanted to talk with Fallone about the challenge ahead for the FPC. We met at a coffee shop along the lake where I found him to be anything but a bureaucrat. He is earnest, dedicated, and well informed. He knows how to listen, and he knows when to talk. If you could select a leader to run a collective committee, Fallone would probably be at the top of your list.
You have accomplished a lot in your life. Tell me about your background, where you grew up, how you ended up as a prominent attorney and a law professor at Marquette.
My parents came from humble origins. My father was the son of a steelworker in Pittsburgh. He met my mother on a college trip to Mexico City. A year later, they were married and ended up in Maryland where my dad became a public high school English teacher. I was the second son of four children. I did my early schooling in Maryland and earned an academic scholarship to Boston University that paid for my undergrad and law school.
Were you active in politics as a young man?
I’ve always followed politics. I read the Washington Post every day, and I read a lot of books, many my father recommended. After I got my law degree, I moved to Washington D.C. where I practiced law for four years at a major law firm. We represented mostly defense contractors. High level of law. Big money. Big clients. I dealt with corporate crime, securities fraud, and antitrust. I got married to my wife Heidi who is also a law grad.
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Then, I had the notion I wanted to get into teaching law. It was 1992, and Marquette University was looking for a corporate law professor, and I’ve been there ever since. I like it here in Milwaukee, and teaching is very fulfilling. I’ve had great satisfaction in training the next generation of competent, ethical lawyers.
What subjects do you teach at Marquette Law School?
Business formation. Securities regulation, the laws of governing the stock market. White collar crime. Constitutional law. I’ve tried to become something of a public intellectual on issues of constitutional law. I’ve also been active in the nonprofit sector, primarily helping people get access to lawyers who otherwise could not afford them. And also helping troubled kids in the Latino community. I’ve had a lot of experience in collective decision making, sitting on boards and as a leader of boards of directors.
You are the chair of the Fire and Police Commission, and you were appointed by Mayor Barrett last July for a five-year term. The FPC has seven appointed members, each paid $6,600 per year. They elected you as chair. What are your responsibilities and what does the FPC do?
The Fire and Police Commission goes back almost 140 years. We are an independent civilian body with oversight of the police and fire department. With the help of our staff, we approve every single hire and promotion, and we also oversee disciplinary matters.
In the last year, we’ve made progress. The commission has banned the use of police chokeholds. We have required that police engage in community-oriented policing, in other words public collaboration with citizens. We banned the use of No-Knock warrants. We’ve instituted the Guardian model of policing versus the old Warrior model. And we’ve hired a police chief, Jeffrey Norman, who is 100 percent of the same philosophy and operational policy as we are.
You have a full-time civilian staff to carry out FPC policies, right? How does that work?
Our staff is led by our Executive Director Leon Todd. An example is we have a staff that audits the police department. Police are now obligated to document every interaction with Milwaukee residents, an account of why and how a cop stopped somebody, made an arrest, or released the person. We have auditors who audit samples of this documentation to make sure policies are followed. This process involves retraining every single officer, required use of body cams, and supervisors reviewing documents. Officers who do not follow these procedures will be disciplined.
I often wonder why we have a Fire and Police Commission at all. According to the Wisconsin state statute, here is the reason: “The purpose of having an independent commission is to separate police and fire staffing matters from local politics.”
It used to be the police and fire chief jobs were patronage positions. The mayors could hire someone who might have politically supported them. The Milwaukee FPC was created to take politics out of that hiring approach.
But it doesn’t take politics out of it because Mayor Barrett is a Democrat and he appoints Democrats and Progressives. The Common Council does confirm his appointments, but those members are also all Democrats, I believe.
When Mayor Barrett called and asked if I would join the FPC, I said I’d accept the position but “I might make a lot of decisions you don’t like.” He said that was all right. We have high quality people on the commission, and they will act independently.
I’ve heard this concern from inner city Black residents and cops. Why did it take so long to appoint Police Chief Jeffrey Norman? He was acting police chief for almost a year. As he recently told me in an interview, and I quote—“It’s been tough to do the job with one hand tied behind my back.”
I’ve been on board only since July, and our number one priority has been hiring a permanent police chief. But we did it the right way in order to set a precedent for the future process. We did a full background check on Chief Norman, we questioned him, and members of the public questioned him at Q&A meetings. It took three months, and Mayor Barrett and Common Council President Cavalier Johnson agreed with our process.
