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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As she sits on her living room sofa surrounded by a large cutout, framed photos and a houseful of other reminders of her son Javon, Andrea Wilson, 41, can’t help but lose hope that her son’s murder will ever be solved. 

“Nobody’s ever going to be held accountable,” she said. “It just feels like no one is going to be held responsible for his murder.” 

It’s been nearly a year since she’s heard from Milwaukee homicide detectives and more than 16 months since Javon, 21, was hanging out with a group of friends when someone opened fire on them. They took him to St. Joseph’s hospital, where he died from a gunshot wound to his stomach. 

Losing her firstborn is bad enough, she said, but not having justice makes it harder.  Wilson is not alone in her struggles. In Milwaukee, hundreds of families share the unenviable bond of having a loved one murdered, with no one held responsible for it. 

Unsolved murders in Milwaukee

From 2020 to 2024, 901 homicides occurred in the city of Milwaukee. Over 350 of those murders remain unsolved, based on homicide clearance data provided by the Milwaukee Police Department. 

The homicide clearance rate refers to the percentage of cases cleared through arrest or because an arrest is impossible because of certain circumstances such as death, divided by the total number of homicides. Clearance rates also factor in murders solved during a calendar year for incidents that occurred in prior years. 

The clearance rate in Milwaukee fluctuated between 50% and 59% from 2020 to 2023. The year Javon was murdered, in 2023, 59% of 172 murders were cleared. 

Last year, when homicides dropped in the city by 30%, the clearance rate rose to 78%. Unsurprisingly, the clearance rate was lowest during the peak of the COVID pandemic when the number of homicides exploded in Milwaukee. 

Javon’s story

Javon was a fast talker and good kid who excelled at wrestling and other sports in school. He was also extremely bright, graduating from West Allis Central High School with a 3.9 GPA. Offered two college scholarships, he chose instead to attend MATC and pursue his dreams of being a rapper and entrepreneur. 

The day he got shot began like any other. He went to play basketball, came home to shower, and he let his mother know that he was heading out again. 

Then there was a knock at the door, and she learned Javon had been shot and was in the hospital. 

As she arrived, she asked about his condition. 

All the hospital staff would tell her, she said, is that they were waiting for detectives to arrive. 

“I should have realized then that he was already dead,” Wilson said. 

Wilson said her son wasn’t the intended victim but got caught up in someone else’s beef. 

After he died, she said, she called detectives for two weeks straight, even providing the names of potential suspects. 

“It didn’t matter. They called it hearsay,” Wilson said. “I feel like I know who murdered my son.”  

MPD stated that it continues to seek suspects in Javon’s homicide. 

‘There’s no stopping them’

Janice Gorden, who founded the organization Victims of Milwaukee Violence Burial Fund 10 years ago, said it’s common for mothers to conduct their own investigations in their loved one’s murder. 

“Sometimes they have way more information than the detectives do,” she said. 

Sadly, she said, many become consumed with trying to solve the murder themselves. 

“They drive themselves crazy trying to find answers to who killed their loved one,” she said. “I try to help but I can’t. I just listen to people like that because there’s no helping them. There’s no stopping them.” 

Since Javon’s death, Wilson said she’s gone through thousands of emotions, one of them being severe depression. Her mother, who helped raise Javon, her first grandson, is equally devastated. Javon also had a special bond with his little brother Shamus, who’s 8 years old. 

Shamus keeps a large cutout of Javon’s high school graduation photo in his bedroom and even grew out his hair to mimic his brother’s dreadlock hairstyle. Wilson said Shamus has struggled with anger issues since his big brother was killed.

“He doesn’t know how to adjust his emotions,” she said. “It’s been a very downward spiral for all of us.” 

‘I never knew it would happen to me’

Like Wilson, Brenda Hines knows the pain of losing a son to gun violence. 

Her middle child, Donovan, 23, was shot and killed while driving a car near North 29th Street and West Hampton Avenue in 2017. His case also remains unsolved. 

Hines said Donovan was never afraid to travel somewhere new without a plan other than to make it. She said she isn’t sure whether her son was killed in an ongoing dispute over a car or whether it stemmed from a woman. 

“I know there were people at the funeral home and at his vigil who knew,” she said. 

Hines has worked as a Salvation Army chaplain since 2014, heading to crime scenes to help other families deal with tragic incidents such as murders. 

“I never knew it would happen to me,” she said. 

Since Donovan’s death, she’s turned her pain into action, opening the Donovan Hines Foundation of Exuberance to honor her son and to help other families by providing mental health, grief counseling and other support. 

She also hosts an annual vigil to honor homicide victims in Milwaukee, part of a national series of events. Many of the families she’s met along the way are also waiting for justice for their loved one’s murders. 

“It really tears the family apart,” she said. “It’s like an open wound that is still bleeding. The tears flow every day.” 

