MILWAUKEE — Grimacing and grunting during a workout is normal for people pushing their body beyond their limits to try and improve their own health and well-being.
“I try to do 30 to 45 minutes,” Michael Schaar said. “Right now, it’s hard. My leg has been bad these days.”
Schaar's straining comes from just lifting his left leg. Despite being a few inches off the ground, this exercise is exhausting.
“Very difficult,” Schaar said. “If I didn’t do this, I wouldn’t be able to walk.”
For the last four years, Schaar’s exercise routine consists of walking up stairs and around the block of Cudahy Towers in Downtown Milwaukee. He puts on a compression sock and knee brace. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to walk at all. It may not seem like the type of workout that would be this difficult, but as the victim of a hit and run, Schaar’s exercise is just to help keep him moving.
“I’m 41 [years old],” Schaar said. “But right now, I feel like I have the body of an 80-year-old. My leg would lock up if I didn’t do exercise. I feel like I should be able to walk like a normal person right now and I don’t really.”
It was on this block in July of 2019 when Schaar’s life changed. He works security for Cudahy Towers. He was patrolling the parking lot, like he normally does, with the City’s Bastille Days celebration happening just a few blocks down.
“Saturday night, there was a white van that came over here,” Schaar recalls. “I walked around to make sure they didn’t come in the parking lot. The next night, I saw it again. I went to it and thought once they saw me, they’d leave. But apparently, that was wrong. Once they saw me, they wanted to run right over me.”
The driver hit Schaar and didn’t stop. Schaar laid on the ground of the parking lot, unconscious with his life in jeopardy. He has no memory of the crash or the next three weeks. He was placed into a medically induced coma.
“I was left for dead,” Schaar said. “I had a neurologist say I had a 20 percent chance of surviving. Somehow, I made that 20 percent.”
Surveillance cameras caught the suspect’s vehicle, but there weren’t any other witnesses, and Schaar’s memory couldn’t help police. This year marks four years since the incident, and the person responsible for Schaar’s near-death experience is still free and unknown.
Schaar’s experience is one many in Milwaukee have gone through. Since 2017, there have been 817 criminal hit and run cases.
However, there was a large spike in the number of hit and runs since 2020. Compared to the three years before the pandemic, 2017 to 2019, there were 284 criminal hit and run cases. In the three years after, that hit and run crashes jumped to 516, an 81.7 percent increase. And it’s rare that these cases ever get solved.
“Hit and run cases present a lot of difficulty,” Inspector David Feldmeier with the Milwaukee Police Department said. “Many times, there was nobody there to see it. Sometimes it’s late at night. Sometimes the victim doesn’t even know their car was hit. Many times, it’s parked vehicles. There’s late reporting, we find a day or two afterward and we don’t have evidence to follow up on.”
Milwaukee Police provided data on the number of criminal hit and run cases from 2017 to 2022 to the I-Team. However, changes to their systems in 2018 impact the accuracy of clearly understanding the number of hit and run cases solved and unsolved. Because of that, data from 2019 to 2022 accurately shows 26.5 percent of criminal hit and run cases were solved.
“Nothing is ever good enough unless it’s 100 percent,” Feldmeier said. “We try our best. We’re always trying to look at ways of improving our investigations.”
Having higher quality surveillance cameras, in addition to a higher number of homes having personal security cameras, helps police identify perpetrators. But the biggest thing MPD does to improve solving hit and run cases is being consistent and persistent.
“Best practices,” Feldmeier said. “Being able to talk to the individuals, knowing where to look for that evidence. Who to look to, who to look for, being able to document it and continuously follow up.”
While newer technology is a helpful aid, Feldmeier says they still have to depend on shoe-leather policing.
“Having our officers knock on doors, walk up on some porches, talk to some people,” Feldmeier said. “Hey, did you see what happened? We are in a customer service business. We deal with people every day, all the time. Interacting with residents, seeking help from them and us helping them in whatever way we can, that’s the name of the business.”
But cases like Schaar’s are the norm. They’ve gone cold with no hope for a solution. It’s why he’s always looking for white vans, even four years later. He hopes he can help identify something to help police find the person responsible for almost killing him.
“I’m probably going to go to Bastille Days for the rest of my life looking for white vans,” Schaar said. “I want to have the world find out that that person ran me over and hopefully they can feel bad about it.”
If you have any information on the van involved in Michael Schaar’s hit and run, or any information on a hit and run for that matter, you’re asked to call Milwaukee Police at 414-935-7360 or, to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 414-224-TIPS (8477) or P3 Tips.
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