Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

This is the September 17, 2026 regular meeting of the Fire and Police Commission. Present are Commissioners Burgos, Evans, Fung, Ramey, Schneider, World Patterson, and myself, Commissioner Horwitz. We are expecting Commissioner Spence momentarily. Also present is FPC Executive Director Leon Todd. Before we begin, I would like to inform the public that we will first be taking up item nine on the agenda, which is a resolution just to approve a job announcement. It's very short, it's very just doing business, and it'll be maybe five minutes. And we're doing this because we anticipate a long time, long public comment, long information. And we have FPC staff who are waiting to hear this so that they can do their work. Immediately thereafter, we will take up item 10 on the agenda, which is a communication update from the Milwaukee Police Department related to the automatic license plate readers or ALPR cameras. We are going to hear from MPD initially and then hold their item for further action or communication. while we have public comment. We thought that public comment would be more directed and perhaps more meaningful if we hear from the MPD first about what their current state of auditing and et cetera, what they can tell us. So, you know, normally we hear the public comment as our first order of business. We don't wanna put this off and we're sensitive to whether or not you can stay. But we don't think that the initial presentation by the department will be that long. And it's kind of a special circumstance because there's been a lot of information about other cities and other jurisdictions and flock and we need to know what's going on with ours. So.

Can you speak up a little bit, thank you.

Okay, was I heard by everybody else? Could be louder. Okay, thank you. I will do that. Okay, so with that said, Director proceed with the agenda.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We will begin as you mentioned with item nine, FPC 212699, resolution relating to the approval of the police officer job announcement bulletin within the Milwaukee Police Department.

Is there a member of the staff to speak to this?

I believe I can speak to it, and then if there's detailed questions, I don't know. We do have the staff. As you know, we've been engaging in continuous police officer recruitment for some time now. The commission had approved a prior job announcement bulletin for police officer recruitment at the beginning of this year. We would like to modify that process slightly, so instead of having continuous recruitment open all year long and having what is effectively three separate recruitment periods, or at least recruitment time periods that correspond with future police officer classes of three per year, We would like to have three specific recruitment periods per year, each consisting of three months, and then have a month in between where the application period is closed. We believe this will be an improvement in a number of ways. One, it will give the staff some administrative time to reset and prepare for the next recruitment. second it will allow for clear i believe communication with candidates that if you apply within this specific recruitment period you can expect to go into a specific class it'll also have i believe some added benefit of of creating a demand during the periods when the application period is closed. And also I think it'll provide more incentive for candidates to follow through. Right now under continuous recruitment, we are consistently moving people who do not show or fail an exam component automatically to the next recruitment period. And I think that can provide a little bit of a disincentive for people to follow through. This way, people have a clear application period that corresponds with a specific class in the future, and if they don't follow through, they will then have to reapply for the next application period, and our staff that is brilliant tells me that this will be an improvement, and I trust their judgment, and it makes sense to me, so that's why we're presenting this new, I guess, superseding job announcement bulletin.

Okay, thank you. Because I noticed in the file that it wasn't just the same old, same old. Yep. Any questions or comments by commissioners? Okay, do I have a motion?

So moved.

Second. Okay, if no further discussion, I will take a voice vote on this matter. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Director, please proceed with the agenda.

We will now hear item 10, which is on the agenda under new business. It's FPC 212700, communication from the Milwaukee Police Department relating to the department's automated license plate reader or Elper cameras. And we have MPD chief of staff, Heather Huff, who will provide an update from the department on this matter. And Bridget, if you could pull up the department's PowerPoint.

We also have online risk manager James Lewis.

Yes, that is correct. If I can start, I first wanna start with a couple of housekeeping items, and then just really talk through the history of FLOC in the city of Milwaukee, just so everyone has that context, and then talk about our most recent series of changes that were prompted by dialogue with the mayor's office, the FPC, and also the Common Council. And then, open it up to questions. James Lewis is actually on vacation today, so I ask if you have any questions specific to the audits. He really is our in-house expert in that area, and I would just ask that those questions be asked in this first portion before it be opened up to public comment to let him go enjoy himself for the next couple of days. So with that, I'm just gonna begin with housekeeping, and I wish this room wasn't set up the way it is, but I do want to address everybody here in this room today, everybody who has made comments to the FPC in the past about a variety of topics, but today specific to Alper's flock and the Milwaukee Police Department's use. I speak to you to say we're not always in the room, and we acknowledge that, and for myself personally, sometimes it's a matter of the fact that I've gotta drive my 13-year-old someplace, but what I can assure you is that every single FPC meeting when I am logged on, I'm listening to every comment that's made. And I know they're aimed at the Milwaukee Police Department as an institution, but we are an institution of people. And sometimes those comments are painful. Sometimes they make me angry because I disagree with them. And at the end of it all, however, our department is listening because I assure you I am listening, I assure you James is listening, the chief is listening, and the morning after FPC, we all discuss those comments at executive briefing. So I want you to know that those comments do not fall on deaf ears and I tell you sincerely that we are a better department and we appreciate the people coming out and speaking out about different issues because we have to work together to be better. So I thank you for that. uh... sometimes it's easier to say thank you then other days and we're just human right but we are listening uh... and we do hear those comments we do discuss them and we do make decisions based upon your input so i think you for that The second housekeeping thing I have to add is Chief Norman really wanted to do the introduction, but given the agenda shift here, it didn't fit with his schedule. He will be getting on a little bit later and he will be here for public comment and the other portion, but I just wanted to acknowledge that he did want to start this conversation, but he will be at a later point today.

And I'll add that we, sort of at the last minute, informed the department of our desire to move the item up and shift it with public comment, so.

Yeah, it's a last minute thing.

So with that, I'm just going to paint the history of our use of flock in the, or the conversations about flock really in the Milwaukee Police Department because actually our use began far earlier than the conversations. Our very first flock contract began in May of 2022. What I have up here in this introductory slide is an actual flock image. So when we're talking about what the police department sees when we enter in license plates or pull flock data, I did pull this one online, but I can attest, seeing it myself, this is an accurate depiction of the type of image that the Milwaukee Police Department would view when we're utilizing FLOC for investigating cases. We do not have the capacity or the software or the technology to have video images. They are still images just like this. To the left, it is the license plate that will be read. And then I, even though I found it online, I just felt it necessary to block out the license plate on the vehicle. Next slide, please, Bridget. So what I wanted to start with was that history. So as you know, May of 2022 was our first department flock contract. I'm gonna add a couple other key dates here because the department also wants to acknowledge our misuse, our members misuse of the technology. So as everybody in this room is aware, we have had two members criminally charged for their misuse of flock technology. And for the police department's perspective, from the leadership's perspective, anyone who brings harm to others needs to be held accountable, and that includes our very own members. And if they're behaving criminally, then they need to be held accountable criminally as well. And so I assure you, The second, we identified the misuse. We addressed that misuse and we referred those cases to the district attorney's office to be fully investigated to ensure that justice was served in those cases. And we will continue to do that and we will continue to hold people accountable and we will continue to tell the public that we are doing it. even though we do receive a lot of criticism for it and we get it rightfully so, right? Like the trust that we have in the community is based on those relationships we have with the community and members of our own department have really screwed that up. And so for that as a department, we acknowledge it. I think there's one thing that everybody can agree upon in this room is that that can never happen. The problem is we can't prevent bad behavior in humanity, including our own members. What we can tell you and promise you is that we will hold those members accountable and we will tell you when we do. So, I'm gonna first start with a misconduct timeline, and I'm gonna weave it into this. And I crafted this document because I want everyone to have, in one place, any time the department has talked about Alpers, has talked about Flock, all of the links to get those videos and those conversations available to them. so that whatever we have said is available to both this body and to the public in one central, easy, located location with a timeline there. Also, I want to acknowledge the wrongdoing that our members conducted. So December 15th, the first misuse, criminal case of a member, Ayala's misconduct, Josue Ayala was a member of our department, that complaint was received by the department. And this is public information because it was in the criminal complaint. So December 15th of 2025, the Milwaukee Police Department had received the complaint from the victims that the software was used against. In February, February 24th of 2026, the district attorney filed that criminal complaint against Josue Ayala. And so when that occurred, we as a department immediately did a press release and shared that criminal complaint with the public to say this member misuses technology, here's a criminal complaint, and we shared that with our public. So that was happening before this timeline starts. On February 5th of 2026, so right around that same timeline, a few days before the criminal complaint, we got our initial information about our second offender, and that was Mr. Chapman, who was also criminally charged for his misconduct. So on February 5th, we received some preliminary information from an individual and That was not all of the detailed information, but we knew that somehow this member was tracking a victim here in some regard. And so I say this because this was occurring right around the time where we knew we had to have a robust audit. Now as a department, should we have done that from the get-go? Absolutely. But you really don't know what you don't know, and you assume the best of your membership, and you assume what we had in place was working, and what we found out through this first case is that it was not. So to James Lewis' credit as our risk manager, he began working day and night with our OMAP team and Kendra Christiansen, in our OMAP team to develop a robust audit of the use of flock during this time frame. And he did just that. And I'll get to those details in a second. But through that audit, and as we began doing this robust audit, we were able to gather the information about the second offender, Chapman, to show that the way he was tracking this victim was not just limited to, but we could verify he was utilizing the flock to do that tracking. And so what that showed was that our audit was working the way it was supposed to work. So the Chapman complaint was released by the district attorney's office and subsequently released through a press release from us on July 6th, 2026. And that actually kind of goes in this timeline, but I give that to you for the full picture, the good and the bad. so uh... through all this we began having conversations in the city of milwaukee hey what is this week these concerns like these are big concerns uh... and we began having conversations to this body to the common council to the mayor's administration about our use of this technology uh... and What also isn't on this slide, and I apologize, I keep digressing, I'm gonna get to it, I promise, is all of the things that were happening in this nation related to immigration enforcement, which heightened everybody's concerns about law enforcement, about how we are working with federal agencies, about their power, our power, and so that's an added element to the conversation nationwide, but also to the city of Milwaukee. Now I'll get to the timeline. March 12th, 2026, members of the Common Council submitted a formal letter to the FPC. In that letter, there were questions like, what training is provided before anyone is granted access? How is ongoing use supervised in real time and who is responsible for reviewing those searches and access logs? How frequently are audits conducted and how are they triggered? What independent body oversees compliance? What are your discipline policies? How are they enforced? Safeguards to ensure proper use? How is the city ensuring compliance with laws in the Constitution? All of these were valid concerns and I will say from MPD's perspective, all of these concerns were actually internally being addressed through the risk manager in OMAP because we had and shared many of these same concerns with the Common Council. So on that very same day, there was a public safety and health communication file. And public safety and health is a committee of the Common Council. And that communication was from our department relating to its use of cameras, including but not limited to body cameras, automated license plate readers. as well as those provided by Flock Safety. And in that forum, James Lewis, our risk manager, did present information about the audits that we had created internally to hold our members accountable. what we said that and what we will continue to say is there is no audit there's no tool that we can come up with to prevent people from doing bad things including in our department there is no way we can set up here honestly and tell this public nobody's ever gonna mess up again because I can't make that guarantee. But what we can tell you is that we have a tool in place, a very robust audit in place that we stand on and I would say is probably the best audit in place for this flock technology across the nation. And if you are misusing it, We will catch it. And James Lewis did present all of the specifics of that audit to the Public Safety and Health Committee. I encourage people to visit the link that's provided in this PowerPoint that will give all of that detailed information. It gets into what the factors are that are being looked at, how then that's further manually reviewed by the compliance management team to see what's going on and whether or not people were misusing uh... the alpers technology and then so because that letter uh... went to the fpc in march uh... the fpc was in constant conversation with us what are you guys doing because they took that common council inquiry very serious and so we acknowledge that the executive director the fpc staff was in constant communication with our department to talk through like okay, how are you addressing these concerns? What are you doing here? The FPC also shared those concerns. So that prompted a communication file to this body and that was on May 7th of 2026 where we publicly went over in great detail the audits we have created, the guardrails we had put in place at that time, That was, if you recall, just one example of one of the guardrails is we wiped away everybody's ability to access it, and then we requested everybody re-request their access, give a valid reason why that would be reviewed. If they were accepted to have access, they would have to go through extensive training on its use and proper use, and we talk through our auditing process. And so for more details, I would encourage the public to review that presentation. Really good questions were asked. We believed it was all the information that MPD could provide to answer those council inquiries. And we provided that information to the FPC and to the public. Next slide, please, Bridget. Fast forward, there has been a lot of chatter in the state, a lot of chatter nationwide, specific to flock, really, and examples of individuals misusing very egregiously this technology. And with that, the concerns have been growing about the department's use. And on August 25th, members of the Common Council submitted a formal letter to MPD and to FPC requesting a number of things. And that is actually the heart of my presentation, so I'll get into those as soon as this timeline is over. But the interesting thing is when we received that letter, we looked at it and said, well, many of these things, We share those concerns too, yes, and we've already implemented them, or have been in the process of implementing them, and I will go over those specific requests in greater detail after I'm done with this timeline, but there is a little bit more, just a couple more, and this is my last slide. So that was a review of that letter. It was internal conversations. It was conversations with this body to say, well, some of these have been addressed. We're looking into some of these other requests. We want to be thoughtful in our response and thorough and provide them counsel with as much information as they deserve and should have from our department. In addition, we are engaging in conversations with the mayor's office as well, because the mayor shared these very concerns of the council, of the FPC, of our own department, of the community. And so in those conversations, it was, hey, you've got a couple of members that did some really bad things here. And this has... really taken a toll on trust, it has really taken a toll on the department, on the city, all of the things. And what are additional things you can put in place to ensure the appropriate use of this technology? Because an underlying thread through this all is the department really believes it is useful for egregious crimes that occur. We believe that we serve the community that's very, not trusting of it, the community that's adamantly opposed to it. We also serve the victims of really egregious crimes that occur in the city. And oftentimes their voices are the ones that aren't heard. And we want to be able to use tools to apprehend suspects who cause harm to members of our community swiftly. and before they can cause harm to others. And so with that, while we all have these same concerns, MPD stands on the fact that this is a useful law enforcement tool for those purposes. So having conversations with the mayor's office and the mayor's demands that there need to be additional guardrails in place, and these were evening phone calls with the executive director of the Fire and Police Commission. We said, how else can we ensure that the department's not misusing the Alpers technology? And so we said, you know what? reduce even more the universe of who has access to it. Because you can have tighter control when you have less end users of a thing. And before, it was pretty much open to all officers. And then after our first conversations, we restricted it, we limited it, asked for people to reapply. So we cut the universe in about half. But now we said, you know what? let's take it out of the hands of the officers and give that responsibility to supervisors. And then officers, if you got a case and you need to use it, you need to ask a supervisor to run it and you need to tell that supervisor why so there's a level of oversight at that level. And so now, our last count, James, correct me if I'm wrong, we have about 67 users in total and that's a reduction from a universe of, was it over 300, James?

It has ebbed and flowed over time. Hopefully everyone can hear me. But yeah, it's significantly lower than where it was beforehand. We've been around 200 users since we made our first round of changes requiring the agreements and everybody to reapply. That reapplication process made the number sort of ebb over time. So on any particular day, it may be a little different, but that 67 number was accurate as of confirming this slide.

Thank you. Another limitation that was enacted after those discussions with the mayor, we're limiting our use to part one crimes, missing persons, DTO investigations, and that's drug transaction organization investigations. That is a big word for those high-end drug trafficking organizations. and abductions where we know that utilizing the technology to swiftly find a vehicle to keep and prevent harm from occurring was really important. We were using the technology for a number of different things, street takeovers, other types of crimes, but we felt that really limiting its use to those very egregious harmful crimes that caused the most harm to this community was another guardrail that we could implement to reduce that universe and also reduce what we had to audit every month so that we could really dive into what was going on to ensure that it isn't being misused. In addition, for more transparency, we created a public dashboard and that is the link to our public dashboard. It has information about how many times we're utilizing it, some overall statistics about the department's use, and all of those guardrails. Then we shut off the ability of any other agency to, we're not sharing our data with any other agency, including other jurisdictions in Wisconsin. We had previously limited it, to chicago and you know wisconsin jurisdictions uh... sometimes that information oftentimes actually is very helpful to share because people are bound by the boundaries of cities they you know go from here to west alice to walk a char whatever the case may be but we felt in the interest of addressing the concerns of members of our community, we were going to restrict our access to us only. So we alone can only access the data that come from those images that come from our flock cameras. So then September 11th, the chief signed and I'll admit he signed it and then I had already left work. So I didn't send it to the council until September 14th. So that's why it says September 11th dated letter from MPD. to council members that was sent on September 14th, and that letter was in response to that August 25th letter, and that's what I will get into the meat of now, and then James and I will answer any questions, but I wanted to go through our response, and it is in the file, so all of the documents referred to on this slide, are in this evening's communication file. And I encourage the public to take a look, read all of those documents, they're important. Read the council's concerns, they are important. You know, and ask any follow-up questions they might have. But now I just wanted to get into more of the heart of what our response is. And let me just flip through these papers a little bit because I brought a lot of information about FLOC. We want to be as transparent as possible. And with that, I need to pull our response so I can go through that as a reference tool. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, here we go. Okay. So the first request or concern that the council, put in their August letter was they wanted a list of all agencies that shared their Alpers feeds or hot lists with the MPD and those agencies with which MPD shares its hot list and Alper feed. That's a lot of technical words. So I'm gonna talk about what those things are. And actually, James, can you explain what an Alper feed is and what a hot list is?

