Jack Connelly

Journalism 4150
12/06/21

Main Story

When we had Milwaukee Police Chief William Jessup in our class to discuss
the data that we had found we asked him about his opinion on the no-knock
search warrant and if he saw value in its use. His response “I don't see a great
value in most, but I do see value in having officers and law enforcement have the
ability in certain circumstances that still use no-knock search warrant.” His opinion
of no-knock warrants being on the outside of public opinion proved true as last
year the death of Brionna Taylor led to protests for police reform and Gov. Tony
Evers called for a ban on no-knock search warrants which eventually came true in
November 2021. From talking to police officers out in the field to looking at the
numbers in our research we can see that police reform in this country has only
just started.
When we started looking at our list of cases we started to notice some
trends with these searches which adds to the list of reasons for police reform
being a very hot issue at the moment. We had a set of 433 cases in Milwaukee
county of which 75% of all searches were done on African Americans. In contrast,
white people are second on the list of most searched at 15% and Hispanics are
third at an even lower rate of 6%. African Americans are far more likely to not only
be the suspect of a search but they are also much more likely to be involved in a
no-knock search. We see a similar trend when we look at searches that were
approved for no-knock status and the race of the suspect. As out of all of the
no-knock searches that were done in our set 77% of them were conducted on an
African American. We then get white people again at 10% and Hispanic at third
with 3%. Being an African American in Milwaukee County greatly increases your
chances of being the subject of not only a police search but a much more
dangerous one in a no-knock search.
The no-knock warrant was banned by the Milwaukee Fire and Police
Commission in its standard operating procedure in late 2021. When we look to
2019 when our data set was from we can see that although the police department
is now doing what many see is right. It does not mean that these types of searches
were uncommon in the past. Out of all of the searches we had 30% of them were
approved by a judge for search. (After this I will add a quick section looking at a
few cases that were approved for no-knock that did not have any actual findings.)
These searches that we have in our set of data were for the most part
successful in finding the drugs that they were looking for. Out of all of the 433
cases in our set, 76% of searches found something inside the house that was
illegal. 62% of these cases also found some kind of drug or drug odor during their
searches. On top of 38% of all searches in this set also have found any kind of
firearm or ammo. This of course leaves the other 24% of cases in which the police
found nothing on the property. This sets up a scenario where the police could
conduct a dangerous no-knock raid on a house that does not have anything inside.
This of course leads to an issue where we have a lot of crime being committed but
how that is governed and enforced needs to be changed. We spoke to Devin
Anderson who is a vocal activist for the defund the police movement and member
of LiberateMKE on how he thinks that even with the loss of no-knock warrants
there still needs to be more change made to the policing system. Devin sees that
in the past year and a half after the deaths of multiple African Americans at the
hands of police, protests have led to people who were seen as radical and crazy
were now center stage. Devin sees this as a critical moment where actual change
could be made to the policing system. The idea of abolishing the police and
disturbing the funds is what Devin thinks is the future and getting that message
out to people. (Add quote from Devin and mini conclusion)