Hines says she can’t tell families she knows exactly how they feel. 

“Every situation is different. But, I can tell them I understand,” she said. 

Solving murders

James Hutchinson, captain of the Milwaukee Police Department’s Homicide Division, said his team of 33 detectives remains committed to solving a case even as the days grow into years. 

“If someone comes in and says we have info on something that happened five years ago, we’ll take that info and follow up,” he said. “From the first two weeks, to a month, or months or years down the line, we’re equally as committed to solving a murder as we were today.” 

Many families, such as those of Hines’ and Wilson’s, question whether every stone gets turned in an investigation. 

“I don’t know if they did their due diligence,” Wilson said. “I don’t know if they care.” 

Hines, who has worked closely with officers during her time as a chaplain, said she respects the challenges police officers face.   

“They don’t have enough evidence,” she said.

Still, she can’t help but feel that more could have and should be done. 

“I’ve met personally with detectives because they won’t call back,” she said. “It’s a bad process.” 

Though it may not be much solace to the hundreds of families in Milwaukee still hoping for justice, Hutchinson said he and the detectives in his unit take each case personally. They know that the victim’s family and friends are devastated by their loved one’s murder. 

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “Making a death notification is one of the hardest parts of this job.” 

Hutchinson said resources in his department were spread thin when murders exploded in the city during the pandemic, which increased the challenge of building a case. 

The biggest challenge, though, he said, is that witness cooperation isn’t what it used to be. 

“It’s changed for the worse,” Hutchinson said. “There wasn’t a no snitching campaign back then.”

Wilson admits that witnesses to her son’s murder were reluctant to talk to police. She tracked down suspects on her own and offered those names to officers. That wasn’t enough to warrant charges, police told her. She needed her son’s friends to step up. 

“At this point y’all should tell what happened,” she told them. “Somebody needs to be held responsible.” 

How Milwaukee compares nationally

Thomas Hargrove, founder of the Murder Accountability Project, the largest database of unsolved murders in America, said Milwaukee homicide clearance rates are similar to what he saw nationally, especially during the pandemic. 

Many cities have struggled to solve murders since then. Part of the challenge is resources. 

“When you have enough resources, good things happen. When you don’t, bad things happen,” Hargrove said. “When you have over 200 murders, your system is off.” 

He also said it’s also much harder to get a conviction now than it was 20 years ago, which can create friction between the district attorney’s office and local police. 

Although police might make an arrest in a homicide case, that doesn’t mean that charges will be filed. 

Police, Hutchinson said, only need probable cause to make an arrest. The burden of proof at the district attorney’s office, which files homicide charges, is higher. 

“They have to be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said. “Many times we will make an arrest for probable cause, but we can’t get to that level.”

What often happens, Hutchinson said, is that officers will bring a case to the DA’s office or discuss what evidence they have and then have a dialogue about whether more is needed to file charges. 

While that can bring some frustration, admits Hutchinson, it is better than arresting the wrong person. 

“My worst nightmare I would have in the world is to have the wrong person held accountable for a crime,” he said. 

Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern acknowledges that the work to hold someone accountable for murder can be burdensome on families seeking justice. 

“Obviously there is a significant gap between the evidence needed to make an arrest versus the evidence needed to successfully prosecute a case,” Lovern said. 

The reason for caution and continued dialogue with officers in hopes of building a strong case is because there’s no room for error. 

“We really have one opportunity with a particular suspect to bring forward charges, and we want to get it right. Not only for the person charged, but the victim’s family and the integrity of the system,” he said. 

Regardless, said Hargrove, the more murders that remain unsolved, the worse it is for everyone. 

“The more murders you clear, the more murderers you get off the street, the more the murder rate will go down,” he said. 

Trying to move on

As Hines reflects on the ripple effect her son’s murder has had on her family, she does the only thing she can to maintain hope. 

“I have to have the peace of God,” she said. “He has taken care of the situation. I still get angry but I have to let God take control.” 

Meanwhile, Wilson, who still talks to Javon’s friends regularly, visits his grave monthly, and she threw him a huge birthday bash in May.

She wonders whether it’s time to put away some of his photos. Among them are large poster boards filled with pictures that were on display during Javon’s funeral. 

“I have to admit it is kind of depressing,” she said. “But it makes me feel like he’s still here with me.” 

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For more information

Anyone with any information about murders is asked to contact Milwaukee police at (414) 935-7360. If you wish to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at (414) 224-TIPS (8477). 

Hargrove urges families of those whose murders have not been solved to request a formal review under the Homicide Victims’ Families’ Right Act. 

It allows for an individual to request federal agencies conduct a review of a homicide case investigation to determine whether it warrants a reinvestigation. 

‘Nobody’s ever going to be held accountable’: Families of unsolved murder victims in Milwaukee fight to maintain hope  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.