Yes. So an Alper feed is the reads from a Alper camera that a technology like flock would allow you to view. So those are the types of images that are created. That was that image that was on the first slide of the PowerPoint that we just saw. The feed is really a, a, A access or sharing relationship between law enforcement agencies and so there are agencies who have shared their feed with the, and prior to September 1st, there were feeds or had shared its feeds with other law enforcement agencies. um those were the in-state law enforcement agencies um so that's how you can think of the feeds those are the images from the camera that any law enforcement agency uh maintains a hot list is a list of vehicles these would be plates that are associated with reasonable suspicion or probable cause that crimes have occurred there are several different databases that feed into what is called a hot list. And so what a hot list does is when a helper camera reads a plate, it will cross reference that read of the plate with the maintained hot list in any given department. And if the plate from the read matches the plate in the hot list, it will create an alert for an officer who is logged into a session with the software. And so if the officers are logged in and a hot list hits from an Alper feed, they will get a notification of that the car was flagged, where its location was, and the reason that it is on a hot list. There are several sources of hot lists. Among those are the NCIC, that's the National Crime Information Center. Whenever there is information about a particular plate that's entered into NCIC from a law enforcement agency, for example, a stolen vehicle, will be entered into NCIC and it will create what's called a Bolo that is beyond the lookout. And so what the NCIC hot list does is it feeds the Bolo cars into the maintained hot list and runs that against what Alper cameras are reading from wherever they are posted. Um, the, the list also includes the hits from the National Center for missing and exploited children. Those are better known as amber alerts. Um, and alerts from the Wisconsin Department of justice. Those include some of our statutory Wisconsin specific alerts. If you think of, like, a green alert for a missing critical veteran, or a silver alert for a missing critical. a senior citizen, those are maintained by the Wisconsin Department of Justice and those types of hits will feed into the hot list as well.

So we are not sharing our flock Alpers data with anyone. So if you ask us can Waukesha access our images, nope. Can federal agencies access our images? Nope. Nobody, only Milwaukee can access ours. Now we can't control other jurisdictions and what guidelines they set forth. So can we access other agencies? Yes. And that is because the guidelines, the guardrails that they have implemented are different than ours. So if we type in a license plate, because we're doing an investigation, we will get our results and we may get other jurisdiction results because those jurisdictions have chosen to share their images with other agencies. And so the total jurisdictions is the date of this letter that provide images to our agency, there are 836 different jurisdictions. Again, of those 836 different jurisdictions that share with us, we don't share with any of them. So we make that very clear. We can only set the guidelines for our agency, but these are agencies that do share.

Just to clarify, prior to September 1st, how many jurisdictions or agencies were we sharing with?

We were only sharing with state of Wisconsin agencies. James, do you know what that full list is?

I don't have it offhand, but I can tell you the number that comes to mind was somewhere in the mid-200s, below 250, above 230, just offhand. So those were the individual law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin that we were sharing with.

Okay, thank you. I would probably like a list of those later. Do you know offhand if that included Waukesha?

I would presume yes, it did.

Okay, thank you.

I can say pretty confidently that it did.

Did it include any federal agencies?

Those were Wisconsin jurisdictions only. And the only other agency we had shared with prior to that was Chicago in the iteration before that. So it was Wisconsin and then Chicago, correct James?

Yeah, the relationships have changed over time as we. Looked at this software and started 1st, getting a hold of it. We had limited it to those agencies and then we had that Chicago agreement or a relationship with Chicago. But I do believe it was after the council's 1st letter in March, where we were looking at what the relationships were. and decided at that time that a in-state only sharing mechanism was the most appropriate guardrail at that time. It has evolved since then.

Okay, well, there are federal law enforcement agents operating in Wisconsin. Can you tell me whether or not at any time data has been shared with ICE?

James?

Yeah, I don't know the specifics of what those relationships were when we 1st turned on the cameras. So, when I got involved with it, where after the situation, what the relationships were. where we had Chicago, just Illinois, not Cook County, but just the PD, and we had in-state law enforcement agencies. I do believe at some point that the relationship was larger than that, but I don't know what the full extent of what that relationship was.

Yeah, we can only speak to what we're aware of. but we don't have information from the Biden administration days or since its inception in 2022 readily available.

So I guess just to clarify on that question, that is what is commonly called side door access in which if our jurisdiction is sharing our feed with other jurisdictions that may have 287 agreements or who may otherwise share or provide lookups for immigration enforcement, that's what they call side door lookups.

And we don't share with anybody. So we, if you said today, can you do those side door, can anyone do those side door lookups with Milwaukee's data? No, because the only people that can access it are Milwaukee.

But prior to September 1st, they would have been able to. Correct.

Other Wisconsin jurisdictions, correct. Um, so, um, the next inquiry from the common counselor request was a complete history of all searches conducted by outside agencies using MPD camera data or conducted by MPD officers on behalf of outside agencies. This is an answer that seems like we're hiding things, but it's not. We have policies in place, and those policies dictate who we can and can't share information with. Those policies protect information from being shared with federal agencies or being shared with other law enforcement agencies. This request, our policy prohibits us from sharing this information with anyone unless by subpoena or court order. And so with that, it is certainly a protection of the data to ensure that it is only by subpoena or court order that we can release it, and that unfortunately means we cannot release it to anyone. The next, The next request was a list of all users who have searched the system, including timestamps, stamps, and user information. Again, our SOP 735 prohibits that disclosure to the public, including the Common Council. Our policy states explicitly that data shall not be shared with or provided to any person, entity, or government agency other than a law enforcement agency unless such disclosure is authorized by a subpoena or court order or unless such disclosure is required by the rules of court governing discovery in criminal manners. Now, so I say that to say it sounds like we're trying to hide it but we are bound by our policies and therefore cannot release that information.

Just to clarify, are those just policy restrictions? That's not a legal restriction?

James, do you know what that policy restriction stems from?

I don't know the exact origin of it other than it is part of the history of the SOP since its inception. I believe it was incepted in 2015 but was being drafted in 2014 and has been a part of 735 since its inception.

And we can certainly review with Lieutenant Krausky that history and where it stems from and get that information back to this body.

Okay. Just as a follow-up to that, has the city attorney's office looked at the whole issue of data provided based on subpoena or court order? Is that... Is that part of the change that's brought this into effect?

So this particular provision has been in effect historically. We can certainly look back and see if we can identify if the city attorney's office was consulted when the decision to add it was made. But like James said, we think it's been around for quite a long time and we'll certainly get that information back to this body.

I can see that online Alderwoman Demetrius has her hand up and although I don't want to get into our public discussion now, considering her status with the council and her involvement in those letters that you've just been talking about, I think we can take her question.

Oh, Madam Chair, I truly appreciate that. Commissioner Fung asked part of it regarding the side door sharing. There are many cities and counties throughout the state of Wisconsin that have different agreements and different SOPs governing their sharing with the federal government, especially when it's around immigration. So that was pretty much answered. I will gladly wait my turn right around when public testimony starts because I do have something that I'd like to read in the record. Madam Chair, thank you. Sure, thank you.

Okay, let's move on because we wanna get to public comment.

Yes, I apologize, I'm almost done. So another request was that information about whether the MPD has implemented FLOC's new recommendations for seven-day Alper data retention as well as information on any other safeguard the department has implemented. Yes, we did indeed adopt the recommended seven-day retention period. That retention period is active as of September 1st, 2026, and we have additional guardrails implemented as well. So the first we already discussed, we've limited the access to supervisors only making queries. So no officers, detectives, or non-supervisory civilians have access to make these queries. This restriction was effective on September 1st through a directive from the chief. That directive is a placeholder because we are updating our policy with all of these guardrails that we have implemented and we're going through that process. So right now, we are making tweaks to a draft. In fact, we're gonna include some additional information about how the request to supervisors shall be made for them to run a query in FLOC. and then we're bound by the collective bargaining agreements, and so we will submit those changes to the unions, and they will have 30 days to request a meet and confer. So all of the things I'm talking about right now will be in that updated policy, but right now our members are bound by these rules through directive from the chief. Beyond the restrictions limiting the use to supervision, we have also curtailed the types of queries that can be made. As I stated before, some things like street takeovers or other things that the technology was being used for, it can no longer be used for those purposes. It is limited strictly to Part 1, crimes, abductions, those drug trafficking organizations, and critical missing persons cases. We have prohibited sharing our data with all other agencies, and this reflects our commitment to guarding against misuse by other agencies. One of the issues you brought up was if we have it available to others, we can only guarantee what our department does. We cannot guarantee what other departments do, and this really is a guardrail to prevent that from ever occurring. We have a robust audit and I cannot stress that enough. The work, the dedication of our OMAP team of James to build a meaningful audit and not just looking at numbers and pretending like you're looking at the heart of what really matters and what the concerns are isn't an audit. And what they have built is something that is very extensive, very great review of all of our use on a monthly basis, and I have full faith and confidence that what we have created, what they have created, is really going to be able to identify any misuse on that monthly basis. And then we have drafted those SOP modifications and some of the additional changes that are included are an explicit prohibition on immigration and reproductive health related queries. defining a criminal event to reflect the limited types of crimes for which authorized queries can be made, codifying internal audit being run through the compliance management section with a monthly cadence, codifying the prohibition or sharing access to MPD's Alper network with any other agency, eliminating use cases and procedures that are inconsistent with the changes expressed in this letter. And so, So those are, you know, in a nutshell, many of the different changes. I'm skimming the rest of the information we provided to the council because there is much more. James, do you feel there's any more in here?

There's one. There's 1 point that I want to make clear, and it has to do with data retention versus what is in our transparency portal versus what is in the audit. And so when we talk about a 7 day retention period, that means that the reads from the Alper feeds, which we discussed earlier. So the images from the cameras. those used to be retained for 30 days. They're now retained for seven and then they are deleted forever and they cannot be accessed by MPD or by the vendor after seven days. the 30-day look back on our uh transparency dashboard uses um a 30-day metric of the historical record to demonstrate to the public what is happening um a week long cadence a seven day cadence is um more difficult for the public to identify trends um because one week may be busier than the other and so we have a 30-day cadence about Um, the records that are in the portal, but that kind of dovetails with audit, which is not the images that are being stored, but the actual session information of how many times an officer queries a certain plate. Or a supervisor queries a certain plate, or makes any entry in the system. There's a record of that entry being made. So that we can go back and audit it and that data, which doesn't tell us any of the location of those reads or the information that's in the image we retain. Forever within the open records law, so that we can go back and we can audit what we have historically seen. And if there become issues with officers. um we're not limited to that seven day window of trying to detect misuse that we have um a larger time in order to look at what that session information was so um there's a couple different uh timelines and and things happening here um but the seven days has to deal with like the meat and potatoes of what this alper system gives and uh a member looking at it And then there's this immutable audit trail that exists so that we can do oversight. And so can the, so can our internal affairs division if need be, we have records of that. So that if there's misconduct, we can hold somebody accountable.

And I just wanna close with a couple of comments for this body. So we're having this conversation and we're kind of talking about Flock and Alpers interchanging the terminology. Flock is a brand of Alpers. There are many other brands of Alpers. And so for us as a department, we don't promote We are not beholden to any one vendor of any type of technology. We are supportive of the Alpers technology. What I will say about Flock is we have spent a lot of manpower in creating a mechanism by which we can hold our members accountable to its appropriate use. And we are reviewing that every month. And if we said to you, oh, we're getting rid of FLOC, and then just went to another vendor, it would be insincere, right, to say, like, yep, we agree with you, we're getting rid of FLOC, and then, just go to, say, Axon or Motorola. We have Flock right now. Would we like to keep Flock? Yes, because we have spent a lot of time and energy fixing how we're dealing with this, ensuring it's appropriate use. And if we have to get a new vendor, that means starting that process all over again. That being said, again, we share this with you. We recognize there are concerns. We are listening to those concerns and we are doing our very best to implement what we can to ensure that it's used the right way and to ensure that it's used as a tool for victims of crime.

Okay, well thank you. I think at this point we'll suspend the review of your communication file and take public comment.

I would just ask, and I apologize for the interruption, if there are any questions for James. Again, like I said, James is on vacation. If they could be asked now so that he could be excused.

Anyone have a, any commissioner have a question for James Lewis, who is the risk manager and who is the creator of the audit tool that the department is now using? I will say that the vice chair, Commissioner Fung and myself and the executive director sat down with James and with you and with one of the sergeants who's familiar with the system to walk us through how it's being used and what the issues are and that I was very impressed by that audit. It did pull out outliers so that you could see that in a given month, 30 day period, the use was extraordinary for certain users and what was that about. It also pulls out outliers in terms of the information being put in for the Criminal case number or for the you know in the inquiry so that if it's not a true case number they find that So I I think that was really remarkable. I'll let Commissioner fun to give her impression of the audit Yeah, I

I'm extremely grateful for this flock walkthrough that I think was scheduled for an hour and took three hours and I don't even think that was all of my questions. So I am very grateful to James Lewis and to Heather and to Sergeant Jackson for spending the time with us in order to show us the flock interface as well as the robust audit process. I think I think that the department has come a long way with regards to the audit process in terms of being able to catch, I guess, after the fact specific instances of potential officer misuse. I also want to be respectful of your vacation, and I'm grateful to you for being here. I will try to constrain my audit-related questions. These are things that I think we already discussed, but I just want to have the conversation more publicly. I guess I first want to note that there are probably some things with the dashboard. If you look at other departments dashboards in the state, some other departments dashboards have more information than ours. And so I would note that I think there's an opportunity for increased transparency there with some of the things that are missing. In the interest of time, I won't get into all of those. Because we've had this very high profile incident with what I understand was a human error with a hot list recently, can you speak about how hot list maintenance happens currently and any intention that the department has to change the process moving forward?

Yes, I can. So the The hotlines that we are undertaking right now is, again, limiting who can enter hotlist things into the system to supervision, but really relying on the NCIC alerts, the AMBER alerts, and the DOJ alerts as the core basis for entering hotlist information. hot list information has to be use cases that are consistent with the directive for part one crimes. And so we are purging all of our hot list and starting it anew with just to ensure that if there are any entries in the hot list that don't come from those national databases in the state database, if there were any Any manually created ones that they are purged and that any new creation of a plate on a hot list will have to be consistent with the directive for part 1 crimes. The, the missing criticals and the abduction cases and limited only to that. In addition, we are seeking to do a short retention period for a hot list. So, instead of. Uh, allowing a supervisor to say, I want this to be an indefinite or for a longer period of time, we're limiting the, uh. Each hot list entry will automatically expire after 7 days. We use 7 days because that's consistent with. uh the time that the reads are being made um we think that that's an appropriate number and if it needs to be renewed because an offender is not in custody a new workup for that hot list entry will have to be made We're also instituting a written record. What we want to avoid is ever not knowing why a plate got entered, and that can happen if it is shared just orally between investigators who are working the day-to-day facts of a case and making an oral request to a supervisor who then puts that information in. We are instituting a written requirement for that so that if we ever need to go back to that instance, we know who created it, we know when they made the request, and we know the basis or what we call the workup, like the why, the reasonable suspicion of why it meets the authorized crime use cases in our directive.

Okay, and so in the past, there wasn't necessarily a written record for plates that were on the hot list?

Not in the way of like a workup. So there is a written record in the fact that we know who entered it, and we know when they entered it, and we know what information they entered about it. But because we're going to be relying on investigators relaying the fact-intensive details to supervision, We don't want that to happen in an oral record necessarily. We want some articulation of the basis to be entered.

James, so I just think we're talking about two separate things. So you are talking about the request made to have Exxon plates pulled. We're the Brookfield incident. when the individual, their car was still, there was a FLAC alert and then I believe when Brookfield then double-checked it with NCIC, there was still tagged and flagged in the system that that car was wanted in connection with a crime. And I know these are some of the things you're talking about were things we're implementing on requesting a query be made from supervisors. So first I want to say, even without flock, those officers would have pulled that individual over because it was a flock alert and also in the NCIC system as a wanted vehicle. So if they had seen it on the street, that end result would have been the same with or without flock. So we acknowledge the human error. Some of the things James was talking about was implemented the best thing is the limitation on how long a vehicle stays on that list and requiring our detectives to then re-up it if it's still needed after the seven days. Yeah.

And so, like, if you're going to do a Bolo for a car and put it on the hot list, we're having a written record of that. So that if we go into it, we know. Because we're communicating from investigators to supervisors, we're having that additional step of a documented reason and it being not just. um calling somebody up and telling them something but having that line of communication documented um in the event that we need to go back and look at a case and know why it was entered and when it was entered and what reasons they were articulating at the time that they entered it okay thank you um i definitely want to get to public comment so i can leave my audit related questions at that

Can I just ask a quick question that's associated with this but speaks to the use of overall technology and just want to understand whether or not MPD has set up principles that guide you as you look at various technologies for public safety.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I'm gonna tell you the reality. Some things we can predict are forthcoming in terms of technology. AI was one of them. So AI, coming forward to this body with a policy before we ever required it is the best case scenario of what the department ought to do when we see something on the horizon and how that needs to be introduced to this body, discussed with the community in the best possible way before we get it. Some of these things, as we all know, technology emerges faster than our human understanding of what it is, what it's doing, and it births itself into life. One example, the city clerk in talking about it gave was these iClouds. People started using iClouds to store stuff and then it was happening at the city and then it was like, catch-up game right like what is this thing and oh we better have a policy because like you know this could is not secure and so so for some of the technology that we began using before a policy that's exactly what happened it just or people started seeing these tools that are publicly available to everyone. I'm not gonna bring up those three letters that we've gone through facial technology, but that was one of those technologies that anyone can use and people started using it. I thought like, oh, this is helpful. Then it emerged before we knew about it. Once we knew about it, we're like, oh, we need a policy. Alpers, the concerns weren't there when we first acquired it. uh... in twenty twenty two uh... and those concerns began emerging as technologies emerging in some of the systems are really scary that you can buy additional technology to enhance what we have and other companies are integrating things and it's all happening at the speed of light and so we're playing a lot of catch up in the and in the best case scenario we can anticipate and predict things that are going to happen to prevent the worst case scenario and anything that affects the public's trust in our organization. In these cases, the technology has been advancing faster than we can grasp and so unfortunately, we're doing a lot of catch up and this is necessary, absolutely. Wish it was at the front end, 100%. But really glad we can engage in these conversations and make what we're doing better. So what are our policies? Anticipatory, conversations, setting policies before acquisition is 100% the way to go.

