The first time the council voted, back on December 15, the vote was the same (9-6) but to deny the program. In a curious – and perhaps revealing – decision, Alderperson Nikiya Dodd (a previous “no” voter) put forward a motion for the second vote, which was then passed. This time around, Dodd voted “yes,” as did Alderpersons Ashanti Hamilton and Chantia Lewis. Hamilton’s vote is particularly confusing because he gave a self-righteous speech about heeding the words of his constituents and taking the calls to defund the police seriously back in December.

The Common Council included seven conditions as a condition of their decision to accept the grant. The conditions contain some nice words, but organizers in the city remain skeptical about the ability – or the desire – of the council to enforce them.

“There’s no leverage or accountability that the common council has against the police department,” said Omar Flores, one of the co-founders of the renewed Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. “It’s bad business giving someone money with no collateral or accountability. What bank would give $10 million to a person that has a bad credit history? The cops have never held up their end of the deal.”

Milwaukee, like many cities around the country, has a Fire and Police Commission. In theory, the FPC exists to check the police, but over the course of its 136-year history, it has proven time and again that it has neither the real power to act or any will to do so. It’s an anti-democratic institution that needs to be done away with.

The alternative? Community control of the police through an all elected Civilian Police Accountability Council, or CPAC. The CPAC would give the people democratic control of the Milwaukee Police Department, including issues relating to funding such as the COPS Grant.

“Without genuine accountability, which the FPC has failed to enforce, there’s no reason to believe that MPD will follow through [with the seven conditions],” Flores said.

Despite the defeat represented by the reversal of the vote, activists like Flores and his Milwaukee Alliance comrades are committed to continuing to build a mass movement against police crimes and for community control of the police.

#MilwaukeeWI #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #COPSGrant

The defeat of the COPS grant was only possible through a consistent grassroots movement in Milwaukee. Defunding the police is a slogan that’s been widely accepted by organizers in Milwaukee and it is rare that elected officials vote in favor of the people. Unfortunately, Common Council member Nikiya Dodd made a motion to reconsider the grant in January. Various members of the Common Council voted in favor of Dodd's motion.

It is clear that we cannot trust elected officials in Milwaukee to do the right thing. With a clear understanding of the system we are fighting against, we can confidently state that the interests of politicians will never fully align with ours. It is necessary that the oppressed people of Milwaukee have institutions that work on their terms.

The demand for community control of the police is crucial to maintaining the immense gains created by the movement locally. The demand for an all elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) will enable Milwaukee to defund the police on the community’s terms.

It is absurd that organizers have had to march for 200 consecutive days to see the common council vote in a manner that is consistent with the demands of the community. We should not have to beg for our right to dignity, equity and full equality. Unfortunately, this is the hand we are dealt here in Milwaukee and all over the U.S.

To quote Frank Chapman, a veteran organizer of the Black Liberation movement and the Executive Director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, “Getting CPAC passed is creating a situation for the self-empowerment of our people. We’ve got to be careful about that word empowerment. If you’re asking the system to empower you, to do something that will undermine the system, then you’re playing games with yourself. It has to be self-empowerment. So we are not asking the system for anything, we are demanding our inalienable democratic right to say who polices our communities and how our communities are policed.”

While it is not incorrect to challenge elected officials to do the right thing, we are wasting our time if we do not have a greater vision for the future. “Defund the police” is a slogan, as well as a worthy desired future state. CPAC is a decisive program that can enable and maintain the defunding of the police. The rejection of the COPS grant and the immediate motion to reconsider the grant is exactly why we need a program like CPAC in place.

The movements on the ground should not be subject to the whim of the Milwaukee Common Council or the Fire and Police Commission. All decisions made by the community should be maintained on the community’s terms and that is not what we are seeing right now. We shouldn’t have to beg a mayor that’s been in power for 16 years to appoint the ‘right’ people to the Fire and Police Commission (FPC). In what world is this democratic? We are pressing a district attorney who has been in power for 13 years to indict killer cops. How is this democratic? We can talk about how the FPC is ‘supposed’ to work. The more sensible conversation to have is how the FPC has thrown oppressed nationality people under the bus for a century.

What we need here in Milwaukee is a genuine democratic control of the police through an all-elected council that is created by the demands of the people. Not on the terms of the Milwaukee Police Department, not on the terms of elected officials that want to waste our time with another oversight committee; it must be from the working-class oppressed nationality people of Milwaukee. All power to the people, let's continue taking the fight to the streets.

#MilwaukeeWI #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #Antiracism #COPSGrant