Milwaukee’s police chief rejected recommendations from a city oversight body to tighten the rules on when officers can chase reckless drivers.
Police Chief Jeffrey Norman sent a May 8 letter to the Fire and Police Commission detailing the decision, which came after the oversight body pushed for restrictions to the department’s chase policy in April. How Milwaukee police officers chase other vehicles has come under scrutiny since a deadly year of chases in 2025 when 9 people died in the city in connection to police chases.
The department made its own shift to restrict the policy earlier this year. That change was met coldly by members of the Fire and Police Commission, who said it didn’t go far enough.
The Fire and Police Commission is tasked with oversight of the department.
“At this time, MPD intends to maintain its current policy and will continue to evaluate its effectiveness moving forward,” Norman’s letter said.
The commission’s recommendation that passed unanimously April 16 called for officers to no longer chase if a driver flees an attempted traffic stop and drives recklessly. It also called for the policy to state that officers terminate chases if the continuation of a reckless driving chase increases danger to the public.
Assistant Chief Craig Sarnow previously told commissioners the department believed its own revision was enough. He also said the department intends to create a dashboard with pursuit data every six months and re-implement a technology called StarChase, a GPS tracker technology that tracks fleeing vehicles in lieu of a chase.
Norman’s letter, dated May 7, said the department’s seven district captains also questioned residents at monthly meetings about the pursuit policy. All but one captain reported most residents were in support of the existing policy or had few thoughts.
The commissioners also asked the department to include pursuit-related deaths in the department’s video release policy, which requires footage of fatal shootings and other fatal incidents to be released to family within 48 hours and the public within 15 days.
Norman’s letter said the department was still assessing that ask and awaiting a legal opinion from the City Attorney’s Office.
The Fire and Police Commission’s recommendation had no power to make the changes commissioners sought. That’s because of Wisconsin 2023 Act 12, a state law that removed policymaking power from the body and centralized it with Norman.
The recommendation could still be forced upon the department, if two-thirds of the Common Council was to vote for it.
Generally, department policy considers pursuits “justified” under six circumstances, among those being when an occupant is involved in a violent felony.
Both the Fire and Police Commission’s recommendation and police department’s change focus on reckless driving chases. Those make up a majority of chases officers in Milwaukee make – with officers citing reckless driving as the initiating reason in 742 of the 970 chases in 2025, according to police data.
About one in three pursuits involved a crash last year.
The police’s pursuit policy has long been a subject of debate at City Hall for over a decade.
Since at least 2010, elected officials, the Fire and Police Commission and police officials have jockeyed over modifying it, from restricting it after pursuit-related deaths to loosening it as reckless driving became an issue in the city.
Milwaukee residents and activists have also criticized the policy in recent months and chase have led to significant costs in lawsuits.
David Clarey is a public safety reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at dclarey@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee police chief rejects ask for more pursuit changes
Reporting by David Clarey, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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