MILWAUKEE — A new proposal from the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors could make racist 911 calls a hate crime.
In an effort to achieve racial equality, Milwaukee County Supervisor Shawn Rolland introduced a new proposal which is co-sponsored by Supervisors Ryan Clancy, Joseph Czarnezki, Felesia Martin, and Liz Sumner.
The proposal calls on Governor Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Legislature to reclassify false police reports on a minority group or minority person as a hate crime.
According to a press release from the board of supervisors, this proposal mirrors legislation that was recently introduced in the state
of New York.
“People with hate in their hearts who call the police to harass minorities don’t deserve cute internet nicknames—they deserve significant fines and time in jail,” said Supervisor Shawn Rolland.
The proposal also asks counties, cities, and police departments to take the following additional actions:
- Work together with neighborhood watch groups to develop educational campaigns to clarify what suspicious behavior is and is not.
- Implement a credible approach to track and demographically-desegregate police response data, and annually create measurable goals relating to reducing “living while Black” police responses.
- Implement police dispatcher reform to end harmful “living while Black” police responses.
