Milwaukee, WI – On December 12, members of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) delivered a petition demanding a hiring freeze be placed on the UWM police department. The petition, part of the SDS “Chop from the Cops” campaign, had hundreds of signatures.

While the UWM administration claims there are no plans to hire more cops on campus, the petition demands the university make a tangible commitment to not hire any additional staff to an already bloated police department. UWM PD has the second highest budget for campus police departments in Wisconsin, at over $3 million.

“In practice, a hiring freeze means less money spent on positions for the PD, it leaves more money to support student services like mental health resources, multicultural student services, the LGBTQ center all which are severely underfunded and understaffed,” said Trenton Houck of SDS. While UWM PD staffs around 50 people, the vast majority of cases they respond to are for drug and alcohol violations, non-violent events which typically result in exorbitant charges.

Other cases police respond to are mental health crises, which they are unequipped to appropriately handle. Incidents of students being attacked by UWM police are all too frequent and have even escalated to a homeless student being shot on campus by police in 2019.

“We need to be putting money into these services that actually help students instead of the police officers who actively harm students,” Houck said.

The hiring freeze is only the first part of UWM SDS’s Chop from the Cops campaign as they move forward to demilitarization and ultimately replacing the police department with basic campus security and crisis response teams.

#MilwaukeeWI #StudentMovement #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #UWMilwaukeeSDS

Milwaukee, WI – On October 26, members of Students for a Democratic Society at UW-Milwaukee rallied with the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression to demand justice for Jacob Blake. The Department of Justice announced that they will not be pressing charges against Officer Sheskey – they claimed there was not “sufficient evidence” that Sheskey willfully and maliciously harmed Jacob Blake when he shot him seven times. In response to the Department of Justice's decision, Students for a Democratic Society called a national day of action.

“This is just one more instance of racist public officials protecting racist cops,” says Paris Miller of the Milwaukee Alliance. “We need total community control over the police in order to end police crimes. CPAC will give us that control.”

Speakers during the rally, including Justin Blake, Jacob Blake's uncle, called for justice for Jacob and all victims of police crimes, and named civilian police accountability councils as the solution.

“We want members of our community, because we can trust them to have a vested interest in keeping our community safe,” said Thunder Milroy of Students for a Democratic Society. “Not in the way that these cops 'keep their community safe,' by covering up their crimes, but by holding the criminals responsible for their actions.”

Immediately after the rally, SDS and Milwaukee Alliance led a teach-in on CPAC to bring more awareness about its purpose and how city officials will find every possible loophole in people's demands to refund their community. At the teach-in, attendees strategized to end police crimes and improve their living conditions. Attendees left with a clearer understanding of the importance of community control of the police, and the motivation to fight for it.

#MilwaukeeWI #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #MilwaukeeAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #UWMilwaukeeSDS

Milwaukee, WI – On the evening of September 25, organizers with the recently re-formed University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) led a rally in Spaights Plaza on campus. More than 20 students and supporters gathered to demand that the university disarm, defund and ultimately disband the campus police.

“This event was held to formally announce our demands of UW Milwaukee, which includes defunding the UWM campus police entirely and redistributing those funds to programs such as ethnic studies and mental health services,” said Veronica Roll, a leader with UWM SDS. “I am overjoyed with the support we received from this rally and can’t wait to connect with the community more to work on this issue.”

Many organizations were represented at the event, demonstrating the popularity of the call to disband the campus police. Chants of “Take it to the streets, defund the police – no justice, no peace!” and “Dare to struggle, dare to win!” rung throughout the plaza.

The speeches highlighted that the UWM cops don’t protect people, citing the fact that the overwhelming majority of their activities involve harassing students and issuing them citations. Other than that, their armed presence on campus puts students, particularly oppressed nationality students, at unease.

Just last year, in the spring of 2019, there was a violent incident involving the UWM police. A man, Irie Payne, was found sleeping in an empty building on a mostly empty campus during spring break. The police aggressively engaged Payne, and it ultimately led to him being shot several times. Payne thankfully escaped this encounter with his life.

Two months later, their use of potentially deadly force was ruled justified. In February 2020, Payne was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison. His charges included reckless endangerment and resisting arrest, both linked to the encounter that left him hospitalized with bullet wounds.

UWM SDS plans to carry forward their campaign to disarm, defund and disband the campus police department, and to reinvest that money in student needs. They join a number of other SDS chapters and other student organizations nationally in the effort to neutralize violence caused by these cops.

#MilwaukeeWI #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #UWMilwaukeeSDS