Milwaukee Police Association endorses Trump as activists push back

The Milwaukee Police Association (MPA) has endorsed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, following a visit Friday by Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance.

In brief remarks to the police association, Vance thanked Milwaukee officers for providing security last month during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee where, he said, he “never felt safer.” He then focused on undocumented immigrants as a cause of crime in Wisconsin and other states. “When you hear Republicans say every state is a border state, that is not just a slogan,” Vance said, “that is a sad reflection of the reality that we have drug cartels operating about as far north in this country as we possibly could.” He denounced “the policies that have come from the Harris administration that make it harder for the police to do their job,” including providing shelter and aid to immigrants “who shouldn’t be here.”

Projecting a Trump victory in November, Vance said police officers’ job is about to get “a lot easier.”

As the union and bargaining entity for the Milwaukee Police Department, the MPA represents many Milwaukee officers. MPA President Alex Ayala called the union “the force behind the force,” adding that the importance of police officers “extends far beyond the uniform and badge; it is about their commitment to serving and protecting us all.”

Ayala, who succeeded Andrew Wagner as MPA president, said in a press release that officers in Milwaukee face a variety of challenges including “low bail for dangerous criminals.”

Other problems for the police, according to Ayala, include “the need for an honest and concerted effort to pursue those offenders wanted on bench warrants, low officer morale in an often anti-police society, rushes to judgment in officer-involved incidents, not to mention the staffing crisis that requires officers to spend even more time away from their families.”

Ayala claimed that “some areas of the city will at times go with only one squad to patrol an entire area — 44,000 citizens — as squads get pulled to other parts of the city to address high priority calls which can often be more violent in nature, requiring more officers.” The MPA declared that putting Trump and Vance in the White House will help resolve the problems the police union is reporting. “Addressing these issues isn’t political — it truly is a matter of life and death to Milwaukee,” Ayala said in a press statement.

The MPA generally expresses pro-law enforcement stances on policy and politics. Trump fashioned himself as a “law and order president” from 2016 to 2020. When protesters took to the streets in cities across the country to protest the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Trump called on law enforcement to crack down on the demonstrations, floated deploying the U.S. military to quell the uprisings, and, according to Trump’s Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, inquired about having police shoot the protesters.

In the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, hundreds of Trump supporters attempted to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. After the attack, police officers who directly experienced the violent attack voiced their opposition to Trump and their support for Biden. But across the country other police remained loyal to the former president.

In Milwaukee, battles over police policy have been going on since 2020. For over a year, the police union railed against a new policy passed by the Fire and Police Commission, which required the release of video of officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths to victims’ families within 48 hours, and release to the public within 15 days. The MPA, alongside representatives from the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT), which investigates officer-involved incidents, argued that releasing the video would compromise police interests in those incidents.

“These activist groups misuse important words like ‘transparency’ and ‘trust’ to push their agenda, but at the same time they reject factual data from previous community briefings,” then-MPA President Andrew Wagner said in a 2023 press statement. “Instead of waiting for an investigation to be completed, their goal appears to be setting their own narrative. We have all seen where false narratives have been put out into the public to incite riots. These false narratives have destroyed cities and when the truth finally comes out the damage has been done.” Later, the union filed a lawsuit against the video release policy, freezing its implementation for months. As the Republican National Convention (RNC) came to a close, the union dropped the lawsuit with Wagner calling the legal effort “fruitless.”

In early 2024, the MPA and other police associations worked to change state law to prevent officer-involved deaths from being investigated under Wisconsin’s John Doe law. This law allows for a judge to review a case, hear arguments, and decide whether probable cause exists to appoint special prosecutors in cases where a prosecutor, such as a district attorney, has declined to issue charges.

During public hearings, police associations accused families of people killed by police of pursuing vengeance against officers whose conduct had already been ruled justified. Wagner also told Wisconsin Examiner that the families of people killed by police are not victims, and that officers should be eventually allowed to move on with their lives after fatal incidents.

Since 2020, when Wisconsin voters chose to pass a constitutional amendment known as Marsy’s Law, debates around who is a victim in a police shooting have become more complicated. Since the passage of Marsy’s Law, which creates new privacy rights for crime victims, police departments have argued that officers who kill people in critical incidents, such as shootings, are victims, and that their identities should remain confidential.

Arguments about who is a victim divide police unions like the MPA, and local activist groups like Milwaukee’s Against Racist and Political Repression. The Alliance put out a press release criticizing Vance remarks Friday and statements by members of MPA. “One representative referred to the police officers as traumatized victims when they shoot people, recounting the officer-involved shooting on July 17th,” the Alliance stated. “Not only is this victimization of police officers a disrespectful tactic that obfuscates how victims of police crimes and their loved ones are the real victims, but it’s also a misapplication of Marsy’s Law, which the MPA continues to cite when interfering with transparency and accountability from the Milwaukee Police.”

The Alliance noted that Vance’s visit came a month to the day after the shooting of Sam Sharpe, who was killed by Ohio officers deployed to Milwaukee for the RNC. Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said that the officers were breaking up a knife fight, and saved a life by killing Sharpe. The man’s family, however, said that Sharpe — who was living unhoused with other Milwaukeeans in King Park — was being attacked by someone who had taken to harassing him. Sharpe’s family said that he had multiple medical conditions, limited mobility, and was not a threat to the officers. The Alliance highlighted that Vance’s recent statements did not mention the shooting of Sharpe. Yet, the Alliance said in a press statement, “Vance and the MPA have made it clear that they will do whatever it takes to ignore these demands and stand against people seeking transparency and accountability from law enforcement.”

The Alliance also said that while Vance touted public safety as a major part of his platform, “his remarks were simply fear mongering tactics to continue attacking immigrants and justify police crimes.” The activist group added, “Vance continually redirected questions about the budget issues police departments cause and crime in order to make insubstantial and inflammatory comments against immigrants.”

“The people of Milwaukee and organizations like ours also know that these words mean we must continue organizing in order to prioritize our communities and hold the police accountable for their crimes,” the Alliance stated.

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