I just think as we look at these emerging technologies, there needs to be a framework which allows MPD, Fire and Police Commission, Alders, to drive conversation with community about where we're going because a lot of what we're seeing is because it seems reactive. And I think we all as a community like to get ahead of that and have the dialogue before we put policy and practice into place.

Yeah, absolutely. We agree. So drones are easy because we have to physically buy a device. And so before we did that, we engaged, we had conversations, we did demonstrations, we talked to the public. That's easy. The things that anyone can access like facial rec anywhere, any member on whatever device were harder to engage in the conversation before it erupted. Then Alpers was in place and we couldn't predict the immigration enforcement throughout the nation. and all of the things that we're trying to now implement guardrails around. So that I say it sounds like an excuse, it is kind of, but it is our reality.

We learn from it.

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay, well we will defer our questions and we will listen to public comment.

As the chair mentioned, we will now hear item number one, public comment. For those who would like to speak and are here in person, please come up and sit at the front table when your name is called. If you are appearing virtually and have registered to speak in advance, please use the raise my hand feature in the webinar tools and unmute yourself when called upon to speak. Each person will be given up to five minutes to speak. I would like to start with Alderwoman Dimitrievich, who is online, given that she is a councilwoman who I believe drafted and at a minimum was a signatory to both of the council's letters to the FPC and the police department regarding this issue. So Alderwoman Dimitrievich, if you would like to unmute your microphone and make your statement to the commission. please do so.

Thank you. Just want to check you go. Can you hear me please?

Yes.

Okay, great. Thank you to everybody. Thank you to the police department. Thank you to the people in that room, the many public who've been here a number of times with the same message. Thank you to the FPC for putting a lot of time into this. Yes, it's true. I have been part of some of the questions being answered or asked, excuse me, and some of the letters, we have limited tools. So I'm glad to see that there was some action taken in the letters. But what I wanna talk about in the responses is what my constituents have been asking and what you see in some of these communications is what we get calls for all the time. And one of the most troubling moments as an elected official is when you actually can't answer the question. And so they're saying to me, Marina, are these taking pictures of me all the time? Are they heat mapping me? Or as Senator Bernie Sanders said, are they watching me when I go to the doctor, when I drop off my kid at school? And they really have no control over the fact that they're being constantly surveilled. While much of this presentation was focused on the wrongdoing and the lack of guardrails in place that allowed members to stalk women, former partners, abuse them, and commit acts of domestic violence, I want to take a step away for that for one second and say why the guardrails have been in place are insufficient. They are correcting the wrongdoers, those that are facing criminal charges, but there's a larger issue. And that's the question of the existential question, the one that we're dealing within the community in the world right now on AI supported mass surveillance. We heard tonight that there, before September 1st, so before the second letter, that networks were being somewhat shared throughout Wisconsin, side door access. A community throughout Wisconsin could have a totally different standard operating procedure when it comes to the federal government. That damage is done. Those pictures are taken. That information was shared. And so that's why the guardrails are insufficient to what the public is demanding. The public that you're looking at in that room that's been there time and time again. And here's the most disturbing part of it. As I went down a pretty large kind of research expedition because people said, Marina, almost every city and county in the state of Wisconsin is canceling these contracts. Can't you just do the same? Come on. And the answer is, it's not that easy here. And that's really unfortunate and disappointing. And so that is why I'm joined, and you'll hear from another colleague of mine tonight via a speaker from his office, that myself, Alderman Frower, and there are many others who are interested in this, are calling for more public accountability in this process. Just at the end, you said, well, nobody cared before. Well, how could we care if the public was never asked? What is the policy on ALPRs coming to the community? And it's not the council trying to insert itself. It's the council being an important core part, legislative oversight of a democratic process. When I can't answer questions, it means my constituents aren't getting what they deserve. And so that is why we do have limited authority here. It came a few months ago and I symbolically opposed it at the finance committee, but I actually didn't even have a vote on it. So that has to change. The council, at least between me and Alderman Brower, will be announcing a charter change so that any future ALPR and that contract cannot be a sole source contract. And it needs to come in front of the common council, which is the people of the city of Milwaukee. Number two, if this is funded in the future in the 2027 budget, which is, I'm going to get to my conclusion, Madam Chair, I and Alderman Brower, and there will be others that can speak for themselves, and I can tell you there's others, we'll delete the funding in the 2027 budget that goes to fund any of these ALPRs until there is a public process. So that is what we are moving forward with. We have limited control. And I guess my last question is for the police department, who controls the contract? Are you willing to cancel it? Are you willing to not renew it or at least pause it so we can get some of these questions answered in the AI powered mass surveillance of all of our citizens, people who are being heat mapped Like Bernie Sanders said, going to the doctor, going to school, Flock, Axon, any of these mass surveillance corporations, they know about it and it's being shared. And that's why many other governments canceled it. Why can't we? I'm calling for the cancellation today and I am putting forth the legislative tools while they're limited of what I have to make sure that happens in the future. So please, Madam Chair, can I have my question answered, which is, What will the police department do in the 2027 budget? And would they consider, since they retain most of the control over this contract, it isn't within the Common Council, consider our request. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And following public comment, we are hoping to hear again from the department and additional questions and comments from the commissioners. We will now proceed with public comment for community members who are here in person, starting with Amanda Merkway. Good evening.

Good evening.

I don't know. Is this one on?

Okay, cool. My name is Amanda Merkway, and I'm the Policy and Advocacy Director for the ACLU of Wisconsin. Right before the last FPC meeting, news broke about Sheboygan, where flock safety tried to sell traffic data, including driving speeds and movement patterns to the city of Sheboygan that had been captured by Sheboygan's own flock cameras, unbeknownst to them. Yesterday, the city of Boston ended its use of Flock after the Boston Police Department discovered that a Flock data-sharing function had been enabled, despite a clear contractual agreement prohibiting its use. At an Oshkosh City Council meeting in April, a Flock executive denied that their Alper system could create heat maps of a vehicle's movements, leading the council to approve a contract that night, only to discover the next morning that Flock had lied. This reflects a broader pattern of Flock treating legitimate operational concerns as PR problems. In Colorado, Flock assured Loveland's police chief and the public that federal agencies were not accessing local data because the company had no federal contracts. After evidence proved otherwise, Flock admitted to an active pilot with contracts with CBP and DHS, chalking up the misinformation to poor communication. Let's talk about Milwaukee under flocks master service agreement with the city of Milwaukee and the legislative file from a June 18th, 2025 finance and personnel committee meeting Milwaukee quote grants flock a non-exclusive irrevocable worldwide royalty free license to use the customer generated data for the purpose of providing flock services. Milwaukee needs to end its contract with Flock. We'd be joining a lot of other Wisconsin jurisdictions and ending a relationship with Flock, including Appleton, Ashland, Chautauqua, Dane County, De Pere, Fitchburg, Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac County, Fox Crossing, Grand Chute, Kenosha, Kaukauna, Lake Mills, UW-Madison Police, McFarland, Marinette, Menasha, UW-Milwaukee, Monona, Neenah, North Fond du Lac, Oconomowoc, Oshkosh, UW-Oshkosh Police, Racine, Racine County, Ripon, Sheboygan, Stevens Point, Stoughton, Sturgeon Bay, Sun Prairie, Verona, Waukesha, Wapaka County, Waupon, MPD has clearly expended significant resources in building out this new audit process geared towards minimizing the risks of officer misuse of ALPR systems, which is obviously a problem if you have an internal affairs detective who is responsible for investigating a different officer's flock misuse, also criminally charged with alleged misuse of flock, But what the audit does not address are the host of other profound risks that are created by this immensely powerful AI-powered warrantless dragnet surveillance technology. As I've said before, the LAPD let their Flock contract expire after an audit revealed that over just a two-month period, the LAPD investigated 161 car owners whose vehicles were wrongly identified as stolen by the Flock system. A study of close to 1,500 Flock camera reports in Roseville, California found that the cameras failed to properly detect license plates 71% of the time. Have we audited the total number of instances of plate misreads or erroneous inclusion on NCIC's hot lists that leads to people getting wrongfully identified in Milwaukee? Let's talk about this transparency portal that MPD has put up, which I believe has been a feature that FLOC has offered for years that MPD just never published. Real transparency is essential for democratic accountability. Transparency theater, on the other hand, is antithetical to democracy. There's a number on Milwaukee's portal that is conspicuously missing that other jurisdictions include. The transparency portal for Green Bay Police, for example, lists the number of vehicles detected over the last 30 days. For the last 30 days in Green Bay, that number is 457,572 vehicles detected by their 46 cameras. If you're trying to argue that Flock is not a mass surveillance technology masquerading as automated license plate readers, you maybe wouldn't want the public to see that number. How many vehicles were detected by MPD's 38 flock cameras in the last 30 days? How many images of vehicles and plates of people driving to work, to church, to events, to medical appointments, to a protest in Milwaukee have been collected by this multi-billion dollar company for AI-powered searches and predictive analytics in the last 30 days? A million? Two million? Five million? We don't know, because it's not on the portal. What specific agencies used to have access to MPD data? Was nationwide sharing ever on? Did Wisconsin agencies that collaborate with ICE have access? Are we supposed to not care about accountability for the past now that MPD says it's not sharing anymore? It sounds familiar. Don't forget MPD borrowed facial recognition technology from neighboring jurisdictions for years without a policy in place and without the FPC even knowing. Once MPD, thankfully, issued a moratorium on the use of FRT back in February, we're supposed to just ignore the fact that FRT was used in all of those cases for years, sometimes not even being disclosed in discovery. We want transparency, not transparency theater. We want democracy, not democracy theater. End the contract. Thank you.

Nicholas X. Doherty.

Good evening. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Nicholas X. Dory and I serve as the Confirmed Mass Incarceration Coordinator at the Milwaukee Turners. After the presentation, it seems very clear that guardrails don't and won't work. It's clear to me that they don't understand the technologies that they are buying and they buy it without policies or oversight to use it on the public. So I find it extremely concerning that we are still addressing the issue of flock cameras in Milwaukee when police departments across the nation are canceling contracts or banning flock cameras. By no means am I partisan to Democrat or Republican, but both agree that this technology is bad for our society. At this point, it seems certain aspects of Milwaukee leadership are deliberately neglecting the wants and needs of Milwaukee residents. Milwaukee has a long history of being hostile towards marginalized communities in Milwaukee and now is the opportunity to do something different. To just ignore the public will only produce more hopelessness and instability in a city where a large majority are in fact hopeless and have no confidence in local leaders or government. Flock representatives have deliberately lied to city councils and police departments in Wisconsin and across the country One example is Oshkosh, where they lied to city officials about heat mapping. Oshkosh immediately stopped using Flock, but Milwaukee wants to keep it. Flock has shown itself to be untrustworthy, yet we still have to convince the police and local leaders to stop using a company that has been caught lying across the country. It's disgusting. Also, in recent history, Milwaukee police misled the public about facial recognition technology. They told the public... The public, they were being transparent, but the reality was they had already been using it for years with no policy or guardrails, and they had to say something to keep using it. They also found a sneaky loophole to build and expand the surveillance infrastructure behind our backs. So why do they expect us to trust these so-called guardrails when we can't trust Flock or the police because we'll know they're a lie or mislead the public? Why are they self-helping or using technology for control? Is it because they feel the need to surveil a majority non-white city? Do aspects of leadership in law enforcement believe that there is a presumption of guilt for black and brown people, so they have to be surveilled and controlled, as was codified in law in the inception of this country? I mean, this is the kind of surveillance you see in active war zones. I can't stress that point enough, especially as people across the country are being terrorized by law enforcement. There is a long history of government being at war with non-white populations both domestically and overseas. At what point does it stop? Do they see Milwaukee residents as potential enemy combatants? And this surveillance is being used on white communities and they're not happy about it either. So this even cuts across race lines. Why is there a need to control instead of meet needs? People need housing, food, healthcare, and transportation. These are human needs that should be human rights. But we are here trying to convince Parts of Milwaukee leadership to stop spying on the people they're supposed to protect and defend. The level of surveillance these cameras capture is crazy. It's much deeper than most people think. I read a Wired article this morning and it turns out they are tracking commercial data. and even people riding bikes. It's not confined to license plates. I'm really interested in understanding the psychology of Milwaukee leadership. What makes them think this is okay? How do they view themselves? Do they even see themselves as representatives of the people, or do they see themselves as representatives of corporations, foreign interests, and law enforcement? We are not asking for anything unreasonable. We are asking for privacy, liberty, and trustworthy leadership. Leadership that defends and represents the people. Please do the right thing and fight to end the contracts with all automated license plate reading technologies and vendors. Thank you for listening.

I would like to thank Marina, too. Auditor in the green.

Alex Larson.

Good evening

Good evening, members of the FPC. First, I want to thank you all for continuing to be the public-facing outlet for our community to have these discussions. Tonight, it's about flock, but about police practices in general. But I also want to acknowledge the actual decision-makers behind whether we have this contract or not. As the Alderwoman pointed out, it's the Common Council, but it's also housed in MPD's budget. I want to note something that was in the... slideshow from MPD back on May 7th when the question was asked, what is the specific training that's given to people before they're granted access to ALPR or similar technology? And the answer in that slideshow was a fusion division training video. with a captain from the Fusion Division. This is the same Fusion Division which in partnership with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Homeland Security, and other local agencies across eight counties in southeastern Wisconsin comprise the Southeastern Threat Analysis Center known as STAC or the Fusion Center. These local and federal partnerships exist within MPD The training comes from the Fusion Division itself and yet we're supposed to believe that this information collected by these surveillance technologies can be firewalled to just locally MPD. I find that claim to be questionable because like was stated in the September 11th letter from Chief Norman to the Alder people that these records of who had access to the system and what were the searches that are in the system you know, those are gonna be hidden behind court order until you get the court order and have MPD hand over that information. Speaking of Homeland Security, I also want to talk about the federal response to the ice out mask ban ordinance that was proposed and the letter that was written to the mayor and the city attorney in July from the Department of Justice, where the Department of Justice plainly laid out that they will utilize the supremacy clause to override any semblance of local control as they see fit. So again, I ask, how can our data that's being collected by these surveillance systems be firewalled against federal agencies when the federal agencies say, oh, you're going to come up with these regulations? Well, we're going to wipe our ass with these regulations and do whatever we want anyways. There's also a broader undercurrent to all of this that I think we need to talk about and be cognizant of. And that is something called the Major Cities Chiefs Association or MCCA. And I pulled this from the website, so I'm just gonna read it verbatim. The MCCA is a professional organization of police executives representing the largest cities in United States of Canada. The MCCA provides a unique forum for urban chiefs, sheriffs, and other law enforcement executives to share ideas, experiences, and strategies. MCCA provides a collaborative forum for the advancement of public safety through innovation, research, policy development, government engagement, community outreach, and leadership development. Currently, there are 76 member agencies from pretty much every major metropolitan area in the United States of Canada. Y'all know who the board president of that organization is? It's Chief Norman. Now why is this important? I want us all to realize that these surveillance discussions, these robust discussions that we have as a community, don't just stay in this room and they impact and ripple out nationally because of things like Chief Norman being the board president of that organization. At a time when we have a federal government that is openly hostile to First and Fourth Amendment rights, it is of the utmost importance that we as citizens ensure our rights to privacy from all these mass surveillance apparatuses. So I encourage everyone here tonight to contact your elders, tell them that the FLOC contract must be ended, and that we as a community should all be able to deeply examine not just FLOC, but all of the surveillance technology that MPD currently or in the future plans to deploy. Thank you all for your time.

Thank you. Emilio DeTore. Good evening.

