It turns out that violent crime in Milwaukee didn't fall last year. In fact, it rose.
Cases were misreported, masking the truth about the crime rate in the city.
From 620 WTMJ:
Is the Milwaukee police department misreporting crime numbers? That's the claim in a big Journal Sentinel investigation, but the police chief angrily refutes that.
The Journal Sentinel is reporting some 500 cases over the last three years were incorrectly reported to the FBI, resulting in a lower violent crime rate in the city. The police chief admits they made errors, but adamantly denies any of it was intentional.
"Cops matter, deployments matter, neighborhoods are improving," said Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn Wednesday at a news conference.
The Journal Sentinel reports that had the cases from last year alone been coded properly, the city's violent crime rate would have gone up more than one percent -- instead of down more than 2 percent like Flynn claimed earlier this year.
"I believe the crime rate is down, I absolutely do," said Flynn. "I have no reason to doubt it, I don't doubt the math either. If we're up one percent in a given year you know what, one percent is within our margin of error."
Flynn admits mistakes were made, but says they're a product of human and computer error, not a political move to polish the numbers.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is backing the chief. "If there are problems, the problems occurred as the officer on the beat was filling out the reports and that is something that we can work with," said Barrett.
Here's video:
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an agenda. Its crusade to smear Chief Ed Flynn and the Milwaukee Police Department is nothing new.
That said, the numbers are what they are. Some cases were misreported to the FBI, and that drove the crime rate down.
Was the misreporting intentional? That is the question.
Flynn says it wasn't. Mayor Tom Barrett backs Flynn.
Should we believe them?
Up one percent. Down two percent. That's not exactly a dramatic difference either way.
If there has been a systematic attempt to influence the city's crime statistics by inaccurate reporting of cases, that's a problem. It's an attempt to deceive the public.
If innocent human error is responsible, that's a problem, too.
Of course, sloppy reporting isn't the same as premeditated deception, but what really matters is that Milwaukee is home to too many crime-ridden areas.
Improving economic conditions and creating jobs, getting people to be less dependent on government programs, would be a big help in bettering the city and enhancing the quality of life.
Where's the plan for that, Tom Barrett?
Instead of the Journal Sentinel investigating the police department's stats, why doesn't it hold Barrett accountable for failing the city? Why does the JS give Barrett a pass?
No comments:
Post a Comment