In more than 25 years not one police officer has been charged in Milwaukee inquests.
Milwaukee, WI - In more than 25 years, no Milwaukee County inquest jury has recommended criminal charges against a police officer involved in a fatal shooting or in-custody death.
From the time he took office in 2007 until last month, District Attorney John Chisholm had never ordered an inquest - largely because he didn't want to give families false hope that officers would be charged.
Last fall, when Chisholm first reviewed the July 2011 death of Derek Williams in Milwaukee police custody, he employed the same philosophy: He met with Williams' family members and their attorneys, showed them the squad video that captured Williams' pleas for help and struggle to breathe, and explained why he believed the officers involved acted professionally and in accordance with the law. He would not give them a copy of the video.
And he refused to call for an inquest.
But now, after a revised finding from the medical examiner and a public outcry, he's changed his mind.
"There are some cases where a public inquest is appropriate, and this is one of those cases," Chisholm said last week. "There was a change in the medical finding and there needs to be public scrutiny of the entire process, and I do not have a problem with that."
His decision to order an inquest came late last month, after the video was posted on JSOnline and the medical examiner changed the ruling in the case from natural death to homicide as the result of a Journal Sentinel investigation. The newspaper first requested the video and police reports regarding the case in November 2011.
Homicide in forensic terms means "death at the hands of another," and does not necessarily mean a crime was committed.
Chisholm, the Police Department and the civilian Fire and Police Commission - all of whom viewed the video months ago and cleared the officers involved - have reopened their inquiries in light of the medical examiner's new ruling.
While Chisholm now says there is value in a public airing of the facts, critics say the inquest process is inherently biased.
Under the law, the prosecutor is the only lawyer with a voice in the proceedings. Inquest jurors never hear from the families of the dead or from their attorneys, unless the prosecutor agrees to ask witnesses their questions. There is no cross-examination. Witnesses may only be called by prosecutors, who critics say are inclined to clear officers because they work closely with police and rely on them to build cases.
Attorneys who have represented the families of the dead say unless substantive changes are made to the process, the Williams inquest will be little more than window dressing.
"They just put out the bare bones evidence and nobody argued in favor of it being criminal," said Milwaukee attorney Merrick Domnitz, who has represented families in inquests over the past 35 years. "It was the district attorney presenting evidence against their partners in the criminal justice system. Time and time again, that just left the public feeling empty about the result."
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/25-years-no-charges-recommended-in-milwaukee-inquests-d0742c8-172994381.html?goback=.gde_1829117_member_173290659
Medical examiner can also call inquests - and was asked to.
District attorneys aren't the only Wisconsin officials with the authority to call an inquest. Medical examiners and coroners may do so as well.
Last year, when Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm initially refused a request from Derek Williams' family to convene an inquest, the family's attorney, Robin Shellow, asked the medical examiner's office to do so.
Like Chisholm, Assistant Medical Examiner Christopher Poulos, who performed Williams' autopsy, refused. Medical Examiner Brian Peterson did not review the case at the time.
Poulos had ruled the July 2011 death natural and due to sickle cell crisis. In an interview in March, he called it "a very clear-cut case."
The Journal Sentinel later learned Poulos did not review a squad video that shows Williams gasping for breath or the police reports before making his determination. Instead, he relied on a detective's statement that Williams was arrested "without incident" after he fled police, jumping a fence in the process.
The police reports, released to the Journal Sentinel in June, state that officers chased Williams and dragged him out from behind a table. Then, one officer "ended up on top of Williams," who was facedown, and subdued the robbery suspect by pressing a knee into his back while he was handcuffed. As Williams lay on the ground, he complained he couldn't breathe. When officers got him to his feet, his body went limp.
Those details likely would have come to light during an inquest.
The amended autopsy, released last month, maintains sickle cell crisis as the cause, but lists the manner of death as homicide, meaning the actions of the officers caused the sickle cell crisis to occur. The revised document says the homicide was due to "flight from and altercation with police."
It lists "blunt force injuries" of the head, neck, torso and extremities. Peterson, the medical examiner, said it was clear to him the injuries could not be explained by jumping over a fence, as Poulos had initially concluded.
A cracked hyoid bone in Williams' neck, originally listed as "evidence of medical intervention," is now listed as a blunt force injury as well, although Peterson maintains it could have occurred during the 45 minutes police and paramedics spent performing CPR on Williams.
Werner Spitz, a nationally recognized pathologist who reviewed the documents and the video at the request of the Journal Sentinel, called that possibility remote and said it was far more likely caused by a chokehold.
There is no mention of a chokehold in any of the police reports.
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/medical-examiner-can-also-call-inquests--and-was-asked-to-su74eh4-172994551.html
A video record, but no solution in sight.
The Milwaukee Commission on Police Community Relations had been created at the urgings of federal justice officials concerned about the high number of complaints about police abuse and brutality against citizens for a period of years.
Then-Police Chief Nannette Hegerty had sponsored the commission; White said some of the later discussions during meetings involved the infamous case of Frank Jude Jr., who was beaten by off-duty police officers. Although the Jude case didn't prompt the committee's creation, it played a large role in determining the new direction taken by the Police Department to deal with such cases.
According to a mediation agreement signed by all members of the commission in 2005, this sentence stands out:
"The MCPCR recommends that a program be established to install video equipment in police patrol and conveyance vehicles to document and corroborate police/public interactions. . . . "
"It was the first time it had ever been done," recalled White, who is now a vice president at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.
Ralph Hollmon, chief executive of the Milwaukee Urban League, was on the same commission as White. He remembers the discussion about getting video cameras in the squad cars wasn't initially received that well by the police union.
"It was a big deal," said Hollmon. "Other cities already had it, but we had to do some convincing. We had to show it could be very helpful (to the officers.)"
In fact, that was a typical reaction to the move by departments to place video cameras in squad cars, a trend that has increased over the past 10 years or so to the point it now seems common place. In many ways, TV reality shows such as "Cops" have helped educate the public about the daily interactions many police officers have with suspects who are often disorderly, uncooperative and violent.
And don't forget those filmed drunken driving arrest videos where suspected drunken drivers fail road sobriety tests in front of the camera. Many times, people arrested and filmed for drunken driving don't even challenge the charges. Busted on camera, as they say.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/a-video-record-but-no-solution-in-sight-347428m-172906581.html