Good evening. Good evening, members of the Fire and Police Commission, Director Todd, I'm Emilio DeTore with the Milwaukee Turners. We learned a lot this evening so far, and I'm gonna take a step back and focus a little on the bigger picture. As everybody knows, flock safety is a mass surveillance system that was only just created in 2017. And although local law enforcement can generally see the license plates, it uses AI-powered software to record and store video and images on cameras for about 30 days, depending on what model camera is used. Flock has been accused of keeping and selling all the data they record because regardless of what the police can access, there is more to access that is valuable. This caused the Racine County Sheriff to cancel their Flock contract last week because that was not what he and the people of Racine had agreed to when they found out it was being sold and traded. The city of Milwaukee has about 38 flock cameras with an additional 80 automatic license plate readers mounted on police cars. Excluding those, there are almost an additional 300 flock cameras within 10 miles of downtown Milwaukee run by different municipalities. They have many other surveillance cameras in their arsenal that are not flock, thousands. We oppose this technology being used against us. We just learned that MPD has ostensibly been sharing flock with all of the counties and 412 police units in the state and the federal government. How many of them have 287G agreements that resulted in the surge we had in June where they were picking up mostly immigrants in vehicular stops? Engineers, privacy advocates, and hackers have shown how easy it is to access data on the Flock cameras, identify people, vehicles, and even the phone screens of people who walk or drive by. Our MPD officers have abused the system, especially former officer Josue Ayala, who used Flock to stalk his love interest 179 times, and the IAD detective in charge of investigating this, Detective Chapman, who was also stalking women. It has been used to track women falsely accused of seeking reproductive health services. Flock has lied publicly about its success and usage. Flock creates manuals and uses high-power lobbyists to influence police and city officials to buy their products and believe their version of events. Flock cameras have been shown to have a gross inaccuracy rate by multiple police departments across the nation. Flock CEO Garrett Langley has accused people critical of Flock of being domestic terrorists. Flock has been found to be accessed by police all over the nation. One example in Syracuse, where flock was accessed for ICE and immigration-related issues over 2,000 times in one year, contrary to what the Syracuse police believed was happening. This caused them to get rid of their cameras. There is little to no civilian oversight of flock camera usage, data retention, or intra-agency sharing. And current interfaces, as you heard, tell us very little. Hackers have recently removed flock cameras from polls showing how easily they can access all the footage and data contained on it, weeks worth of video, millions of photos from one camera. We do not believe that Milwaukee residents should be forced under constant video surveillance without a warrant or suspicion of guilt. This type of technology has often been exploited and used to punish citizens of other nations contemporaneously, Russia, China, and Israel. Police have many tools at their disposal to prevent and or solve crimes. This is unnecessary overkill, especially when they are asking for about $345 million in the upcoming city budget. Flock photos have been shared with insurance companies to help deny claims. I was sent photographs of these from July 2026 today to verify. They will be filing complaints with the FPC. Flock photos have been MPD neglecting to remove incorrectly entered plates resulted in Amber Newell being stopped at gunpoint in Brookfield with three children in the car and also by MPD at a different date. And Sheriff's deputies and Walker Shaw used flock over 100 times as we heard the last meeting on Napoleon Jones because he filed a complaint against one of their deputies. The bottom line is that technology like Flock and Axon are incremental technologies which lead to the purchase and integration of bigger and more invasive technologies like facial recognition technology, the three letter word, Bluetooth tracking, phone monitors, and social media monitors. At this rate, everywhere we go and everything we say will be tracked, analyzed, commodified, and perhaps held against us if not sold. The Milwaukee Turners will continue to fight this. The way these technologies have been purchased and deployed by the police department has been far less than transparent, with their exclusions to public vetting, council votes, sole source contracts, and secret deployment and sharing practices. We saw that also with the Stingray phone trackers and FRT. Alpers are only one thing in a series of unfortunate events. Certainly, the companies and federal government have been less than forthcoming about what they do with that massive amount of aggregated data about our lives, regardless of what they lead the police or local government to believe. They forced the police to sign non-disclosure agreements, blocking its use and oversight intentionally. As a result, communities all across the nation are rejecting these contracts, these AI-powered technologies. It's not about user portals that display limited information and usage. It's a much bigger and more dangerous issue. We need you, Fire and Police Commission, to tell the mayor, the police, and the Common Council to do the right thing and protect the people of Milwaukee before it is too late. Thank you.

Connor Gross Nikki. Nickel apologies. Good evening.

Good evening, commissioners. I'm Connor Grosnickle. I am a citizen here in Milwaukee and a member of Leaders Igniting Transformation. My background was in engineering prior to working with the organization, and I wanted to talk more about the science of the system and the aforementioned accuracy or lack thereof of the systems mentioned in SOP 735. But before we do that, I wanted to take the opportunity, since the police department was able to present before to address some of the things said from the public side, One of the quotes was we cannot create or implement any tool to ensure no one messes up. We will catch you. It feels like if the police officers don't need an AI regulated system that could catch them immediately upon identifying the three plus, I know there's the audit guard rails in the presentation, but like the three plus attempts at getting to the same person, somebody as a citizen also shouldn't have that put onto them. Sorry. Additionally, as already mentioned, the dashboard is not independent. It's managed on the flock page, a private entity whose main goal is public goodwill for profit. The current things that are on there, number of searches and offense types of which the offense types currently listed are just other and city planning or traffic analysis. which I would ask what the importance of that to the police department is and that what should be included is anything that is audited by the police department or the FPC as laid out by Mayor Johnson. Finally, I would ask for the police department to review their contract to confirm whether or not FLOC can utilize data however they would like, even if MPD decides not to release it to other organizations. See example from Boston that was just cited. And I do want to agree with the chief of staff that technology evolves faster than we can comprehend it. And so I feel like we should stop using it until we can. But diving into the actual ALPR systems, and more specifically, what they use is called the optical character recognition system. What I found was exactly what keeps coming up. There is a lack of clarity in any study on the accuracy of the cameras or the function itself. Because of this, all of the specifics that were given by MPD and Mayor Johnson regarding the policies are still not enough for it. And these studies are coming not just even from the USA, but across the globe as they try and implement this with new languages and new license plates as well. The City Journal cites studies of departments across the US mishandling data retention systems. In Missouri, 85% of searches in their systems were explained using just one word, and less than 3% were actually tied to any criminal case. In addition, the accuracy of these systems has so far fluctuated from 99 to 25% based on any set of conditions that the camera was put in. And some of the things that can impact it are damaged lettering, shade or differences in lighting, and the inclusion of additional imagery on the scan surface, which I don't know if you've driven around Milwaukee or seen license plates, they're usually, or can be damaged, they're driving under trees, and there are the images of dairy land on many of the Wisconsin license plates. We still are so unsure of the quality of return of any of these systems to improve communities. Even in the city journal, they were pivoting to say that it had to be beneficial, but stated in the article that that correlated also with the change of policy of the department itself to look further into car thefts. So the police might've just been doing a better job at tracking car thefts and it might not have been due to the system at all. We've already seen automated systems such as ShotSpotter and FRT result in large lawsuits for the city of Milwaukee based on a lack of accuracy and faulty assumptions. I continue to ask if violating privacy, increased public tax dollars, and compromising the well-being of us is worth the potential small bump in arrests. Finally, in regards to demands, I would like to just end the contract, but for now, the things that we can change or recommend changing, regarding FPC 212700, Mayor Johnson's statement, I would like to better define who and what positions actually qualify as a supervisor who may obtain ALPR records. Next, in that same letter, defining what must be included in any public-facing dashboard from MPD and audit from the FPC. In addition, defining clear timelines and accountability measures for both organizations should these standards not be met. In regards to 735, and more specifically 735.05, defining how and why a person is added to a BOLO list, defining what qualifies as an acceptable partial license plate capture, defining what qualifies as a quality photo, defining what qualifies as a match, including the defined accuracy needed because the cameras do give you an estimate of that, in regards to 730, I believe it's 735.15 C3, define what qualifies as an articulable documented law enforcement purpose, including adding defined word criteria to prevent single word or ambiguous reasoning for obtaining the data.

You are at time, so if you could briefly conclude.

Yes, I can. Echoing to define the training course, and then finally, I want to point to 735.05, where once again, it's stated that we're relying on machine technology to tell us whether or not a crime might happen rather than using the data that's been consistently brought about from professionals in this field that show that communities without resources are not going to prosper, and it would be much more beneficial to prevent crime by getting in those communities ahead of time. Thank you.

Tiamat Devine. Good evening.

Grand night. All right. Peace. I am here today not simply to oppose flock, but to speak about something deeper. Balance, justice, and the responsibility we have to one another as human beings. In the ancient principle of mayat, justice is not merely punishment. Mayat represents truth, balance, harmony, order, righteousness, and right relationship. When we create systems that give institutions greater power to monitor, track, categorize, and control people, we must ask whether those systems are restoring balance or creating greater imbalance. Flock and automatic license plate readers represent a tremendous technological capability, but capability is not the same thing as wisdom, and technology should never become a substitute for human conscience. We are told that these systems are about accountability and public safety, but accountability cannot mean placing an entire population under technological observation in order to identify a few people who may commit crimes. Public safety must include the innocent. We have already seen how technological systems can produce consequences for innocent people when information is wrong, incomplete, or misinterpreted. When a person can be stopped, investigated, or treated as suspicious because a technological system generated an alert, we have to ask who is accountable when the technology is wrong. My message to the people is this. We have to stop seeking justice exclusively from systems that may themselves be participating in the imbalance we are asking them to correct. The people have the ability to create something different. We can create systems rooted in love instead of fear, wisdom instead of technological dependence, relationship instead of surveillance, and accountability instead of control. Those who operate from fear may believe that more surveillance creates more safety. But those who operate from wisdom must ask whether more surveillance creates more freedom more trust and more justice. And there's another institution that plays a significant role in this process, the media. The media has the power to influence how people perceive what happened before they ever investigate the facts for themselves. At the last FPC meeting, I exercised my voice and objected when I was interrupted while delivering my public statement. CBS 58 later described that moment at times combative. I reject the distortion of that moment. There's a difference between being combative and being determined to finish speaking when you believe your voice is being restricted. The press has freedom of press. The people have freedom of speech. Neither should be used to distort the meaning of the other. When media coverage reduces a person's exercise of speech to a label, it can alter the public's perception without giving the public the full context. So I ask this commission and the people watching, are we creating from love or from fear? are recreating systems that recognize the humanity of the people or systems that increasingly treat people as data. Are we creating balance or are we creating imbalance? Are we creating balance or are we expanding the imbalance? And when technology gives us the ability to do something, are we asking whether we actually should? MIOT teaches us that justice requires balance. If we want a safer Milwaukee, let us build safety upon truth, dignity, wisdom, human connection, accountability, and trust. The people do not need to be watched more. The people need to be heard more. Thank you.

Timothy Schaffer.

Good evening, everybody. Good evening. Thank you, Executive Director Todd and commissioners. So I'm Tim Schafer. I work for Representative Ryan Clancy, who could not be here tonight. But I did want to share something before I share his specific testimony, which is a document that was, I believe, uncovered by 404 Media. It's an internal flock document called How to Speak to City Councils About Public Safety Technology. I think the camera's over there. I don't know if they can see it this way, or no, this way. Here we go.

There we go.

Yes.

So I think there's a lot of revealing stuff in this document, and I would recommend everybody read it who's here. But I think a quote that I want to highlight is from Jamie Hudson, real-time strategist from looks like the Division of Product Consulting and Training at Flock. The quote is, don't avoid the concept of mass surveillance because you're not going to convince opponents that it's not. Which to me, I mean, there may be more charitable interpretations. I think that is a admission that this is a part of a broader mass surveillance system. And I want us all to be at least honest with ourselves about that tonight. So I wanted to highlight that and just recommend folks read that document if they haven't already. With that, I want to share Rep Clancy's testimony for tonight. And I'll be mindful of time. I am profoundly concerned at the continued rise of mass surveillance and the almost total absence of law enforcement accountability in Wisconsin. The fraught collaboration between the Milwaukee Police Department and Flock Group Inc. doing business as flock safety should end as soon as possible. The new proposed contract conditions are not even that, but guidelines and a half measure likely to have little to no impact in practice. They instead provide permission. This is permission for this fundamentally harmful technology, and it will likely make it a permanent feature of law enforcement in the Milwaukee area if we do not stop it as soon as possible. Instead, we join the public's clear demand to end MPD's contract with FLOC entirely, but I also want to speak to a point raised earlier, which is that Flock, Stingray, and ShotSpotter are all brand names, and we need to be honest about the technology that underlies them. Not just the technology under discussion tonight, but cell tower simulators, and also auditory data processing, which is what ShotSpotter allegedly does well. and these names disguise the profound dangers posed by these technologies. This is not specific to the brands that are under discussion, so I want to be clear about that. Also, as others have said, because of the way the state system works, so long as Milwaukee law enforcement has any access to this technology or to the reams of private data that it requires to function, it will continue to be misused. Passwords will be shared between officers and departments. People and vehicles will be tracked because this technology does track both vehicles and people, let's be clear. People will be stalked and harassed without oversight. Law enforcement officers will continue sharing people's private data with ICE so long as they have access to the data under discussion tonight. These guidelines discourage that. They don't prevent them from doing so. What's proposed today is more self-reporting and self-regulation, not accountability. We must fully separate Wisconsin law enforcement from unsecure, overpowered technology that can be used to stalk people and ruin innocent lives. We need an FPC, too, that's empowered and willing to enforce that separation and that rejects breakable promises as false solutions. Please show that you fit that description and treat the city's proposed guidelines and MPD's proposed guidelines as the half measures they really are. In any case, we know state legislative action is still needed to slow the spread of mass surveillance in Wisconsin. We will continue pushing to restore and strengthen the power stripped away from this body by Act 12. Last session, our office authored and circulated AB 576, which bans flock cameras and similar technology, and the abuse of privately owned cameras statewide. This coming session, I look forward to making enforceable, effective policies a permanent feature of Wisconsin law. Until then, we should immediately bag Milwaukee's flock cameras, then end any and all contracts with flock, signaling the city's support for cooperative statewide action against mass surveillance. Thank you all for your service and dedication to Milwaukee's public safety. Thanks, everyone, for coming tonight.

Thank you. Thank you.

Next is Eric Jensen.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I am a volunteer. My name is Eric Jensen. I'm a volunteer neighborhood leader with Alderman Alex Brower's office. The alderman couldn't be here tonight, but he presented me with a short statement he wanted me to read. So I'll do that right now. It's time for FLOC and automatic license plate readers to go here in Milwaukee. I'm calling on MPD to cancel any and all contracts with FLOC. I will use every legislative tool I have to stop the city of Milwaukee from using FLOC or any other ALPR. Thank you.

Elise Che.

Okay. She wrote a lot.

Amaya Ibanez. How bad did I do with my pronunciation? Not horrible. Okay.

Amaya Ibanez.

Okay, thank you.

First, let me just say I'm not a good public speaker. Everyone up here tonight has done an amazing job so far, so please be patient with me. Good evening, commissioners, police officers. Thank you for all your hard work. My name is Amaya Ibanez-Baldor. I was born and raised here in Milwaukee County. I went to Marquette University, lived on Brady Street, and now live downtown. I plan on raising my kids here, retiring here, and I'd be privileged to die right here in Milwaukee. This is my home. But honestly, recently, I haven't felt safe. That's a real cost to me. That's a real cost to me. For gone nights out, for gone spending time downtown, for gone the connection to the city I really love. Part of that why is because I was hit in a car. I was hit by a car in a hit and run. The driver was never found, but he didn't have a license plate. I know that lady earlier tonight, forgive me, I forgot your name, mentioned that this wouldn't be used for traffic-related incidences. But once the cameras are in place, all that can change. I'm also a civil designer working towards my professional engineering license, and I want to make a point from that angle. When people talk about tools like Flock, the pitch is usually about catching someone after something has already happened, after someone is hurt. But I want to implement something better, something to stop these things from happening in the first place. That's a design problem, not solely a surveillance problem. Something that can be done in the first place is narrow traffic lanes, slower design speeds, physical separation between cars and vulnerable road users. These are interventions that can actually prevent the kind of reckless driving that leads to a lot of hit and runs in Milwaukee. A camera cannot stop a crash, it can only document one after someone's already hurt. And in my case, it wouldn't have done that. That's the difference I want the commission to sit with tonight. Flock is a tool for responding after harm happens, but it has real limits. And that's true beyond traffic safety too. We've already heard the ethical dilemmas play out with lock in the city, officers investigated and charged for misusing the technology and questions still not clearly answered about who the data is completely shared with and when. These are not hypothetical harms, these are already happened and this isn't not just a Milwaukee specific risk. I urge everyone in the room to look into what network surveillance infrastructure has enabled elsewhere. Most notably, the tracking and detention of the Uyghur population used by the authoritarian regime of Xinjiang China, which did not happen through one dramatic decision, but through years of normalized, incremental data collection that outlived its original state of purpose, the same state of purpose that brings us all here today. As someone training in civil design, I know there's an entire field of infrastructure specifically built to reduce crime and improve safety without collecting a single piece of data on any Milwaukee citizen. Crime prevention through environmental design, better lighting, clear sight lines, eliminating blind corners and dead zones, complete street treatments. All these things and physical barricades manage closures during peak hours, the same tools that the city of Milwaukee already uses for all of our beloved festivals and all of our marathons. I urge you, why can't we use these downtown? The city does not need to invent a solution. Water Street's already doing complete street redesigns, but more needs to be done and more needs to be invested. These types of infrastructures and the physical presence of all the police officers need to be expanded, accelerated, and funded at a level this problem actually demands. Not treat it as a slow, isolated pilot while the city simultaneously pours money into a surveillance contract that can't prevent a single crime in the first place. If the city of Milwaukee wants Milwaukee to be safer, if the residents want the city to be safer, I urge you, invest in design, invest in the staffing that gets us there without the ethical dilemmas we've heard tonight. I urge you, this is my home, this is our home, this is not flock's territory. If I have any time remaining, I want to mention a word that I've learned. Transhumanism is an entire study of the technology advancement with human advancement. There are people that study this. There are people that can predict and know what can go wrong. The lady at the beginning of the night was wrong. ICE was preventable. This can be preventable. There are so many people out there that are studying this. I am not one of those people, but reach out to them. They know all the harm that could actually come from this. Thank you for your time.

I'll just add that you're a much better public speaker than you give yourself credit for. Angela Lang.

Good evening.

