Water Street Fights and Chief Ed Flynn (Video)

On Saturday night, St. Patrick's Day, bars closed early on Water Street.

Although some fights broke out, Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn and other city leaders called a news conference to discuss the matter.

Flynn chastised the media for blowing the incidents out of proportion and constructing a false reality.

Video of one of the fights:



Watching this leaves one with the impression that things were out of control.

Chief Ed Flynn begs to differ.

From FOX 6:

It was a typical Monday on Water Street as beer distributors replenished supplies after a busy St. Patrick’s Day weekend. This past weekend, however, was not typical, after fights broke out Saturday night on Water Street, and bars were forced to end St. Patrick’s Day celebrations abruptly, by closing early. However, city leaders Monday stressed that Water Street and downtown Milwaukee are safe, and Saturday’s relative lack of violence, considering the size of the crowds, proves that.

YouTube video shot by Steve White shows the fights that broke out among the large crowds in the street. Milwaukee police were on hand to intervene and disperse the crowds. Police say some threw bottles at police officers, and Water Street bars were forced to close early – some before the fights broke out.

...Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and some Water Street business owners spoke Monday evening during a news conference on Water Street. They say the most important message from this weekend is to put things in perspective. Chief Flynn said the fight caught on video was not at all representative of what the celebrations were like. Flynn says the incident caught on YouTube video was one of over 600 calls for service Saturday night – which he says is not unusual for a warm, Saturday night. Flynn said police did their job in responding to the heavy crowds on Water Street, and the YouTube video doesn’t fully reflect the atmosphere on Water Street Saturday night.

“There was a fist fight on Water Street on Saturday night. This does not qualify as news,” Flynn said. “What is news is that we had 25,000 people on Water Street without any incident. More than 45,000 people were downtown. We had close to 60,000 people using downtown Milwaukee as a safe entertainment venue Saturday night. Milwaukee deserves better than to be represented by one incident that happened to be caught on tape,” Chief Flynn said.

There's no question that images are powerful.

A 66-second video, promoted by the media, can give the public the impression that it's not safe to be downtown.

As Flynn points out, thousands were downtown. The overwhelming majority were not involved in the violence.

Chief Flynn said there were nine people arrested on Water Street Saturday, but many more than that arrested throughout the city Saturday night in other incidents. Flynn said there were six fights reported in the entire downtown area Saturday night. Flynn said putting that in perspective, tens of thousands of people gathered downtown, and security was a success. “We guaranteed a safe night for people, and we provided it. We hope many (people) want to return (to Water Street) for the Sweet 16 later this week. They’re going to have a safe night, and the Milwaukee Police Department is going to see to it,” Flynn said.

There were only nine arrests.

There are more arrests on given days at Milwaukee Public Schools.

Examples:

Twelve people were arrested after Milwaukee police responded to a fight at Washington High School.

Milwaukee police arrested 11 people after multiple fights broke out at Madison High School.

A fight at Bay View High School resulted in 12 arrests.

There certainly weren't crowds numbering in the tens of thousands at these public schools when the violence took place.

I think some perspective is in order.

From the media reports I caught, I was under the impression there were more arrests on Saturday night. Maybe there would have been if the police didn't ask the bars to close early, but what matters is that control wasn't lost. There wasn't a massive brawl.

Here's the video report from FOX 6: