good afternoon I joined here today by Captain Terence Gordon the commander of the fifth district I promoted him to Captain I personally assigned him to this District he's got the most dis difficult District challenge ahead of him in terms of the crime issues in this community I've got great confidence in him and I feel he's been doing a very strong job here leading this district and the community in their Mutual goal to reduce crime fear and disorder now the Milwaukee Police Department is uh currently investigating allegations that some of our officers assigned to District 5 violated the police department's policy on the conduct of searching prisoners some of these allegations if proven might arise to the level of a violation of the state statute covering strip searches now earlier this week I took the step of suspending the police powers of Seven Police police officers and one sergeant and assigned them to administrative duties I did that for two reasons the first reason I did it was if the allegations are in fact sustained we cannot send a message to officers that that conduct is condoned the second reason I did this was for the safety of the officers they are high performing officers assigned to hazardous Duty and I simply cannot afford officers who are literally In Harm's Way to be looking over their shoulder while they're the subject of an investigation the professional performance division is investigating these complaints by interviewing the complainants and seeking additional information from other Witnesses including information that has come to the attention of the media we urge anyone who has in any information about these specific complaints or indeed any other complaints to police please get in touch with either the office of professional performance of the Milwaukee Police Department the office of the district attorney or the fire and police commission now in order to protect the Integrity of these investigations we obviously are not going to comment on specific allegations against individual officers and is our practice we will continue to coordinate our investigation with the office of the district attorney few points need to be made the Milwaukee Police Department has made enormous strides in recovering its Professional Pride and restoring its relationship with the community since the notorious Jude incident of seven years ago in just the last few years we have seen historic drops in violent crime in this city we have seen an extraordinary increase in police activity indeed a 250% % increase in proactive police activity while at the same time there has been a decline in citizen complaints as has been documented by the fire and police Commission complaints are down uses of force are down police Pursuits are down people are safer indeed more people are alive today because of the efforts of the men and women of the Milwaukee Police Department now we hold ourselves to high standards we have adopted a code of conduct to which we hold ourselves accountable our core values of competence and courage and integrity and Leadership and respect and restraint must guide our relationships with the community and our use of the police tactics to which we commit now to the community I promise a full accounting of our activities I've said it before and I stress it again when we're wrong we will admit it and we will undertake to do better I note for the record that this investigation was initiated by the Milwaukee Police Department now our reputation in the community is precious to us we simply cannot be effective without the respect and support of the community particularly those aspects of the community most afflicted by serious crime and violence we have undertaken to make people safe we are committed to accomplishing that goal within the law we are proud of the improvements that we have achieved in police community relations and we commit ourselves to being worthy of the Public's trust but I ask the community not to rush to judgment allegations have been made and no doubt many more allegations will be made in the coming days ahead some of those allegations will be true some of those allegations will be false but until they're investigated they're allegations not facts to the officers of the Milwaukee Police Department I urge you not to lose heart this community believes in you and supports you and knows that you've made a difference in their lives I promise you that if the investigation reveals that these allegations are not sustainable we will stand behind the results of that investig instigation if on the other hand these allegations are sustained by an investigation and the reputation of the department demands that to be a proper accountability but I need you to continue your difficult and dangerous work only you can do the work that you do the community depends upon you and you cannot allow your concerns about the course of this investigation to undermine your fundamental commitment to the safety of the people who are in your care I'll now take a few questions under the understanding that there's only so much I can say about pendency Glen have you been asked to by federal investigators if they've asked to get involved and also uh as you look at these allegations on the body searches uh the cavity search uh were court orders required for all of those types of body search and was that followed uh two questions there the first one is regarding whether or not any federal agencies have asked to be involved in the investigation though they haven't asked to be involved in the investigation we are as you would expect advising them of what we're doing and keeping them in the information Loop because obviously one of our concerns is controlling rumors what is being alleged versus what is being alleged that's being alleged are different things entirely in some matters as for whether or not uh policy uh uh how it applies to the use of body cavity searches it's very specific our policy mirrors state law uh obviously if a body cavity search is necessary a supervisory approval is required uh understand again the different definitions of what constitutes a body