MILWAUKEE – For years Milwaukee has been known as a segregated city. Neighborhoods are sectioned off by freeways and viaducts. Black, brown and white populations are very clearly separated – by access to resources, affordable housing, employment opportunities, high-crime and police interactions.
The police interactions in majority African American and Latino communities are now being questioned by the ACLU of Wisconsin. The ACLU of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit against the city, the Fire and Police Commission and Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn, challenging the how to Milwaukee Police Department conducts stop-and-frisks. The ACLU claims African American and Latinos are unfairly being stopped based on ethnicity, which is a clear violation of the fourth amendment that calls for “reasonable suspicion.”
Learn more from the ACLU of Wisconsin press conference: http://
Police Chief Edward Flynn has denied the allegations.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports
Named plaintiffs in the class-action suit include a mother who says police stopped her son just blocks from his school when he was 11 and a 60-year-old school secretary who says police followed her and her 4-year-old granddaughter into her house without her permission, claiming they had evidence of heroin use.
“Black and Latino people throughout Milwaukee — including children — fear that they may be stopped, frisked, or otherwise treated like criminal suspects when doing nothing more than walking to a friend’s house or home from school, driving to and from the homes of loved ones, running errands, or simply taking a leisurely walk or drive through the city,” the suit says.
For more visit, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