Good evening, commissioners. First of all, Angela Lang, she, her pronouns, co-executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities. I have been at several meetings and used some colorful language in the last one, and I will do my best to not do that this time. First of all, I want to say that if folks haven't had a chance to check out Emilio DeTore from the Milwaukee Turners did write an op-ed in the Shepherd Express about flock cameras. I believe it was yesterday or today, what is time. And if you haven't had a chance to read that, I would highly encourage you to do so. I will also say at the last meeting, There was a lot of colorful language and people that felt very strongly about this. It's not lost on me that the next day, places like Racine immediately canceled their flock camera, almost like they were watching us and said, hey, we're not going to do that. Specifically, the sheriff said that flock, quote, failed the public. That was immediately after the last testimony. It is embarrassing that it's almost like people saw our multiple hour long testimony in other counties and said, we don't want to do that. But yet our own mayor, our own chief is silence. It is embarrassing. And y'all have heard so many people run down the list of counties and cities that have banned flock. And for whatever reason, Milwaukee continues to be behind. And that is embarrassing. Absolutely. Respectfully. Um, and I, I say this respectfully, um, to the chief of staffs, um, the, the police chief of staffs, um, presentation earlier when she said, um, we can't guarantee the, that they won't misuse it. I do not trust quite frankly, the chief of staff of the police department. If you yourself are, can say we can't guarantee they won't misuse it, then don't use it. But I will say, what I will say is one thing I will agree with her on is that she said it undermined public trust, and I agree. She also went on to talk about how limiting access made things better. But limiting access to who has it means nothing if the whole department cannot be trusted. And so you've heard people that are a lot more articulate in numbers. I'm a words person. I'm not a numbers person. People run down all of these things. And so I want to be here tonight to appeal to your morals and values. What if it was your mother, your sister, your auntie, you that was tracked and surveilled by Flock, and that Flock technology was used on your family member to stalk and harass you? What would you do? The fact that other folks in other communities have canceled their contract with Flock after this, but yet we haven't, is shameful. After all of these meetings, and I can't say I've been to every single one, but I've been to quite a few, I have not heard of any single person that advocated for a flock. And so if we are truly going to listen to the community, like everyone continues to say, the community has said that we don't want this. All I will say is that it is telling that after months and months of deliberation, not one person I have heard, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, let's just say five people, and I highly doubt that's the number, say a handful of people actually said it. In terms of everybody else, that is a small percentage of people that said they want this. So if you are truly doing the business of the city and of the community, you would end the contract with Flock and by extension, making sure that we do not have any other contracts with any other license plate readers at all. Thank you.

Cici Lee.

Good evening.

Good evening, everyone. Or so I thought it was a good evening until I realized we're still talking about the same issue we've been talking about for the past, what, I don't know, year or so. It certainly feels like it. My name is Cici Lee. I'm a student leader, organizer, advocate, and student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee this year. And I have the privilege of serving as their president of UWM student government. And let me tell you what that means to me. When students elect you, they are handing you a crown. They're not handing you a crown. They're handing you a microphone. And they're saying, use it when we're not being heard. So I didn't come here just to talk about a camera. I came here to talk about power. Who has it? Who gets watched? Who gets protected? Who gets questioned? And most importantly, who gets to decide? On September 10th, UWM announced that its police department was discontinuing its use of flock cameras and directed flocks to remove them. The university said the cameras would remain non-operational in the interim. And I'm proud that students raised their voices and demanded accountability. But I don't want us to stop at the cameras are coming down, because removing the camera is one thing. Understanding why we needed this conversation is another. Flock is an automated license plate reader system. There are legitimate public safety uses for technology like this, finding stolen vehicles, locating missing people, or investigating serious crimes. I'm not saying police shouldn't have tools. I'm saying public safety cannot mean surrendering public accountability. Because technology doesn't eliminate human misconduct, sometimes it makes human misconduct easier. We've already seen reports of former Milwaukee police officers being accused of misusing Flock technology to monitor people from their personal lives. And communities across Wisconsin have suspended or ended relationships with Flock amid concerns about privacy, access, and data sharing. So when a student, a survivor, or community member asks could this technology be abused, that's not paranoia. That's a reasonable question. Because the technology doesn't have to know your name, it can know your car. And sometimes that's enough. Think about a survivor of domestic violence or stalking. She leaves, she changes her routine, she starts rebuilding her life. Privacy isn't luxury. Privacy is a safety issue. And we also have to talk about the safety of our immigrant communities and the concerns surrounding federal immigration enforcement. To be clear, Flock says ICE does not have direct access to its cameras or data, but that's not what I heard tonight. But that's exactly why local and clear rules matter, because the question isn't only who can access this information today, it's who can access it tomorrow and under what rules. Milwaukee County has moved to establish limits around the use and sharing of flock information, including restrictions concerning federal immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant. Because whether you're a student, a survivor, an immigrant, a citizen, or simply somebody driving home from work, you deserve to know who has the ability to track your movements and why. And that's especially important on a college campus. UWM is where students live, organize, protest, where survivors seek help, where young people are supposed to learn what democracy looks like. So when students ask who's watching, Who has access? Where does the information go? Those are anti-police questions. Those are accountability questions. In Milwaukee, let's be for real, we have bigger fish to fry. We have violent crime, sexual violence, domestic violence, stalking, gun violence, missing people, families waiting for answers, and elderly residents who deserve to know when they call for help, somebody is coming. This summer, a 99-year-old Milwaukee woman was brutally attacked inside her home. A third party answering service called 911 twice. But emergency resources weren't dispatched until hours later. The city's emergency communications department investigated the incident and personnel faced consequences. So while we're asking how much more surveillance do we need, there are Milwaukee residents asking a much more basic question. When I call for help, will somebody come? Because I don't want a city where we can tell you where your car was at 2.17 in the morning, but we can't guarantee that when you call for help, somebody is coming. I don't want technology getting faster while accountability gets slower. And I certainly don't want our police departments becoming better at watching people than serving them. Our police officers are public servants. A badge is not a blank check, and neither is technology. Use the right tools for the right reasons under the right rules with the right oversight. If it's being used to find a missing child, find the missing child. If it's being used to investigate a violent crime, investigate that crime. But if someone uses that system to monitor an ex, a friend, a romantic interest, or a protester or a survivor, that's not public safety, my friends. That is abuse of power. And what happens when somebody abuses that power? Is there an audit? Is there discipline? Is the victim protected? Is the public informed? Because oversight isn't optional. It's the bare minimum. That's what my election at UWM means to me. Students didn't hand me a crown. They handed me a microphone. And I intend to use it. So I'm not asking Milwaukee to choose between public safety and civil liberties. We should not have to choose. We can have effective policing and accountable policing. We can use technology and protect privacy. We can investigate crime without making everybody feel like a suspect because a safe community is not a community where everyone is watched. A safe community is a community where people trust that when something happens to somebody, somebody will come, somebody will listen, somebody will protect them and somebody will be accountable. So let me leave you with three words. service, accountability, and protection. That's what public safety should mean, and as a student leader, a Milwaukee resident, and someone who believes ordinary people can demand extraordinary change, I will keep asking the uncomfortable questions. I will keep pushing for transparency, and I will keep reminding every institution entrusted with power over our communities, you work for us, not the other way around. Thank you.

Michael Dubnicka.

Good evening. Good evening. I'm not good at public speaking but, so to point out on the flock safety data ownership summary, they do use, they do collect license plate data for their AI learning. So yeah, just so you're. All right, so my statement here is, so I'm here tonight to formally request that you dismantle automatic license plate readers and permanently ban the use of mass surveillance technology in the community. When citizens, raise alarms about privacy. Governments often respond to tweaking internal policies. They promise strict rules limiting retention windows or supervisor only access. But I'm here tonight to tell you, tell this board plainly Internal restrictions do not solve a fundamental violation of rights. It makes absolutely no difference if local access to this data is restricted to 10 people, five people, or a single individual. The real threat isn't just the camera taking a photo. The real threat is the systemic permanent corporate retention and lateral sharing of the data that defines the entire ALPR industry. Whether it's Flock or any other vendor makes no difference. The business model is exactly the same. The moving, the, The moment a vehicle passes a camera, the private information is instantly commodified, it is logged, time stamped, and handed over to third party corporation. These companies hold our data on private servers, build searchable databases of our daily routines and profit by allowing the data to be shared seamlessly across a mass web of outside agencies. The intrusion is already complete the moment the private company is allowed to capture and retain our lives. No internal policy can undo the corporate reality. Furthermore, this entire corporate dragnet fundamentally inverts how good constitutional policing is supposed to work. Real effective law enforcement is built on individual suspicion. A crime occurs, an investigation is launched, evidence is gathered, and specific subject is pursued. The ALPR industry flips that entirely on its head, locking local governments into a logic of pre-crime. It logs and retains the movements of thousands of law-abiding individuals and residents every single day, not because they have done anything wrong, but because in the case that they might do something wrong. It treats our entire community as a continuous grid of prospective subjects who just feed on private industry databases. Proponents will tell you that the data is secure because the local access is limited, but that is a fallacy. The government should not be funding private surveillance companies to build pre-crime vault of your lives in the first place. That's a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

You are at time, so if you could briefly conclude.

Public safety does not require us to feed a corporate surveillance network. Good policies rely on investigating crimes. And I guess I can conclude with, have you heard about the lawsuit that's going on in Waukesha County? Yes. So I would urge you to beg these cameras tomorrow.

Thank you.

Hello, commissioners. Good evening. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Arielle Winter. I work the ACLU of Wisconsin, and I am a resident of Milwaukee. I am here again to ask the Fire and Police Commission to formally recognize CCOPs, a.k.a. Community Control Over Police Surveillance. miss hugh earlier tonight said in regards to personnel misusing surveillance technology you don't know what you don't know respectfully the community was telling you this exact thing was going to happen she also said you trust your personnel also respectfully when someone is tasked with protecting a community and holds an immense amount of power over the average citizen you should be implementing more than just trust I also missed the beginning of this meeting, so I apologize if this is incorrect, but I've heard a lot of acknowledgments of wrongdoing, but I did not hear any apologies. Misused statements also does not acknowledge that ALRPs frequently misread license plate readers, do not currently require a warrant to spy on residence movements, and residence plates are still being read and recorded, even if it's only kept for seven days. Ms. Hugh also said, getting framework before this tech is best case scenario. I disagree. I think that is the bare minimum. Ms. Hugh said there was no framework in 2022. The CCOPs model bill that me and my coworker Amanda Merkway have been testifying in support of was actually created in 2016 during Trump's first presidency when immigration concerns were first ignited. I would also be remiss if I did not mention that budget season is coming up. According to the city's open checkbook, we have already made payments totaling, I'm not good with numbers, $223,000 since 2022, or almost a quarter of a million dollars. Let me paint a picture for you. I live by Prospect and Brady. On my way here, I passed neighbors struggling with homelessness who are stuck in the cold and in the rain. I was in CVS last night on Brady when I witnessed a man who was kicked out for stealing a can of soup. Driving down Brady to get to City Hall today, I also passed five flock cameras. I cannot put into words how disgusting it is that we live in a world where people are criminalized for stealing food and ignored by their city who instead decides to invest in cameras to spy on their residents instead. I thank the FPC for all the steps that they've taken and I encourage any further dialogue. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Markle Crawford. Okay. We'll come back to him. Kevin Saz Perez.

Good evening. Good evening. It's hard to know what to say. I was thinking about what should I say tonight, because it's like, does MPD even care? But then I was like, oh, maybe they do, and they're just not listening. Those are the only two options I can come up with, because it's like, for months and months, people have been coming here, and everyone's opposing Flock. Cancel the contracts, ban Flock, and... It's not happened. Everyone else doing it, but not MPDs. So the only thing I can come up with is they really don't care about the people in the community that they say they do, or they're not listening. So I don't know. But I also wonder, like, am I supposed to feel better that it's like, over time that's been less and less people who've had access to this flock searches. And I don't think so because I feel like the more power is consolidated in less and less people, the more corruption happens. And so I feel like, we're just gonna have more problems with that with less and less people having access to it. Not that I want more people having access, but I feel like it's, either way, it's not good. I was taking a vacation last week and there's guardrails along the side of the road, but there was a semi that went right through it and in the ditch. So it's like, guardrails are there, but it doesn't prevent terrible things from happening. So you can keep setting up these guardrails, but it's like, We've had guardrails, but it's like, oh, that didn't work. Let's put up new guardrails. Oh, that didn't work. So we have to keep doing this. Chief is having some about like, oh, we hear your concerns or whatever, but it's like the concern is that these cameras exist and that it's mass surveillance of our community and we don't want that. That's the concern. And none of these guardrails put in place address that concern. The only guardrail that you can put in to address that concern is to take the cameras down to cancel the contracts. And if money is an issue with that, I volunteer my time to take them down. Just let me know where they are. I'll help with that. And just because it's been brought up several times tonight, we have a moratorium on FRT. Still like to see a full ban because as we've talked about, can't really trust NPD. So when will they just start using it again without telling us? I don't know. So let's get a full ban out there and not just this moratorium. Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'm sorry? Oh, okay, yes. Good evening.

Good evening members of council and community participants and listeners. My name is Markel Crawford. I am a vice president of a youth action board at Pathfinders. I'm also a Leaders Igniting Transformation civic engagement member. who works closely with Milwaukee Turners as well. I just wanna thank you guys, first of all, for being here, for your support, your open heart, and your willingness to understand. So let's move to matters in reason. Flock, no. I guess that's pretty much the main point today. It's harmful, first of all. like the history of Milwaukee and America as a whole, we should kind of think about that. And you know, one saying is like, if you don't pretty much, it's about what happens in history when you don't, when you kind of ignore what happened in history, you know, it tends to repeat itself. So yeah, the voice of the people is the main concern. I see today that a lot of non-criminals are being victimized by these things. I understand how cameras can be beneficial, but we cannot combat evil with evil, calling it a lesser evil and hoping for people to do right with the power that you give them. We all heard maybe that absolute power corrupts absolutely. So it's a couple words here. Skynet is one thing that I heard about. And I'm not surprised by where we are today, because many years ago, as I do coin myself as a scholar, I've been doing research since I was around 12 years old. at times going to, I mean, UWM using their computers, researching things that were going to happen, things that they call a conspiracy today, but now we see are happening. Yeah, pretty much this came from China, how they treat their citizens. Of course, you're going to see it in the grocery stores, like I see at Walmart right now, where you look in the camera and you can see your face outlined. First, I saw it in China 14 years ago. But anyways, I knew it was coming. But what is at stake? And what is being used is the extraction of people's data, livelihood and privacy as a whole. It's easy. It's easy to end up as someone who is a victim of the law, abuse, and oppression in a society that treats people who are innocent and people who aren't a threat as guilty until proven innocent. This is a war on the people, a war on privacy, privilege, I heard today that it's not even a privilege, it's more like safety anyways. So like I said, it's a war on our rights, our freedom, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. How can you do that when knowing you're being watched, stalked, and actually... Not just stalked in a sense like a watch, but like a lion prowling, waiting to pounce. Well, anyways, I'm going to skip to a part where I started to feel my spirit, because the spirit is here today. And many people have spoken the same things I already put on my paper, and it is in my heart. If slave catchers had this technology, then I wouldn't be here. Not because I would have been a slave or my family would have been slaves. So the same origin of what we know today as police officers, sheriffs, et cetera, weren't only catching slaves. It was free people, just like me. So we know throughout history, like I spoke about, what happens with power. And we can't forget that there are prejudice still today. So where does that boundary lie? Today, the fight is against what is the result of the advancement of the employees of the state, the will of wealth, and the corporation of the United States. Yes, corporation, I said.

You are at time, so if you could briefly conclude.

Well, this is not an attack on the police, but it's a call to action on accountability of the citizens. From me to the people, government and citizens alike, this is a call to action. Diligence, diligence. is what is required. Consent is what's required. Please briefly conclude, sir. The exercise of our voice, our rights, our power, we are the people. Decisions should be made by the people, for the people, with the people's knowledge, permission. And if you fear the need to surveillance, Let yourselves invest in what you have the right to. As the people, we exercise our rights. Those that were stated and left out of this conversation. Well, last sentence. As the people, we ask that all you parties to consider us, our will, our lives, and our rights. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Chad Ellerson.

Good evening. Good evening, council.

Are you Chad?

I'm Richard.

We're looking for Chad.

You're next.

Tricky, don't go away.

Good evening. I specifically want to address one of the things that the spokesperson for the police said. She specifically stated that they are creating their own policies that restrict them from giving you guys, the commission, specific information about who is accessing this system.

That's not correct.

That is what they stated in their policies and procedures, that it is only accessible by a lawsuit and a subpoena. That's what their policy says.

Our labeling statute overrides that.

So we do have access to all MPD records.

And they gave us the records for our own audit. Just to be clear, that's not correct.

i would insist that you guys direct the police to rewrite that policy so that is not violating open records requests and that's your own policy that you guys have said that it is you guys override that do that immediately and if they will not file a lawsuit immediately the courthouse opens at 8 30 do that tonight please Do not let them write their own policies and procedures that override the rules to Freedom of Information Act requests and the information as a community we have a right to have as our employees. Thank you.

Thank you.

Richard Nwabazar.

