Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

“I will say whether I’m glad to be here after the questions,” said Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) Chief Jeffrey Norman in a joking tone on Tuesday morning, during his opening remarks at a Milwaukee Press Club Newsmaker Luncheon. As he spoke, Norman glanced at the media panel, including David Clarey of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jessica McBride of Wisconsin Right Now and Jenna Rae of TMJ4 News. 

As Norman predicted, the panelists proceeded to keep him on the defensive throughout the contentious luncheon. Before he was peppered with questions about safety in downtown Milwaukee, police surveillance and whether officers should return to what courts have ruled were racially discriminatory and unconstitutional stop and frisk practices, Norman presented his own perspective on public safety in Wisconsin’s largest city. 

“I always like to start off by saying that I am proud to be the leader of the Milwaukee Police Department,” said Norman, thanking the men and women of MPD “who protect our city through challenging times, through good times, 365 days a year, seven days a week — holidays included.” Norman also thanked the community for supporting MPD after the killing of Officer Kendall Corder, who was shot while responding to a call about a subject with a gun. 

Corner was one of at least two officers who have been shot this year. Norman said of the killings that it’s important for MPD officers to feel that “even though we have challenging times, we know that we have a community that’s behind us, and who understands the challenges that we’re going through, in regards to the work of public safety in our community.”

Tremaine Jones (who has pleaded not guilty) was arrested for the slaying with MPD compiling witness statements, and locating a backpack on-scene containing Jones’ social security card, employee I.D., birth certificate, debit cards, and a receipt for the lower receiver of the gun police say was used in the shooting. Since 2018, there have been six MPD officers killed in the line of duty. 

As Norman moved on to the latest crime statistics, he cautioned that “the numbers are numbers, they’re data sets, but they’re not the reality of what you feel from a personal feeling, your perspective…Never will I ever say that what you feel is not your reality, or the truth. And we have to work to continue to address those concerns.”

Citing the MPD’s mid-year crime statistics report, Norman told the audience at Milwaukee’s Newsroom Pub that there has been: 

• A 17% violent crime reduction
• 7% property crime reduction
• 11% reduction overall for serious crimes
  

“And let me put that in the proper context,” Norman said, “this is on top of reductions in 2024.” According to MPD’s crime statistics dashboard, since this time last year Milwaukee has seen an 18% decline in non-fatal shootings, a 44% decline in car jackings, a 24% decline in robberies, and another 21% decline in aggravated assaults. “Now, the elephant in the room, yes homicides are up,” said Norman. In 2024, there were 132 people who lost their lives to homicide incidents in Milwaukee. A little over half way through 2025, there have been 93 deaths.

 

 

At the time of the mid-year report, homicides were up 13%, though the most recent numbers on the online dashboard show a 9% increase. “I always say this, anything [more] than zero is unacceptable,” said Norman. The dashboard also shows a 32% increase in human trafficking since last year, and a 52% increase since 2023. Norman didn’t address this increase, and the panelists and audience members didn’t ask about it.

Norman focused on the homicide increase, highlighting what he called “the undercurrent of what these homicides are about” — inter-personal conflict and violence that escalates into harm or death. “Poor conflict resolution,” he said, “availability of firearms to our youth. These are things that we can work together to impact, to intervene, to intercede.” 

While MPD is adept at finding high-level offenders in the community, with the department boasting a nearly 80% clearance rate for solving homicides, Norman emphasized that “it’s not enough to have somebody in custody for such a horrible crime. It’s more important to prevent it.” Collaboration has been a key asset for MPD including working with community groups, elected officials and partnerships with other law enforcement agencies including the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office and State Patrol. “When we work together we are better, together, said Norman. “Leaning into the collaboration, leaning into the partnerships truly is where the rubber meets the road, so that we’re able to address when we have a flare-up of crime on Hampton Avenue, or during Cinco de Mayo, or during Juneteenth, or during Water Street, or during the Puerto Rican Fest.” Although Norman said that his own legacy has never motivated his service, he hopes to be remembered as a chief who was there, and who cared, he said, when the Milwaukee Bucks celebrated winning the NBA championship, during the  COVID-19 pandemic, the Republican National Convention and the historic floods just days ago. “He was there,” Norman said of himself. “He cared.” 

A grilling by the media panel 

The first media panel question came from Clarey of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about MPD’s use of surveillance technology. The department’s use of facial recognition software, drones and other technologies have raised concerns about privacy and due process. 

Norman said that some public safety investigations and interventions have been “wrapped up in a more quick and efficient manner by utilizing the technology.” He mentioned Flock cameras the department uses to monitor license plates and identify vehicles taken in car jackings. He also noted facial recognition technology used in repeat sexual assault and homicide cases. “These are what is going on with this particular technology,” said Norman. “I am very sensitive to the concerns about surveillance, abuse, but I say this, as any tool that can be utilized by law enforcement, has the ability to be abused. It’s about what are the bumper rails? What are the expectations? What is the oversight?” 

