The relationship between Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn and officers on the force remains tense. Earlier this month, Flynn fired the officer who shot and killed an unarmed, mentally ill man at Red Arrow Park downtown. All this week union members have been participating in a No Confidence vote, with the biggest turnout expected Thursday.
A vote of no confidence essentially means that people have lost faith in one’s ability to do a job.
Michael Crivello is president of the Milwaukee Police Union. He says that’s exactly the case when it comes to Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn. He claims morale has been low for quite some time as officers are being asked to do more without enough support. But Crivello says the firing of Christopher Manney – the officer who killed the man in Red Arrow Park -- was the last straw.
“I would say this chief should look himself in the mirror, re-evaluate the decision he made, either change his decision or pack his bags,” Crivello says.
Manney was fired after months of investigation. While Flynn says he doesn’t believe Manney’s actions were criminal, Flynn says Manney did not follow department procedure. Crivello believes Manney did nothing wrong.
“Can we move forward under a chief that is willing to fire people for issues that number one, they’ve never been fired for before? And number two, the officer performed the way that any other officer would have performed in similar situations,” Crivello says.
Crivello says it’s time Flynn and other city leaders take note.
Chief Flynn did not return phone calls for this story, but when Flynn announced his decision to fire Manney, he acknowledge that not all officers would agree with him.
“There’s certainly going to be a subset of police opinion that’s going to say hey, wait a minute, we got a copper that’s fighting for his life, used deadly force and you’re firing him. Okay, I understand that. My inner cop is not dead. Every member of this police force at some point in time has had to make critical decisions under pressure with insufficient information that could have gone wrong,” Flynn says.
Flynn said when those decisions result in fatalities and procedure was not followed, there have to be consequences.
For his part, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett says he continues to fully support the chief. Barrett says he’s not surprised by the union’s actions – but he is disappointed.
“The leadership I think is trying to stoke the fire, and to politicize a situation that really is an unfortunate situation all the way around. And if they didn’t want to politicize it, the way to move on is to simply move on, but they don’t want to do that. I think they feel that they can score some points and that’s obviously they’re prerogative,” Barrett says.
The union’s vote is nonbinding, which means it may not lead to any action, according to Fire and Police Commission Executive Director Mike Tobin.
“Well if those results are presented to the citizen board of the Fire and Police Commission we will take them under consideration just like take under consideration every comment from every community member,” Tobin says.
Union members plan to vote in an undisclosed location throughout the day. The union will hand deliver the results to Chief Flynn Friday morning. (UPDATE: The police union now says it will announce the results of the vote Friday morning at City Hall, not by delivering the results to the police chief.)