Good evening, council. My name is ritual Boozer and I'm speaking as a concerned taxpayer citizen of the city of Milwaukee. Um, um, basically for my public comment, I would like to say is that the Milwaukee police department has a history of documented abuses against the black and brown community in Milwaukee. And therefore, when it comes in regards to FLOC, they cannot be trusted with such a technology. FLOC, as the research has shown, is that FLOC has been used to violate civil liberties. It has been shown to be used in collaboration with ICE in order to target Milwaukee's immigrant community. It's been used in offices to surveil other people within the Milwaukee community. And overall, FLOC has not been shown to be helpful towards the citizens of Milwaukee. In order to achieve true safety in Milwaukee, we need more investments in the people of Milwaukee, investments in housing, education, employment. We do not need a technology that will only be used to surveil, stalk, and harass citizens of Milwaukee. I vote no to the, I vote for, And I support Milwaukee Police Department ending its contract with Flock. Flock is not something that is used to help. Flock is something that is used to only harass and dehumanize communities that have already been underserved within the city of Milwaukee for decades. Black and brown communities in Milwaukee, they need investments in social services. They do not need investment in technology that would be used to incarcerate and surveil and strip them of their civil liberties and their human rights. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bridget, do we have anyone online for public comment?

Yes, Director. Julie is online for public comment.

All right. Good evening. You can unmute yourself and make your comment.

Thank you. Thank you, Bridget. Good evening, neighbors, commissioners, director, chaplain Julie Curcio. I'd like to thank MPD's Heather for her presentation, which so beautifully proved the legitimacy of the concerns of the public that have been brought to this committee over the months. I don't think that was her intention, but thank you. Heather also shared how she felt during past FPC meetings. Do y'all wonder how it feels for the people showing up month after month, having to sit through the smug smirking and eye rolling of some commissioners? It's being recorded, y'all. Don't forget that for posterity, everybody can see you. Anyway. Why are people concerned about the police chief's training trip to the Zionist entity called Israel that is currently occupying Palestine? Why should we in Milwaukee care about Palestine? I will share a great take. If internationalist solidarity between oppressed peoples isn't a compelling enough reason, it's important to understand that the same imperialism oppressing Palestinians in Palestine is also oppressing us here in Milwaukee. The same forces of colonialism, racism, supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalistic exploitation that committed genocide against the indigenous people here and repressed social justice and liberation movements all over the world are still alive and well, and are always looking for ways to maintain the status quo. Israel, the racist, genocidal, Zionist regime occupying Palestine is an outpost of world imperialism in the SWANA region. It is not supported by the West out of any altruistic intention to make up for its genocidal past. It is supported because it aligns with and furthers its interests. For instance, Israel and the United States share violent policing tactics with each other to help suppress any kind of resistance. I will say that again. Israel and the United States share violent policing tactics with each other to help suppress any kind of resistance. The same tear gas grenades used on protesters in Ferguson and all over the US are used on protesters in Palestine. The same surveillance and spying technology tested on Palestinians find their way into the arsenal of other repressive regimes all over the world, including right here, Flock, any other ALPRs, drones, robotic dogs, ICE kidnappings, suppression of freedom of speech. The list goes on, despite you all trying to minimize the dangers with your PowerPoint. Why did the police chief choose to train with the racist apartheid genocidal Zionist regime of Israel? What did he learn there? What did he bring back to oppress Milwaukeeans with? And how can we ensure that something like this never happens again? Heather, I agree, we're all human. Why would he go train with those who are slaughtering human beings in a live streamed genocide? This is your bi-monthly reminder that the city website claims this commission is about oversight, accountability, trust, and safeguarding rights. And you sit there month after month in front of a community pleading with you to uphold these things. You act as if act 12 has rendered you completely powerless. And that is untrue. Please stop ignoring our concerns. Answer our questions regarding the chief's training. Show us that you've put things in place to ensure that such a thing never happens again. Do everything in your power to stop the growth of this dystopian surveillance state and to actually safeguard this community and our human rights. Heather, you said that there was no way to know in advance how technologies might be used. I encourage you to read a book called The Palestinian Laboratory by Anthony Lowenstein. Talks all about what technology has been used to brutalize, to genocide the population there that's being brought back here. Again, ALPRs, FRT, drones, robotics, robotic dogs, other spyware, all of that. It's all connected. Free Palestine, free Milwaukee from this police department with no accountability. Thank you. Have a great evening.

Thank you. Bridget, do we have anyone else online for public comment?

We do not, Director.

The last individual for public comment is Hamzi. Apologies if I mispronounced that.

All good.

Good evening.

Every change made now is already too late. The public has asked multiple times not to decrease the amount of officers allowed to look through the surveillance systems, not to decrease the congestion of flock cameras in the cities, but to get rid of them entirely. This illusion that the public will tire out and forget that they hate flock will not happen. So as public servants, I ask you to serve the public. You are choosing to be years behind other counties and decades behind what needs to be done. Flock is now selling drones and AI software that can use the Flock ecosystem to be what we can only call mass surveillance and mass oppression. Replacing Flock for Axon or any other surveillance system does nothing but repeat the problem. There are flock cameras in parks nowhere near parking lots. But nowhere near parking lots. Can you tell me why we have these flock cameras in the parks? Are they checking any license plates in the parks? Or are they watching boys and girls walking around just in the parks doing their own thing? You are treating the public as if they're guilty the second they walk out of their door. Flock has used their cameras to stalk, harass, and threaten the public, and the city of the Sheboygan's police department has already told the public that Flock had abused the footage and the trust of the public. If that's what they're telling us, imagine what they're not telling us. There is one solution, and that's to stop the contracts and to not renew anything with any surveillance system. The ACLU has written a good CCOPS bill that deals with future prevention, and you don't need to follow it to the T, but there are great guidelines that I think you guys should address. City Council should need public approval for any surveillance technology funding acquisition or use. Secondly, Milwaukee needs to have an impact report on the hows, the whys, and the where the technology is being used. This should be used monthly, weekly, yearly. We should be able to see what you guys see. We should be able to see everything that comes up in any type of flock system or any axon system, for the more. Again, also, if more than one municipal entity will have access to the surveillance technology or surveillance data of any other municipalities or counties, we should know this. Sharing this information between federal, statewide, and local counties should be known to the public immediately. Lastly, there should be extremely large penalties towards abusing this technology. Officer Jose Alaia received a probation and a fine for stalking his ex, but where were his supervisors? Are you telling me that he was using this just of his own free will with no one watching him? Is anybody watching the other police officers? Even more so, if nobody's watching him, is anybody watching the supervisors that now have the right to go through these flock cameras themselves? Our mayor said that only supervisors in the future will be allowed to use these systems. But if they weren't watching these officers, what account can the public believe that you're going to be watching the supervisors themselves? Better yet, anybody that's using these flock systems. Now, instead of looking up the exes themselves, they're just going to ask their supervisor, can you check that up for me? There's no difference here. Please just change the system and do what you were made to do. Serve the public. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. And a public comment.

Okay, before we go back to the agenda, we're gonna take a short break. It's been too long, and I'm going to need the bathroom, so. Five minutes, is that enough? Five minutes.

Thank you. do do Thank you. Thank you. you

Item 13.

Yes, this is under the Department of Emergency Communication. Item 13, FPC 212703, resolution rescinding the appointment to the emergency communications officer one position.

My knowledge of rescinding appointments is because the circumstances changed and they're no longer suitable.

Yes, they either withdrew from the process or did not complete pre-employment.

Right. So is there any questions? Okay.

Madam Chair, move for approval.

Thank you. Second. Okay, good. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed? Aye. All those abstentions? Motion carries. Director, please proceed with item 15.

14. 14, yes. This item is under the Fire Department. Item 14, FPC 212704, resolution rescinding the appointment to the youth fleet apprentice position.

Okay, and once again, the rescinding of an appointment like this is because of the circumstances of the candidate not being able to complete it or not wanting to complete it.

Madam Chair? Yes. Move approval of the resolution. Second.

Okay, great. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Thank you for your consideration and getting those two matters done for those departments. Okay, so Director, I think our intention now is to return to item 10.

Yes, which is FPC 212700, communication from the Milwaukee Police Department relating to its automated license plate reader cameras. So I don't know how you wanna proceed, Madam Chair. The department could be offered an opportunity to reply, or we could go to questions and comments from commissioners.

Well, I see that Chief Norman is available on the virtual meeting part, and I think it would be appropriate to hear from him. Chief Norman, would you like to make some informational statements?

Yes, ma'am. Can you hear me?

Yes. Yes, we can.

Thank you. Well, I'd like to first start by saying good evening to you all, the commissioners and those who are still in the room. I understand and thank the process, this democratic process, in regards to allowing this conversation to be had and a thoughtful conversation. First, I'd like to say to my team, thank them for their presenting the information about FLOC and our use of LPR and, again, reporting out to the public of how we are navigating this challenging situation. I'd also like to thank the public for sharing their concerns, suggestions, and thoughts. It is not lost on me that This is serious topic and we are all listening, including myself. But I do like to start off by stating that I do support technology. It is a tool. And it is important to understand that as a tool, the many tools that the police department utilized, it helps us to be more efficient and effective. As we all know that we do have challenges with our reduced staffing, attempting to, again, balance those resources in a proper and effective manner, but also gives quick resolution to some of the most serious crimes that goes on in our city and including some most serious concerns, which are missings. And so as we use technology in the correct manner, it is the, you know, word that needs to be emphasized, the correct manner is contribute to our significant reduction in crime. And it is also, again, this is where we are able to really focus on those who are doing harm in the most serious manner in our city, but also support responsible use of technology. is unacceptable for any personnel within the Milwaukee Police Department to not use technology and what we expected to be utilized, period. And I believe that we have shown accountability. I've instructed my team to fully investigate and quickly investigate the reported abuses and misuses of technology. It's absolutely unacceptable. And I apologize on behalf of Milwaukee Police Department for those who have been impacted by this misuse, because again, It is absolutely unacceptable. And on my watch, there has been accountability, whether it is up to termination, investigations for a criminal in a criminal manner, resignations. This is something that I want to emphasize that when those who misuse a tool on this particular watch, accountability is real. It is swift. It is certain. And so it's important to, again, reemphasize, especially what some of the team that brought up this morning, I mean, that evening, and regards to that we are leaning into the audits, student operating procedures, guidelines, and that I believe that we're ahead of many departments in regards to how we are, again, putting forth guardrails, putting forth proactive and accountable guardrails To show that we are taking this particular topic in this situation series that likes to play readers is not just a toy is not anything to be again misused without some ramification consequences. But I also directed my team to look at any all suggestions options to ensure that we are again being responsible with this technology and any of all our technology that we use within the police department. In the end, this is a balancing act. I absolutely understand in regards to the requirement, the expectation that will impact crime on a daily basis, that this is something of a directive that we take seriously, but also understand and listening to our public in regards to the concerns and issues that are arising with this technology and seeing, again, those misuse of this particular technology. But in the end, I ask that we don't throw a resource out with all the other, or we want to say the bathwater is the other saying about this. When officer misuse a firearm, we don't take away all the firearms officers. We ensure that the officer is held accountable. When officer misuse a squad car, we don't take all the squad cars. We make sure that that officer is responsible. And that is the, again, promise in regards to this administration about how we deal with any of our tools, whether it's technology, whether it's our vehicles, whether it's any tools that's misused, we do not find that it's not acceptable. But in the end, as I close, we are considering all our options. We want to be thoughtful. We are engaging with our political leaders. We're engaging with you all. We're engaged with our public to make the right next steps. And I ensure you that we are listening to make sure that we are going to make the right decision for the next steps. Thank you.

Thank you. I do have a question for you, Chief.

Yes, ma'am.

First of all, I really appreciate the work that's gone into the guardrails. And I trust the Milwaukee Police Department to follow up on any violations and to discipline and to remain active in that regard. My biggest problem, though, with this surveillance technology is the mistrust I now have for FLOC. Having read so many accounts of them being dishonest with other jurisdictions, I know you can't control that, but it is a concern. And you are involved with the Major Chiefs Association. In fact, you're chairing it, so I think you know what's going on in other jurisdictions. And I'd like to hear from you as to how you feel that we can continue to trust FLOC.

so i will say that definitely first acknowledge in regards to your feelings and uh it is absolutely something for us to take in consideration um the uh there is a split in regards to those who are uh again um with flock if you want to say that or you still want to use flock and those who are not there's not a overall this is a a resource or tool that has been um universally rejected or that is not useful. I will say that this is still a case by case. I mean, it's, Not an end game in regards for us. We are, again, listening. I haven't had any interaction with any of our Wisconsin chiefs. I do have an upcoming meeting soon to be able to hear more of that. And I do understand that our risk manager, James, is involved. But the law enforcement community, which I have spoken with many other law enforcement community associations, along with our major city chiefs, you know, likes to place readers, but it is still split in regards to stating whether, because everyone's not experiencing the same experiences with Flock. And so I do know that there is a unfortunate, not a, again, a unified belief or attitude in regards to the use of this particular company.

Okay, thank you. Commissioners, any questions? Statements, we've got a rare opportunity here to ask questions of both the Chief and the Chief of Staff.

Madam Chair.

Yes.

Yeah, hi Chief, Commissioner Snider. Hello. Yeah, thanks again for the addressing things, getting the guardrails in place. I appreciate your analogy about firearms and squads, but those are things you have 100% control over. Right, so these are all yours, you can take care of that. And I'll echo the Chair's concern, I have that as well. We can't control flock, and at this point, it seems nobody can, and that's why others are opting out, and I think that's the only way, the only appropriate way to do it right now, the only prudent way, is to opt out if things change, if we have opportunity to, entering a new contract that changes things dramatically, but as it stands now, we have no control over that and what they're doing with the information, all that data's out there over all of us, so I just feel like that is the appropriate move in this case and I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

So I am still taking in all the comments. I do understand that there is Again, those assertions, I know that there is challenges to some of the things that has been brought up, and I just want to make sure that whatever next decisions that the department takes, it's going to be thoughtful. I almost put it to the, you know, analogy of not quitting your job before you find your next job. And so it's important to understand, I just see a lot of different options. I do know, again, Some of the examples of how Flockless helped, I mean, in regards to when we had our triple homicide, it was extremely instrumental in regards to getting a quick resolution of that case. But I am concerned about the misuse in regards to officers' misuse. I'm concerned about some of the assertions in regards to the data sharing and whatnot, but I haven't had all the materials in front of me yet to be able to say that I've seen it with my own eyes. I don't use other people's stories, sir. I know it's understanding in regards to seeing some of the things that come into the headlines, but it's important for me, especially in regards to making such an impactful decision to make sure you have all the actual credible and verifiable evidence in front of me. And so it is definitely, you know, under consideration in regards to all the options. I am equally concerned in regards to what I'm hearing and exploring with my team what is going on and be able to have a better decision in the end.

And I just want to interject and add to that. So we are following all of the information we're receiving about municipalities that are ending their contracts and the why that they're providing publicly. And each time something is brought to our attention or we see it or we are following it proactively as well, the chief uh... tasks our team iris manager myself looking into those issues taking a look at our contract seeing if that it has been or is an issue with the way our contract languages and having those conversations and so far in those explorations of the issues that have been given we don't share those same concerns with some of the other municipalities on the why for the cancellation of the contract

Thank you And I want to make sure that all the Common Council's questions are addressed And I think MPD has done a very good job in addressing what it can there from the August 25th letter of They reference back to the March 11th letter and ask that the commission review certain proposed reforms and provide recommendations relating to them, one of which was, it's titled Contract and Vendor Governance that Matches Real World Risk. Milwaukee's legislative record shows that contract mechanics, including indemnification, can become central barriers or accelerants to deployment. The city should treat surveillance contracts as public interest infrastructure agreements requiring clarity and retention and disclosure, clear rules on secondary use and enforceable audit access for the city and designated independent reviewers. I think it would be appropriate for MPD to give any thoughts they have on that and then I would like to hear from the commissioners if they have any response you'd like me to make with respect to that to the Common Council.

Just to clarify, is that from the March 11th letter or the August 25th?

It's from the March 11th letter. It's the second to last bullet point. I have a copy if you need it, but it is referenced indirectly in the August 25th letter.

So I you know, I can't speak for what the city ought to do I can only speak for what the department ought do and so I would say I From MPD's perspective, we would certainly defer to those who can speak for the city. We can only speak to the department, and these are requests for some type of city audit function or recommendation for the city that is not our purview.

Fair enough.

Okay, we haven't gotten to everybody.

Why don't we take the people who are with us virtually and hand it over.

Sure, that's very kind of you. And do we have any questions or comments? Are those hands up, I see? Commissioner Burgos?

Well, yeah. Chief, you mentioned something about meeting with the statewide chiefs coming up soon. Yes. I would be very interested in, I would assume that one of your topics of conversation will be FLOC and Alpers when you get the chiefs meeting together. Hearing what the real reasons were. I mean, I know what the media puts out, but I know that's not always what the information is. If you could probably tell us about that after that meeting, give us some more insight into why, and if they are changing just name brands and going to a different company, that would be interesting. I do believe that's going to happen a lot. Instead of just changing the flag, they'll change to a different company that was mentioned by the chief of staff earlier also. That's what I'm looking for. I want to hear why all these departments are dropping flock. I understand public comment. I understand the value of a technology tool. I just want to know maybe some more information from them. And then you can tell us, I know there's some things you cannot talk about that are confidential, but maybe more insight into why. when you come back from your meeting.

I appreciate that sir and I will say that whatever they allow me to share because I don't want to again put their confidences out there in regards to whether or not they're willing to share because I know that everyone has made statements but uh i'm interested just kind of dig a little bit more like i said earlier our team is pretty much ahead of the game we are uh tip the arrow in regards to what and what we have done and what we continue to do and don't get me wrong you know we can always do better i absolutely understand that but there are unfortunate situations that we have found that there has been not the robust or taking things seriously as we do because we understand accountability. We understand the expectations from us in regards to some of my counterparts. So whatever I am able to and to give insight on that, sir, I would be happy to share if that is Something that I can share, but I'm definitely interested in getting a little bit more insight in regards to what specifically they've been going through because there's a lot of general claims going on right now. And I don't operate off of general claims. I don't operate off of, you know, what I read in the paper. I don't operate off what's being shown on TV. I operate off of tangible, in my hand, evidence of things that basically is a concern that we should be aware of just as well because that is unacceptable if that is going on under our particular use.