Norman said his department is committed to oversight and dialogue with the community about the technology. Yet, he also feels that the fears that he’s heard about surveillance technology are often “speculative.” By contrast, the chief said he could describe numerous concrete examples of carjacking suspects and people who committed violent crimes who were apprehended because of the technology. “That is what is going on,” said Norman, “and if there’s any tools that the Milwaukee Police Department can utilize to ensure that there is direct, serious and quick accountability, we shall use it.”

McBride, a journalism lecturer at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and contributor to the right-wing website Wisconsin Right Now, asked if Norman would support calling on the city to end its obligations under the Collins settlement, the result of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, which found that MPD had utilized racially motivated and unconstitutional stop and frisk practices for decades. 

McBride said that she’s heard from officers who feel that the agreement, which mandated changes to MPD’s practices, has made it “difficult if not impossible” to do “proactive policing.” McBride cited a decline in “field interviews,” or officers talking to and gathering information from people, as well as traffic stops. She connected those changes to the rise of reckless driving in Milwaukee. Norman said that officials have focused on checks and balances to ensure that MPD is compliant, but that he also agrees that the Collins settlement should be “heavily modified.” 

The agreement carries “a number of administrative burdens,” Norman said, stressing that he wholly supports constitutional policing. “There is really no wiggle room,” said Norman. “At the end of a shift, reports need to be filed. Some of our officers have done two shifts. They’re tired…There’s a cost associated with this, that’s overtime being used.” Norman said that MPD no longer sees the sort of constitutional violations which led to the Collins settlement, and that the department has shown itself to be responsible, and that things will never “backslide” on his watch.

Rae of TMJ4 asked about an incident involving a car that crashed through a police barrier in downtown Milwaukee, severely injuring two women who were crossing the street. She pushed Norman to explain why “no detectives interviewed the victims or any of the bystanders to follow up on the investigation after that crash?” 

Norman said that the investigation went as far as it needed to go, and that it culminated in “accountability measures,” which included issuing citations. Rae, unsatisfied, pushed back saying Norman didn’t answer her question, but the chief reiterated that officers were on scene, interviews were done, and that nothing more was required. An awkward silence followed as the microphone passed back to Clarey, who asked about Norman’s support of city ordinances related to so-called “street takeovers”, where people noisily gather in intersections and do tricks with their cars. Later, Rae pressed Norman further on the car crash. He said he was unprepared to focus on the specific details she wanted him to discuss.

McBride asked Norman about his $65,000 raise, bringing his salary to $243,000, and added that MPD officers have gone without a raise for over two years. She asked Norman why he accepted the raise, whether he’d suspend his raise until other MPD officers receive one, and whether he supports officers getting back-pay from the city. Norman said that he earned his raise not only through his credentials, which include a law degree, but also through the amount of hours he puts in as chief.

“I sometimes work maybe 12-14 hours, work Saturdays and Sundays, I’m actually really never off,” said Norman. “It is important to understand that no one has given me anything for free, the work that I do is earned.” In 2022, CBS58 reported that over a dozen officers made more money than the chief due to overtime pay. 

Norman said he supports contract negotiations that could include back pay for officers, and that the process is in the hands of the Milwaukee Police Association and the mayor. McBride pressed again about how his raise hurts officer morale and whether he supports officers getting back pay. 

Norman was also asked about officers being sent away from their own districts to work downtown and whether “broken windows” policing — a strategy that favors tight control of even small infractions to create an overall climate of safety — should be brought back. McBride suggested he did not have “an articulable policing strategy.” 

Norman was asked how he defines reckless driving; how a driver could crash into people after driving through a police barrier and “not see a day in court”; why reckless drivers without insurance retain their vehicles; how MPD retains recruits; whether prosecutors and judges should mete out tougher charges and penalties; how the Black Lives Matter protests and media reporting of policing hurts the profession and how MPD has achieved declines in carjackings. He expressed disappointment that reporters were focusing on certain incidents rather than others — including a deceased 13-year-old who wasn’t claimed for over a week, another 13-year-old who shot and killed people with an extended magazine firearm and crime on the South Side. Norman said in those cases “I wish you had the type of reporting as you have right now.”

Norman responded to a question from Wisconsin Examiner about inter-personal violence in the community and whether arresting more people and bringing more serious charges is the most effective strategy. 

“When you’re talking about inter-personal conflict, how or why does it rise [to] a level of firearm violence is perplexing,” he said. “The other day we had a situation where a person was inappropriately touched. She sees the individual who inappropriately touched her, wants to confront that person, and [in] that particular confrontation someone dies, because a firearm was used.” It would have been better to call the police than to try to resolve things with a firearm, he said.  