cavity search um the gradations of definition are subtle to people who are outside of the process but we're very aware of what those gradations are and we're going to pay particular attention to how these field searches were conducted and how they comort either with State Statute or with Department policy do some of those inside the department believe that these are gang or other bad members of society that were about to be busted by MPD officers who are using claims to try to delay their own Justice there's a very important point to be made here and I can't stress it enough um that is that we are the good guys and we have to follow the rules and even when we can get complaints from bad guys we've got to investigate them it's fair to say that people the original complaintants have been subject of police activity in the past all of them have arrest records some were serious than others but the point is we have to hold ourselves to following the policy and the law the allegations they make would put us outside of our policy and the fact we you know we have decided that since you know these officers are part of a group of officers that are targeting high crime neighborhoods and and chronic offenders they're intervening with a lot of people who are suspicious characters and they are assertive but what we have to do is be very very careful that we do not engage in something that can be called noble cause misconduct when because you believe you're doing something for the proper purpose you can skirt regulation or or your Authority that's what we have to look into there's no allegation here that somebody was doing something for personal gain personal pleasure personal enjoyment the challenge for us is to get the bottom of these cases and understand are they in policy or they out of policy and if they're out of policy are they far enough out of policy to be violative of Statute how how many allegations are we talking about and what kind of time frame well without getting into too much specificity uh we had greatly uh spread out allegations over the course of a couple of years we did not pick up a pattern uh then we had several in a short period of time and that's when we decided that we needed to launch a fuller investigation as to again whether or not these activities were inside or outside of our accepted practice from men and women or no women involved everybody involved here is male is it the act that is the troubling part or is it the chain of command and how it occurred that well it depend it depends on on on what our investigation reveals about the veracity of the allegations I mean all of them arise from what one consider to be enforcement activity all right the challenge again is um whether or not these are still within the policy guidelines we've got we've got to be careful all right we have to be careful about uh about our adherence to policy and uh the challenge here for us is to recognize and there are many audiences here to the community I'm telling you your trust is important to us and we recognize that we have to behave in a way that maintains that trust and to the officers we have to maintain that we've still got to keep doing our job this is difficult for them my coppers know they're doing a better job the community knows they're doing a better job this is you know a very difficult circumstance for us and we want to move as as rapidly and effectively and thoughtfully as we can to get to the bottom of it last question GA last question how many officers are we talking about is it still just the seven and a supervisor or are there more well at this point in time it's a finite number and most of those officers are not you know targets but rather they were you know in they were at the scene when somebody made an allegation against somebody else but as again for the whole unit cohesion piece we thought it best to take them off the streets so they weren't looking over their shoulder while an investigation was was going on there may be more complaints I I don't doubt there will be now and we've got to be open to both receive them as well as uh as to investigate them as thoroughly and as effectively as we can my final question to you Chief um what is the policy if in fact we know your guys are working hard out there and your women are working hard if in fact there is a need for a strip search or some cavity search or whatever what is the the Department's procedure for performing such a search can that be done in the streets can is that should that be done where how and do you need you know a court order you know one of the challenges is um bad guys put stuff in unpleasant places including firearms and policy and law note that all right if you think somebody might have a firearm you can be more invasive than if you just are checking them out because you think they may have drugs there are a lot of gradations here all right these are Dynamic situations without making any excuses for anybody just speaking in theory these are Dynamic situations in people are moving assertively trying to ascertain if there's a threat to them or if somebody's holding Contraband there are things you can do that come close to being you know a body cavity search but aren't and there are things you can't do and there are lines now we try to draw clear lines and if we're on the wrong side of those clear lines we've got to get a handle of it rapidly the very least it's a serious serious training issue for crying out loud but if we're in fact violating that policy um willfully then we've got to take appropriate action we will be governed by many variables among them are the motivation for the conduct The Experience level of the officer their intent their knowledge of policy as well as the actual violation so we're going to look hard at this and you know we're reviewing the reports we'll be talking to officers we'll be talking to the people who've made allegations and we are going to make our best findings as we can once again coordinating our efforts with the office of The Da we will uh come forth and hold our self accountable and make the best report on this that can be made