Okay.

Thank you. That's all.

Okay. Just randomly. Commissioner Will Patterson.

Good evening. I have a question and it's good to see you, sir. I have a question regarding the supervisors and who will oversee the super. It seems as if surveillance is here to stay. And I don't know that we'll have one. if we'll get the perfect surveillance company. I know I trust and I'm trusting even with so much being said that we will endeavor to have the best company for our city that will have the least amount of flaws. So with that being said, now that it's in the hands of the supervisors to oversee, can you please tell us a little bit more about how the supervisors will be monitored as well? And this upstream that now kind of sits with them. Sure.

So just, and I'll let James come into that auditing aspect of it, but I just want to be very clear in regards to some of the things, and I was listening to some of the public comment. I don't allow supervisors to get away with not supervising. That is, if people look and hear my disciplinary hearings and my reviews, It's not acceptable to go after what I would say low-hanging fruit, which is our frontline officers and detectives who, you know, are out there, again, have to make split-second decisions and, you know, have a lot of different pressures. I'm also equally, equally hard on my supervisors when it comes to failure to supervise or failure to ensure that they are holding the line. And so when it comes to these type of things, there has been, again, counseling. There has been, unfortunately, some people have retired, but I am not the one to allow those particular type of mishandling in regards to that oversight to go unreviewed or unanswered. And so I just want to reassure the commission. I want to reassure our public. I take this very seriously in regards, and I'll go all the way up. I have had those situations where I had to sit, you know, some of my team members down and sit there and have a heart-to-heart talk about expectations and consequences. And so it is absolutely important that we look at the entire line and process to hold all those who are involved accountable. But we do have a robust supervisory review and an auditing section that checks on them to make sure that they are doing what we expect them to do. James, can you fill in more about what our process looks like?

Sure, Chief. I'll be filling in for James for this one, and this one I am well-versed in. So our supervisors are the only ones with access, and it's a two-way kind of ensuring that they are doing the appropriate thing. One, it is the monthly audit that is conducted by the compliance management section which is completely separate function from any of the bureaus. That is overseen by our risk manager and part of my chief of staff team. So it is civilian led, a monthly audit, and that check is there. Another thing that we are adding, and this was actually after our conversation with the FPC, is that any time an officer requests that a plate, hey, I need to run this plate for this particular case, supervisor, won't you do it, that there is a standard form to fill out with the why. So it's a two-way check. One, it ensures that the officers are only making legitimate requests because that will be well documented. And then on the other end, it is that every 30-day cycle. And when they're reviewing that every 30 days, actually that information is in some spots aggregated. So we can see trends that may take longer than 30 days to build up. to really dive into. So it's an insurance that they're running the right things and getting appropriate requests. What we found out is that all of those in our Criminal Investigation Bureau do have that form, but we're going to put it in our policy to ensure that it's always documented like that. And then on the other end, it's the monthly audit function. Heather does that.

Pardon me my next question if it would just be within communications, the communication file, or if it would become an something that we would. Okay. And how soon is that going to become come. become a SOP.

So we have in the executive command staff a final draft that once the chief has the final sign off on that, then we will send it to the unions for that 30 day meet and confer. So we do anticipate that occurring in very short order, but we have to abide by the CBA guidelines to implement the policy change. Thank you.

Yeah, and report back to us what the whole thing would be. Okay, Commissioner Evans?

Yeah, a lot of the questions that I wrote down have been answered. So I'll just make a statement as far as this whole democratic process here, working with our citizens. And I do wanna say thank you to the citizens that show up every week for public comment. It's almost like between the Common Council, the Fire Police Commission, the Police Department, and our citizens, like, this whole democratic process, and it's my hope that we'll continue to listen, that we'll continue to dialogue, that this will morph into something that's best for everyone, for the citizens of Milwaukee, the victims, the police department, and being effective and efficient in doing their work. So let's just continue to have this dialogue. Let's continue to listen. Let's continue to do what's best for the citizens of Milwaukee. So thank you all for this whole process. This is very engaging.

Thank you.

okay uh no one else is online right no i think you have one more commissioner online i don't i don't have any questions i appreciate it thank you commissioner ramey go ahead yeah no no i don't have any questions everything i've got all the information i need thank you okay i i do have more of a comment than a question um okay go ahead and so i'll i'll voice it I think what we're facing right now is just an inflection point on technology again. And we've got to find a better way to get ahead of engaging this community on tools that can improve public safety before we implement. And so chief, I am looking at what we can do to have true dialogue before these things are brought forward as policy. This is, I think, the third technological issue that has been brought forward in my tenure on the board where it's been a reactive sort of policy. of response as opposed to how do we get ahead of this and talk about what future state looks like with our citizens and then put something in place. I say all of that because I know we can do better in really engaging the public on what tools are acceptable relative to public safety and how we can get the majority of this community to stand behind us in doing these things. So you may or may not have a comment on it, but that's my hope.

So I will say this, sir, and I definitely absolutely agree with you in regards to ensuring that we are leaning forward with any of our tools especially technology just because it is a rapidly changing particular type of tool there are unfortunate things that we need to be prepared to kind of have that foresight but then again you know things change but i will put in the proper context um a lot of the stuff that we brought forth under my administration we have we inherited And so Alper has been used way before I was even installed as chief. Um, and there becomes that point where we need to, you know, again, do a re-examination of what you just said, maybe have further conversations, but I believe something that we did do right when we had used the DFR approach in regards to how we had engaged and, um, brought you as commissioners in and, ensuring that we were thoughtful and, you know, look for the particular type of dialogue that you just said. I do absolutely appreciate the comment about that we need to continue to lean into that. I embrace that. I do believe that is the right way to go about doing it. And we are committed to, again, you know, making sure that we are leaning into that particular type of style where we are getting as much feedback as possible. The unfortunate thing I find, sir, though, is many times until something becomes a problem is that when you see that level of engagement. You know, many of our tools we do have within a public commentary or engagement at the Common Council level with you all. And it is sometimes frustrating that it's almost a, you know, it starts as a fire somewhere else. and it sweeps the country and then we get caught into it and we're scrambling. But I know that we can do better and we should be doing better and that we were always looking for the assistance of this commission and also other political leaders to help us engage and reach those who we don't normally reach because we should be reaching and talking and having dialogue with all.

And just to be clear, I do appreciate your comments relative to electeds and this appointed board, but I think it's just as important to have strategies to engage in every aldermanic district and every street corner, what's going to make this place a safer Milwaukee and the tools that are available because The average citizen has no concept of what the discussions that you're having with a variety of people across this country. So they may be light years away from where you are. How do we begin to educate people on where policing is going, the various tools, not just our electeds, But every organization in this city, every community group in this city that has a stake in public safety, I'm looking for a way to start those conversations, keeping them going so that you and MPD get good feedback on how to keep people supporting the work that you're doing.

Yes. Okay. Received. Message received.

I would add that to that point, Commissioner, Chief of Staff Huff is going to be on a panel about helper cameras at Marquette. Yes. Is it next week, next Tuesday? And that's going to involve a discussion hosted by Marquette. And there's going to be, I believe, a representative of the ACLU there and another law enforcement official. Correct. And they're going to hopefully have a good discussion.

Yes. Thank you for that. After the fact discussion on Alpers technology, one of the ways and we're constantly thinking on how to dialogue with the community. One of the community engagement managers top priorities is creating a council of representation, diverse representation of different organizations, and backgrounds to meet with regularly with the police department and engage in just that dialogue. What issues we're facing, different technologies. We know the sheriff's department had put together a similar type of committee, but we're really building that out. And now that Maritza is back with us, she has that as a number one priority. So we look forward to bringing forward to this more information about those planning efforts in the future. It's only one way. There are many ways, but yeah.

Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Fung.

Good to see you, Chief. Just to recap, I guess a little bit of what I said before, I probably will be asking a few questions that we had discussed when several of us had the opportunity to sit down with Chief of Staff Huff, James Lewis, and Sergeant Jackson to do a flock walkthrough. I think we had about over three hours of questions and discussion. I won't rehash all of that, but I do think that there are some questions that are important for the community to hear the answer to. I do just wanna start out, I think we've spent a lot of time talking about individual officer potential misuse and accountability. But I think that there is a really open question around the Fourth Amendment here. As you know, this month, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, otherwise known as WILL, strange bedfellows here, filed a lawsuit on behalf of a coalition of taxpayers and Waukesha County citizens against 11 cities and villages in Waukesha County and the Waukesha County government against FLOC. The lawsuit argues that government searches of the FLOC location database without a warrant or valid exception violate the Fourth Amendment under Trout Review United States. I will also note for those of you who aren't Supreme Court nerds, Chaudhry found that Google location history was a Fourth Amendment search, even though it only covered two hours and a private company held the data under Carpenter v. United States. That also found that third party doctrine doesn't extend to a comprehensive record of physical movements. Is it MPD's position that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to flock searches?

So while this is, you know, again, being litigated, Still have to kind of see what is the, you know, context of the assertion. I'm not too familiar with the particular case that you talked about, market shop. More interested in reading and getting a little bit more flavor of what that is. But I definitely am interested to see, you know, what is the explanations and can come to a conclusion after that.

Okay, that's fair. I think I guess I am just concerned as a commissioner that we are also opening ourselves up to this type of lawsuit and not considering this question. I do have some other questions about or as a result of the flock walkthrough and I guess either of you can answer this. Again, very much appreciated that amount of time we were allowed, we were able to look at FLOX search feature and the robust audit system that the risk manager and OMAP have put together. And I understand that members of the Common Council have also been offered a walkthrough. I sincerely hope that they take the time, maybe not three hours, but take the time to sit down on that. That is great, but we all have little gold nameplates up here so we get access to more things. What additional transparency can MPD commit to sharing with the public beyond what is available now?

Yeah, so we're constantly trying to find ways to be transparent. One of the requests in the Common Council letter, and as you are aware, we're always open to having these conversations with any public body, answering questions, not hiding information. And so we continue that. I think the request in the council's letter is a regular cadence of communicating out to the public, our audit results, et cetera. happy to do that. We did that through, I think it was born out of Collins, but then it was just transparency generally. We give monthly disciplinary reports to the FPC, and we have just willingly been providing them on a monthly basis to the Public Safety and Health Committee as well because they asked for it. So how can we commit to providing the public with more information? We're constantly looking at ways. We're taking a look at our dashboard, adding more categories to make it more clear. And then also, our willingness to continually have these conversations to our governing bodies like this and the Common Council, opening our doors, allowing you to see the process, how it works to the commissioners who weren't there. We will accommodate anyone who wants to come in and see how the system is used, what it's being used for, and answer any additional questions you might have at any time. So that's always an open invitation. And we're continuously exploring new dashboards to provide to the public on what we do. We've added, for instance, a use of force dashboard this year, a pursuit dashboard this year, some arrest data. things like that because these are the concerns that are brought forth by our community and we encourage you to help us find additional ways. These conversations are important because you hear the community too and if you have suggestions, we welcome the opportunity to get better from those.

It's my understanding that the department has been instructing staff to put under the flock search fields. There's a couple of fields that you fill out. And since these records have been able to be disclosed and are on things like have I been flocked dot com, it's my understanding that the department is instructing staff to put other and investigation under the reasons for the search. Can the department commit to putting actual reasons instead?

Yeah, we discussed that. So when we met, you said, why does it just say other or investigation? Like, that's not clear. Is it for a homicide? Is it for a shooting? And we used to do that, but we know there was a FOIA request and those records were released through a Washington agency, I believe. What it showed was actual license plate information and the type of investigation it was. So at that time, we're like, you know what? We don't want the homicide suspect knowing that their vehicle is being investigated for a homicide because lo and behold, they're going to drive a new vehicle. And so in thinking about the integrity of our investigations, because everything we do is a balancing act, right? We're like, you know, we have the validity of the case number every single time it's being audited. So we know with our accuracy that this is for these legitimate reasons. Let's err on the side of just putting investigation as the term so as to not ruin the integrity of those investigations. But in having our conversation with you, you're like, well, that FOIA request is old. If you've shut off your ability to have anyone else get that data. The only FOIA request would be coming from you guys and that's certainly something we could work with Pete Block and the city attorney's office on whether we disclose or redact those things. So we heard that and I think James is working on that and we can certainly let you know that we will change that drop down box to be more specific about the use.

Okay, I appreciate that. So this is also something we talked about, but just for the sake of public transparency, currently, is it correct that MPD use of flock can be accessed on any device, including a personal device?

Yes, that is correct. Now, there is a multi-factor authentication on any device that it's accessed on, and the issue with that is sometimes in real time, if an officer's out on patrol, they need the ability to access that, or if they're not in their squad and they don't have their squad computer. So the multi- uh... authenticator requires uh... the username attached to a legitimate government email uh... with the password and then a secondary code that sent to uh... usually a person's cell phone that needs to be entered into the system the login is the same uh... no matter if it's on your phone or elsewhere. And part of the discussion and concern is, well, what if somebody gets your phone, can they log in? Not necessarily, you have to be able to use that multi-factor authentication and oftentimes phones are password protected anyways by face ID. and other technology on the personal use device. So we have not found a way to limit it to just stationary MPD equipment, and in some cases we wouldn't want to if there's an urgency to that investigation, we need that information right away.

Okay. And is it the case that there is currently no way to prevent department members who do have access from accessing flock or making searches when they are not on duty?

That is correct. We do not have the ability to audit when they're on and off duty because that would require us taking a look at only their regular hours and not their overtime hours. Oftentimes, and especially in our Criminal Investigation Bureau, and i'm gonna say what i'm saying officers but i mean supervisors now because our officers don't have access uh... in our criminal investigation bureau oftentimes individuals supervisors are extended and so if we had an audit it would only take a look at those regularly scheduled hours it would never account for uh... those hours outside of that window that uh... on a regular basis they are working uh... so We, yes, they can access it during off-duty times. I would say what our audit will catch is the misuse, because if it's not attached to a case, and if it looks like they've been doing things for a certain set hours, and James so eloquently explained this that I'm kind of botching up right now, but one, we discourage that after-hours access. because sometimes our members are accessing it because they just can't get their mind off of work. And so they're continuing on with an investigation. We know that having the supervisor restriction only is going to prevent that more. And also our audit will catch any off-duty misuse that does occur. So we might not be able to just have it triggered by the hours of work, um, but it will be triggered by other means.

Okay. Thank you. Um, and then just another question that I know that we already discussed, but I think we spent a lot of time, um, on just the flock cameras and I do want to make it clear for the public. And obviously we've talked about this, that there are Alpers on, I believe it's 79 or 80 squad cars. Um, Is it the case that each of those cars have between two to four cameras on them? So the total number of cameras probably far exceeds the number of flocked cameras that MPD has?

So we have more cameras on these squads. I cannot tell you with certainty the number on each squad, but I can certainly get that information back to you.

Okay, thank you. And when are those cameras on?

I wish James were still here. I unfortunately don't have that, but I am happy to provide that to this council, and that can be added to the file.

Okay, I think if I remember correctly, his answer is that they're on pretty much all the time that the squad is running, but if you can verify that, that would be helpful.

That's my memory as well. Okay, thank you.

So just a couple of questions about data sharing. As we're all aware, there are all of these other cities in Wisconsin or other agencies that are canceling their contracts or not renewing them or bagging the cameras for a variety of reasons. Racine County Sheriff Schmaling, I'm so sorry to this person if I am mispronouncing your name, ordered the removal of their flock cameras after learning that flock was collecting and retaining information beyond what the sheriff's office understood or agreed to. It's my understanding that flock did reach out to DPW or another city department to offer or advertise flocks traffic analytics product, which is five years of aggregated data set. separate from MPD's previously agreed upon retention period. Was MPD aware of the additional data set?

So we did look at what that data was. Now, I don't know if they reach out to our Milwaukee DPW, but... It's my understanding. Okay. So we did look at what data they retain and what that looks like. And so the distinction is they... And let me get this correct. So we own the rights to our data, and that includes even the analytical data that has been stripped of license plate information and images and all that stuff, but the data that says 5,000 cars went down this street on any given day. That data is ours and by contract it is ours, but they retain some rights to the analytics to ensure the functionality of their cameras. Our contract then says they don't have the right to sell you that data. They don't have the right to sell what they have to retain to ensure the functionality of their equipment. The nuances, like our audit, our audit doesn't comprise of the data that it works off of. It's like a computer system or a tool that makes sense of that data. So the data comes from a source and the tool we've created gives us an outcome that that allows us to make sense. Like you've got outliers, you should look into this. And so what FLOC is saying to municipalities is, we have this tool that you can use to make sense of this traffic data. So they're not selling the municipality back the data itself, they're selling that translation tool to municipalities. the municipality, and so that is why that was not a concern for us. It wasn't them selling us Becker data, it was selling a translator for that data.