Therapists and social scientists might have better answers to questions about violent behavior, he said. But, he added, he is committed to strengthening community partnerships with public health and safety teams, mental health specialists and other non-law-enforcement experts to try to resolve conflicts before they become violent. Many situations that escalate into homicides and firearm violence are “emotional,” he said. MPD embraces violence intervention and encourages people to be more introspective instead of  “going zero to 90.” 

“I do know that we’re not going to be able to arrest our way out of this,” Norman said of social conflict that can turn violent. Solving Milwaukee’s homicide cases is important but, he said, the community should ask, “How do we prevent it from happening, to where we don’t even have those numbers? That’s the real question.”

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Guns for sale at Caso’s Gun-A-Rama in Jersey City, New Jersey, which has been open since 1967. (Photo by Aristide Economopoulos/New Jersey Monitor)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s decision to restore 10 convicts’ ability to legally purchase firearms and explosives violated the law, according to a letter six high-ranking congressional Democrats released Friday.

The Justice Department publication of an interim final rule moving the authority to restore some convicts’ gun rights from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to the attorney general also violated the separation of powers and a decades-old provision in the department’s annual funding bill, according to the 12-page letter.

The Democrats wrote that while Congress did delegate the authority to “oversee restoration of federal firearm privileges applications” to the ATF several decades ago, lawmakers have included language in nearly every government funding bill since 1993 barring the ATF from spending any money to process those applications.

The prohibition followed then-President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, trying to move the authority from the ATF to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Given the pervasiveness of gun violence in our nation, this Administration should not be circumventing Congress’ authority to prioritize restoring firearm privileges to individuals convicted of serious or violent crimes,” the Democrats wrote.

The letter was signed by House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.; Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash.; House Judiciary ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md.; Senate Judiciary ranking member Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee ranking member Grace Meng, D-N.Y.; and Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee ranking member Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment from States Newsroom.

Mel Gibson case

The DOJ under President Donald Trump has so far restored 10 individuals’ ability to legally purchase firearms, including the actor Mel Gibson, who “pleaded no contest to a charge of domestic violence” in 2011, according to Reuters.

Federal law bars several types of people from legally buying firearms, including anyone sentenced to more than one year in prison, which typically coincides with felonies, and those who commit domestic violence.

The six Democrats wrote that the “intersection between firearms and domestic violence remains a key concern, demonstrating the need to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers.

“Research has shown that the presence of firearms significantly increases the risk of death or serious injury for victims of domestic or dating violence. The Supreme Court has recognized that the danger of a domestic abuser with a gun serves as a limitation on the Second Amendment.” 

The Democrats wrote that for decades Congress has prevented the ATF from restoring prohibited people’s ability to legally purchase firearms. The annual DOJ appropriations bill also bars moving the ability to approve those applications away from ATF to any other federal agency. 

“The concerns that originally led to these provisions — recidivist crime, limited investigative resources, and difficulty in assessing applicants — remain unchanged,” they wrote. “Congress made an explicit policy choice to prioritize investigating crime, rather than to waste funds on evaluating whether to restore firearm rights to previously convicted felons.”

Study cited

The letter says a study from the Violence Policy Center that looked at restorations during the late 1980s is one of many reasons Congress prohibited the ATF from restoring some felons’ ability to legally purchase firearms.

The study, which reviewed 100 ATF case files obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, showed the federal government had restored the ability of “terrorists, murderers, rapists, drug dealers, gun traffickers, and child molesters” to legally purchase firearms and explosives.

“The FOIA-obtained records also showed that of those granted relief between 1985 and 1989, 47 individuals were later re-arrested for serious offenses such as attempted murder, first-degree sexual assault, kidnapping, child molestation, illegal possession of a machine gun, trafficking in cocaine, LSD, and PCP, and illegal firearms possession or carrying,” they wrote.

The letter ends with Democrats calling on the DOJ to withdraw the interim final rule and “vacate the wrongfully granted restoration of federal firearms privileges to the 10 individuals.”

Reading Time: 4 minutes

As they hit the streets, members of 414LIFE, a community and hospital-based violence intervention program, know their efforts could literally mean the difference between life and death. 

That theory was put to the test recently when 414LIFE members showed up to diffuse a neighborhood dispute that also involved law enforcement officers on Milwaukee’s North Side. If not for that intervention, Lynn Lewis, executive director of 414LIFE, believes the incident could have ended in tragedy. 

“Frontline workers go into situations where emotions are high, where people are riled up and thinking about retaliation,” Lewis said. 

As temperature rises, so can violence

Lewis said her 414LIFE team of 15 violence interrupters and outreach workers has hit the streets hard in recent weeks, responding to an uptick in violence. 

“There have been about seven shootings and four homicides in the last 72 hours,” Lewis said during a community pop-up recently near Milwaukee Fire Station 5 on the North Side. 