This may be anecdotal, but I’ve interviewed several cops including two police chiefs. There is a morale problem with the Milwaukee police because they’ve been getting bad publicity for a long time. A few cops may go bad, but the wide majority of cops are decent people.
One big priority is the recruitment and retention of officers because we are losing a lot of them to retirement. We are not getting as many applications as we’d like for new classes. As far as morale, we’ve given Chief Norman our unanimous support, backed his strategies 100 percent. We will not be antagonistic to the rank and file. The men and women who wear the uniforms and the badges want the same thing the FPC wants. We are partners in making Milwaukee a safe and livable city.
Police Chief Norman also told me, and I quote, “What’s the number one challenge of the police department? Is it violence, is it reckless driving? No, it’s trust. Trust is the biggest challenge for the MPD.” Do you agree with this, trust being the biggest challenge?
I agree with that, but I am not an expert in policing. However, I do believe that one of the largest factors in solving crimes and catching criminals is when witnesses cooperate. If citizens don’t have trust in the police, then it becomes difficult to solve open cases.
Here is my experience in spending time in the inner city. I find that 99% of the residents are law abiding residents and not criminals, drug dealers, or car thieves. But these residents seem to be reluctant to help the police sometimes, or even to call 911. In other words, they want police in their neighborhoods, but yet they don’t. I did a story on one of the Black Milwaukee homicide detectives, Jeremiah Jackson. He concurred and said some residents who witness crimes are reluctant to come forward.
That is frustrating. One of the significant accomplishments of 2021 was the adoption of formal community-oriented policing. The strategy is that the beat officer gets to know business owners and residents, who get to know each other. If a resident knows an officer, he or she has greater trust.
A couple generations ago, there were beat cops in neighborhoods. They walked their streets and got to know residents. The ‘Hi, how are you’ philosophy of preventing crime.
For Milwaukee to have enough police personnel to follow that kind of strategy, we need recruitment and retention. I am optimistic we can achieve this goal, but it will take time for Chief Norman to implement his community policing plan and for the culture in the police department to change. One idea is increasing civilianization: where the police to do their regular patrol work, but civilian employees do the back-office functions—technology, documentation, record keeping. But our job at the FPC is to make sure there is a plan to address important issues and to hold the police and fire departments accountable.
Milwaukee has the Office of Violence Prevention, which has a large budget. Does the FPC interact with this Office?
They do have a large budget. The Office of Violence Prevention is one source of information for the FPC, but we can’t wait for these types of groups to feed us their strategies. As chair of the FPC, I view my job as calling up the Office of Violence Prevention, calling the Community Collaborative Commission, the NAACP, alderpersons, the Mayor—and asking what are the concerns and problems. We seven FPC commissioners can’t sit back and wait for someone to call us. We need to be proactive. I also want to interact with community street leaders so that they will come to look to the FPC first.
You have some admirable goals. But are they possible to achieve?
Personally, I have two superpowers. One is collective decision making. The other is parallel parking. They both involve navigating deliberately and carefully.
I guess you’d call parallel parking the metaphor for your leadership skill. But moving on, you define yourself politically as a Progressive. What does that mean?
I go back to Bob Lafollette as the classic Wisconsin Progressive. Basically, I believe that the greater the democratic voice and the more people involved in political decisions, then the more legitimate the decision. If decisions are made by the political elite, the economic elite or the racial elite, then those decisions are less legitimate than those made by all the people.
These are very difficult times for law enforcement and political leaders. I can tell from my own research that through social and mainstream media, misinformation and hatred are rampant. Racism still exists. Any thoughts on how to calm the waters, so to speak? What can we do as Americans? I mean, whether we like it or not, we Americans are an amalgamated mix of ethnic and racial people. We need to get along.
I grew up in a mixed family, an Italian father and a Mexican mother who sometimes struggled with English. There was stereotyping on each side of their families. What I learned growing up in our household is that you solve stereotyping, misunderstanding and prejudice through communication. Once you expose people to other people who are not like them, then understanding takes place. For example, if you talk to other persons about their fathers, you will find commonality. We’re all fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. If we talk to each other, our differences can disappear. I like the word, ‘folks.’ We Americans are all just folks.