Okay, I understand that. I think for me, in my perspective, I'm concerned because if A, I think this is a little bit of a This is very specific wording that Flock has offered that allows them to make this claim and then allows them to say, hey, we're not technically selling you your data back. But I would challenge that a regular member of the community or myself wouldn't see it that way. And certainly if the Racine County Sheriff doesn't like this level of data sharing or selling, I would wonder why we accept that here. I also want to note that Jefferson County Sheriff Travis Mays said that he was told by Flock specifically that their data would not be released without their permission. And he said that is not the case. Cases that we were investigating in 2025 have been made public without our consent. I feel that we were lied to. I don't think that we know the full extent of what happened there. But I do just want to emphasize, I think there are cases that are close to home where it seems like That's not Jefferson County Sheriff's fault. There may be things that are not MPD's fault, but that are an issue with Flock, the company. I just wanted to talk about Flock the company then while we're on this. I think a lot of, a number of public commenters have referenced this. And again, at the risk of repeating myself, I am truly appreciative of the work that MPD has done in terms of increasing the robustness of the audit process. But one of my primary concerns remains that while MPD can audit their searches and this body can audit MPD. We just fundamentally don't have oversight over third party companies using proprietary software. And we've seen mayors and city councils and police chiefs and sheriffs state publicly that their trust was betrayed by Flock or that they feel Flock misrepresented their technology or the contract. So given all that, how confident is the department in Flock's honesty and transparency with MPD and the public?

I can say we are not tied to one vendor for Alpers technology. We believe in Alpers. What I can say is based upon our review of the contract as it is now, our experience with what we have and the integrity of our data, we have not had any issues. I can't speak to what other municipalities have said. experienced or what they've explored or what they've discovered. And I would like to know more information about the experiences that those municipalities had. What I can say specific to Flock is we really did build out a robust system of accountability around it and if we went to a new vendor which again we as a department are not advertisers for any vendor nor do we promote any vendor specifically we the technology is what's important to us If we go to a new vendor, that process then must be rebuilt. Not that it won't happen, we will do the work. But we've got James Lewis, our risk manager, and our OMAP team that will have to replicate that from scratch. So for us, That is a factor and everything's a balancing act and so So I say to you All that that we have not experienced the things that other municipalities have experienced to date We don't really know all of the specifics about what has occurred with their situations and we have also not only relied on this particular vendor throughout a number of years, but we've built on what the vendor has offered for our own accountability.

Okay, you mentioned earlier in the presentation that we don't have the capacity or technology to have video on the Flock cameras. In the contract that we have with Flock, Flock describes the cameras as saying that upon detection, they're capable of capturing audio, video, image, and recording data. And in a recent Wired article, someone hacked into flat cameras and did find video on the cameras. Was the department aware that the cameras can have video?

I don't know what Wired looked into and I honestly don't have enough information to speak to what that publication gathered as evidence for that. I know that there are enhancements to any Alpers technology of any vendor that you can purchase. One of the things that's out there for Flock is this Condor system with cameras, it can tilt and other things. The Milwaukee Police Department has not invested or expended the additional funds for those types of add-ons. I don't know that what we have is capable of that without those add-on functions and I don't know what WIRED looked into or what type of equipment that this had occurred on.

Okay, I think that's certainly worth a conversation with Flock. And I think that they should be more upfront about the technology's capabilities when they're talking to departments. Just a couple of questions about funding. I know we discussed the current total amount of money that has been spent out of whatever pot at the city on the Flock contract and the cameras. and i know we talked about this as well on tuesday but what is the current funding source for flock and when does that funding source expire yes so let me just pull that paper out of my stack here um bear with me.

You brought more paper than me, so well, I wanted to be prepared to answer all of this commissioners, all of the commissioners questions to the best of my ability. Um, so, um, So just, I have the historical look at the funding source, but you're looking for just this past year? I guess I'm looking for the current funding source and when the current funding source expires. Sure, J grant funds. So that, in the last year, had been funded through grant funding.

Okay, and that expires at the end of this year?

January 1st of 2027.

and what is the department's intention with regards to continued funding?

Sure, that I would have to say I am not equipped to answer. I would really need to consult the budget director on that particular response, and I'm happy to do that. I can only speak to what we have done. I can't intelligently speak to what we're going to do, but I do know that this is something that is coming up in very short order as our next budget is being set. I just need to have somebody with better expertise to speak to that.

Sure, yeah. Chief, I believe you are in charge of your budget. Can you speak to that?

It's going to our offices, ma'am.

Okay.

There's more on everything in regards to what the evidence is out there, my commentary with other chiefs, what the team finds, talk with the city leaders, and as always, talk to you and the public.

When can you commit to being transparent with us and with the public about your intentions around funding FLOC?

Well, it's not that we're not committing to transparency. I just don't know the answer. And I think I might have actually looked it up for you in a follow-up inquiry. I just can't remember, and I did not print out that information.

Okay, no problem. I guess at this point, I would like to talk about immigration enforcement. I think this is something that was incredibly troubling for me when I think about... individual cases of officer misuse, You know, I agree with you that humans cannot control all other humans. And as someone who has been in charge of many staff members over many different jobs, I do understand that. So I tend to look at some of these more systemic or broader issues that I'm concerned with. We talked a little bit about side door sharing. In other jurisdictions, law enforcement have specifically described running searches for ICE and immigration enforcement. Unfortunately, this is a little bit reminiscent of the way that MPD was getting facial recognition technology access through other agencies. Even though a lot of the content on there is heavily redacted now, haveibeenflocked.com shows Wisconsin agencies making explicit immigration searches in FLOC for ICE, ERO, and DHS, including those that are specifically marked civil slash administrative and are not criminal, including in 2025, when I presume, since we talked about this, Milwaukee was sharing data with other jurisdictions. So I am incredibly concerned that Milwaukee's data may have been used to detain or take our neighbors away. And that is something that sits so heavily with me. As of September 5th, 17 of the 20 Wisconsin Sheriff's offices holding 287 agreements were in the flock network. And I understand that we talked earlier about MPD sharing data access with, I think the guess was around 200 Wisconsin jurisdictions. So I would assume at least some of them are in there. I would assume at least Waukesha is in there. This is a hard question to ask, but how can we know for sure that MPD's flock data wasn't used to pick up our neighbors?

So our answer is saying that. Knowing after we had challenges with the national data sharing and also we had recently made a commitment to the Wisconsin we have put efforts in, but I can never say that we. I mean, that's something that we have to do another deep dive, but again. Having control over our counterparts When we had the data sharing agreements out there would have been something that we will be equally concerned. I know that I can feel a lot more comfortable knowing that we had shut off these sharing agreements within, you know, again, the national that was last year, the Wisconsin for the state of Wisconsin was this year.

I understand that we've shut off access at this point and I appreciate that that does probably help prevent future harm. But when you say do a deep dive, can you commit to doing a full audit in order to investigate whether Milwaukee's data was accessed even inadvertently by immigration enforcement? I don't think we can and here's why.

So when our data being accessed by an outside agency would require us to get information from that outside agency and we can only rely on whether or not their use was documented appropriately or there's some type of information that they would publicly share about how they use that data in the past. So I would hate to lie and say yes, we will absolutely take that deep dive because I think that there are limitations to that. What I can say is what I know and that is did we have the ability for other Wisconsin jurisdictions to access those pictures of license plates on ours? Yes. Was that turned off very recently? Yes. Is there the potential that one of those outside jurisdictions misused that image that was captured for some other agency? I don't have the answer to that because we can't speak to what those other agencies have done. But what I can tell you is that this moment in time, as we are continuing to listen and figure out all of the ways we can ensure the appropriate use of this type of technology, there is nobody that can access it except for the Milwaukee Police Department. And if it is misused for immigration enforcement, that will be caught in our audit function because that then is not assigned to a case and it falls outside of our very limited use for the part one crimes and those missing and abductions.

I appreciate that, but I don't think that that gets accountability for the community members that have potentially been removed from our neighborhoods, potentially as a result of Milwaukee's data. And I think accountability is a huge part of trust when I'm thinking about what technologies are appropriate for use and what third party companies are appropriate for this department to have a relationship with um i want to acknowledge i know there's not everyone's left but i want to acknowledge the tremendous number of people that have been coming out giving public comment um bothering me in the street everywhere you find me i'm just kidding you can bother me about these issues, I know that it's incredibly important to the public. I also want to acknowledge Alderwoman Dimitrievich and Alderman Brower's comments or messages earlier. I understand that Alderman Bauman has also said that he would like to see the contract canceled in a recent WPR article. I have become increasingly concerned that this body can serve as a pressure release valve and that there is a gap between the community's constant and clear input and the actions that this department or this city are actually taking. Like I said before, one of my primary concerns with this technology is not about the audits, but that we can't audit flock. We have no oversight over third party companies fundamentally. And I am also concerned about the grave lack of accountability for this period in time where it seems to have been the Wild West in terms of MPD usage of this technology and the open question of whether we knowingly or unknowingly aided immigration enforcement in harassing or removing our neighbors from our community. I didn't go to law school. If anyone wants to pay for that, see me after. But it is also this commissioner's non-legal opinion that flock searches are Fourth Amendment searches. And I am seriously concerned that we will see a lawsuit like Waukesha is seeing if we continue this behavior. I also believe that in a democracy, community trust and input is critical and it is very clear to me that the department's relationship and the city's relationship to Flock jeopardizes that trust. This opinion weighs heavily for me because there are some valid uses for this technology and I have seen that and that has been shown to me. But at this point, I cannot in good conscience support this department's use of this technology at this time. Obviously, this is just a communication file, so there's nothing that we can vote on. But I do wanna indicate that whatever it is that I can do to ensure that the department at this time discontinues the use of flock, I will do.

Okay. Do we have any further comments or questions from commissioners? I think we've probably exhausted the field. Go ahead.

I would just note that there was.

I call Carl.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

She just said she concurs.

I said I concur.

I just wanted to note for the record that there was one additional policy recommendation that was made by the Common Council in their March 11th letter that hasn't been responded to. It concerns community governance models such as CCOPs, which stands for Community Control

community control over police surveillance.

Yes, thank you. I would suggest that that is a topic that could involve an entire meeting in and of itself and not something that the commission is going to be able to meaningfully respond to by The end of the month and I would recommend if the Commission desires to take up a discussion about that that it do so at a later time If you so choose

Well, we haven't put together future agendas yet. Yes. But I don't think this is the last opportunity we'll have to formulate perhaps at least a consensus of commissioners as to what communication we would make to the Common Council, whether that would be a request that the council terminate the contract, or direct the department to terminate the contract or whether we will continue to simply monitor the use of the license plate readers so that's that's not we don't have the bandwidth to do that tonight I think we will have though an opportunity to do that in the future because I'd like to let each commissioner vote or state what their position is and we can do that if we perhaps put together a file for a resolution that has to be voted up or down.

Madam Chair, what committee would that actually go to? Would that be a discussion at the full commission?

I would recommend a discussion at the full board for something like that because if the purpose is to give the Common Council a recommendation of the FPC's official position, you would need the full FPC there or the full board to weigh in.

I just want to clarify, earlier Alderwoman Dimitrievich mentioned that the Common Council cannot cancel the contract. Is it the case that if we were to take action regarding the contract that it would need to be a directive to the chief?

So I'm not an expert in what the Common Council's authority is over contracts. I know they do have the authority to approve or deny grant funding. They obviously have the power of the purse. But beyond that, I don't have the answer, so I don't want to misspeak. The Commission does have directive authority. I would think that given that there is a process in place, for approval of contracts, to the extent the Commission was considering anything like that, we would want to consult with the City Attorney's Office to make sure you don't run afoul or exceed the directive authority.

Thank you.

I know that's not a very helpful answer, but...

It's a linearly answer.

Long, short answer, I'm not sure.

but it's something we'd have to resolve before we come up with a resolution that can't be enforced. Okay, that is a lot on flock and license plate readers. Commissioner, Executive Director, please proceed with the agenda. We actually have to start over from the beginning.

Yes, so we will... Move back to the consent agenda. So I'll read those items under the consent agenda. After I do so, any commissioner may remove any of these items to the regular agenda for discussion or appropriate action. Items not removed may be adopted by general consent without debate. Item two, FPC 212693, resolution relating to the September 3rd, 2026 meeting minutes. Excuse me. Item three, FPC 212694, resolution relating to the appointment to the emergency communications supervisor position within the Department of Emergency Communications. Item four, FPC 212709, resolution relating to the appointment to the carpenter for position within the Milwaukee Fire Department. item 5 fpc 212695 resolution relating to the appointment to the i.t project coordinator position within the milwaukee police department item 6 fpc 212696 resolution relating to the appointment to the office assistant 2 position within the milwaukee police department item 7 fpc 212697 resolution relating to the appointment to the police facilities laborer position within the Milwaukee Police Department, and item eight, FPC 213798, resolution relating to the youth carpenter apprentice eligible list for the Milwaukee Fire Department. This concludes the consent agenda.

Would any of the commissioners like to remove any of these items from the consent agenda to the regular agenda? If there are no objections, the items on the consent agenda will be adopted by general consent. Are there any objections? Hearing no objections, these items are adopted. Director, please proceed with the agenda.

And we've previously heard items nine and 10. So I will now read the remaining item, excuse me, I will now read the remaining items under new business starting with item 11, FPC 212701, communication from the Milwaukee Police Department relating to recent changes to MPD standard operating procedures and standard operating instructions. There are two policies before you that have amendments. SOP 015 membership in authorized organizations and standard operating instruction for the crisis negotiation unit

Does a member of the department have information to share with us about these policy changes?

Yes, Chief of Staff Heather Huff, standing in for AC Sarnow, who normally takes on this duty. So for SOP 015, membership in authorized organizations, this is actually a technology change. We are adding credit and debit cards and other payment methods authorized by an executive board member as RAMP now uses other payment methods besides checks. I think we can handle that technology change. And then for the Crisis Negotiation Unit, SOI, we've updated the reference from the Technical Communications Division to the Department of Emergency Communications and we updated the reference to the Hostage Negotiator Training Course that is now 32 hours instead of 40 hours.

I don't have that answer, but I will add that to my list to get back to you on Commissioner.

That was my question. Yeah, okay. Yeah, usually we're into expanding the hours of training, not making them less, but...

I think if it's the case that lowering the hours of training allows more people to take the training, I would be interested in hearing if that's the case as well.

Yeah, okay. All right, any other questions, commissioners? Well, it being a communication file, no further action is required. Director, please proceed with the agenda.

Item 12, FPC 212702, communication from the executive director relating to Fire and Police Commission staffing and operations. My report is in the file. I will just note quickly that we have a new research and policy analyst, a new investigator. We're very close to having a new recruiter, but we have lost our deputy director and emergency management director, which are big losses for the FPC, but we will soldier on. And I'm happy to answer any other questions commissioners have about my report.

How many of those positions are pointed versus...

Yes, so all FPC positions remain, with two exceptions, well three, are civil service positions. The deputy director position is appointed by myself, the executive director. They serve a term that runs concurrently with mine. I guess I'm not including myself there, but obviously I'm appointed by the mayor. The emergency management director is also a mayoral appointment. And then there is one investigator position that is exempt from civil service, and that was done before my time here. The other investigator position that we just hired for is now subject to civil service protection because I think that's important.

Excuse me. All right, any questions? Just a brief comment on the executive director's report. I just want to note, obviously, whenever there are transitions in staffing, the staffing members who are still around may need to take on... new duties or step up in other ways. So I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate the staff for being flexible and stepping into sometimes new responsibilities. And I noticed that you also discussed Carlos or Mr. Martinez Rivera's activities at national nights out and other community events. And I also wanted to shout him out because I have seen him so many places. Yes.

Our staff is wonderful. Thank you. They do appreciate hearing it from the commissioners.

Okay. Director, please proceed with the agenda.

Chair, just quickly. I'd like to make a motion to take the balance of the agenda as a block.

I was gonna make a similar recommendation. They are all promotions that would generally require roll call votes. I think under the circumstances, voice votes would be appropriate. And you could do a block if you wanted.

Let that Robert's Rules genius cook.

Okay, let's do a block.

All right, the remaining, we've done items 13 and 14, so the remaining items are all the other remaining items under the police department. Items 15 through, wait, 18. Would you like me to read all the items or just pick them up? Do you need to read them into the record? I don't. I don't think I do because there's an agenda that lists them. I typically do as a matter of practice, but I don't think there's any rule requiring that I do. If there's a motion to take them up as a block and move approval, I think that would be appropriate.

Move. Second. Okay. A new shortcut I didn't know about. Is there any questions? Call for the questions. Okay, well, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any noes? Any opposed? Any abstentions? Well, the motion carries. Very good.

I would say you guys are getting lazy if it wouldn't be laughable.

With that move, all right. We don't know what's going to happen.

Yes.

All right. So, Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion to approve resolutions 15 through 18.

Second that. Okay.

Any discussion?

Just a comment. Just so that we put on the record, every one of these promotions has gone through a vetting process and is qualified for the position. Is that to Chief of Staff?

Oh, she's gone. I would. Hello.

Hi. This is April, the Human Resources Administration Manager for the Milwaukee Police Department. And yes, sir, that is. Oh, yes.

And that is correct, sir. Just for the record. Okay.

Thank you. That's my only question.

Okay. Then we will vote on the motion. All those in favor signify by saying.

This is a roll call, isn't it?

You can do it either way. Let's do the roll call. It can't hurt. Commissioner Burgos. Aye. Commissioner Evans.

Aye.

Commissioner Fung. Aye. Commissioner Ramey.

Aye.

Commissioner Snyder?

Aye.

Commissioner Spence?

Aye.

Commissioner World-Patterson? Aye. And the chair votes aye. Motion carries. And as I understand it, that concludes the agenda. And I can take a motion to adjourn.

Move to adjourn. Second.

Okay. Anybody who is in opposition will have to leave the room.

Yes.

all those in favor aye aye and i know that no one opposes so we stand adjourned