Reggie Moore is the director of violence prevention policy and engagement at the Comprehensive Injury Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin, which implements the program for the city of Milwaukee.

He said shootings over the past three weeks have kept the 414LIFE team busy. 

Many of the shootings, he said, involved interfamily conflict or intimate partner violence. And while the violence typically rises with the temperature, Moore said, it’s the sheer volume of guns on the streets that presents the biggest problem. 

“The presence of a firearm increases the risk of arguments or conflicts resulting in serious injuries or death,” he said. “People are losing their lives and freedom over a moment of anger. 

“Our team along with our partners have been working around the clock responding to scenes and hospitals to support impacted families and neighborhoods.” 

‘Life is bigger than just the hood’

Lewis said the group held several pop-ups recently along with staff from Credible Messengers, a Milwaukee County violence intervention program. One was at Tiefenthaler Park, 2501 W. Galena St., where a shooting occurred after a vigil recently. 

“We talk to people in hot spots like that about the need to change up before they end up incarcerated or dead,” Lewis said. “We need to stop the bleeding.” 

The interrupters are well versed in the street lifestyle, having lived through the same challenges that people in the community face now. 

One message they share, whether it’s with youths or adults, Lewis said, “is that life is bigger than just the hood.” 

They talk about goals and share resources such as information on jobs, food and other programs to help the people they serve build social capital and eventually change their attitudes toward gun violence, she said. 

“Milwaukee, we need to stop shooting and start healing,” Lewis said. 

Community violence intervention programs like 414 LIFE take a public health approach to reducing violence and improving community safety, Moore said.

He said the 414LIFE program, which was inspired by the Blueprint for Peace, is the longest community violence intervention program in Milwaukee. 

In addition to a street team, 414LIFE also has a hospital-based component that offers services to victims of gun violence.  

“Our colleagues at Froedtert Hospital are also feeling the weight of these shootings just as much as our street teams on the front line,” Moore said. “Working in the streets and hospitals, 414LIFE has been engaging with families and others impacted by shootings across the city.” 

The 414LIFE community team was involved in 49 conflict mediations in 2024, with nearly 90% being resolved, Moore said during a May 22 presentation on the program to the Common Council’s Public Safety and Health Committee. 

The team spent 1,388 hours on conflict resolution activities and 2,678 hours on behavior and community norm change activities and worked with 25 youths in 2024. 

Aside from mediations, team members also have active caseloads of individuals referred to them by hospitals, the Office of Community Wellness and Safety and individuals they’ve met during outreach. 

Data from 414LIFE’s April monthly report shows that caseloads have increased recently, from 36 in January to 50 in April. The team has logged more than 1,200 hours so far this year on behavior change and public accompaniment efforts and more than 100 hours on direct violence intervention. 

Evidence of the program’s effectiveness, according to Moore, is that last year’s 414LIFE priority neighborhood, Old North Milwaukee, experienced a 31% decrease in homicides and a 6% decrease in nonfatal shootings in 2024, based on data from the Milwaukee Police Department. 

So far this year, homicides are down 50% and nonfatal shootings 43% in Old North Milwaukee. 

During his presentation to the Public Safety and Health Committee, Moore said each homicide in Milwaukee costs the city more than $2 million in hospital, criminal investigation, incarceration and other costs, while each shooting costs the city over half a million dollars. 

Who are 414LIFE members? 

While lived experience helps 414LIFE’s street team talk the talk and walk the walk, it’s the extensive training the members receive that gives them the tools to walk into a volatile situation to prevent bloodshed. 

Lewis said her team operates under the Cure Violence model, which works to reduce the risk of retaliation, revictimization and other community violence through credible messengers.  

To strengthen those skills, each member goes through the Academy for Transformational Change training, which uses a community asset approach to serve neighborhoods most impacted by crime and incarceration. 

Members also receive shooting response, Narcan, Stop the Bleed, Mental Health First Aid and other training, she said. 

“The team is highly trained,” Lewis said. “They also have passion and grit.” 

Challenges for violence interruption programs

While violence interruption efforts continue in Milwaukee, funding cuts, particularly at the federal level, threaten the future of violence prevention programming. 

According to a report by the Council on Criminal Justice, the Trump administration has cut federal funding for community safety and violence intervention programming by more than $168 million. 

“This work is under attack,” said David Muhammad, deputy director of the Department of Health and Human Services for Milwaukee County, during a pop-up event. “We have to fight for the resources we have.” 

In addition to 414LIFE and other local community violence intervention programs, a key to help maintain the reduction of violence that Milwaukee has experienced over the past two years is residents, Moore said.  

“Peace starts with the people, and we must ensure that firearms are securely stored and not accessible to individuals prohibited from having them,” he said. 

414LIFE: Milwaukee street intervention team seeks to disrupt gun violence is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.