Here & Now

Democratic Representative Introduces More Police Reforms

Frederica Freyberg:

At the state Capitol, the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety took up several bills around policing Thursday that emanated out of the speaker’s Task Force on Racial Disparities. Among them, provisions for reporting the use of no-knock warrants, and law enforcement grants for body cameras. But the work of the bipartisan task force whose co-chair is a Democratic member of the Legislative Black Caucus is not getting praise in all corners. Representative David Bowen also on the Criminal Justice Committee held a press conference decrying the lack of meaningful work on police reform in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha and the murder of George Floyd. He was joined by community advocates including Angela Lang, executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities in Milwaukee.

Angela Lang:

This is a time to invest in our communities, not invest in further policing or further criminalization and these bills, while they are not a silver bullet, there is no silver bullet to unravel the generations of white supremacy, these are bills that are a step in the right direction and continue to move the conversation forward.

Frederica Freyberg:

At the press conference, Representative David Bowen made public 12 legislative bills he is proposing to put teeth into police reform in Wisconsin. He joins us now from Milwaukee. Thanks very much for being here.

David Bowen:

Thank you so much for having me on.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why are you proposing these bills now, even as there is work ongoing in the Legislature around police reform?

David Bowen:

Well, now is the perfect time. The task force that was created by the speaker, their seven bills have made their way through committee. I myself had a chance to vote and support five out of the seven of those bills. Two of those that I really believe in communication with folks that have been marching and advocating for quite some time, since the death of George Floyd, they feel it goes in the opposite direction of what they have been asking for. Two out of the seven, I really hope, if that’s what the task force and if that is what the Legislature is going to sign off on, I really hope it is incumbent on the governor to veto those bills so it can go back to the decision-making table and have its way with the other bills that are out there. We wanted to add into the solutions, into the table that should be there to be talked about, to be discussed, to be debated, and not limit it to just where the task force left off. We know it took them seven-and-a-half months to get to the conclusion of those seven bills and we want to add to that. We want to build on to that. So it’s really about having a holistic conversation on the solutions and it is just very clear that certain solutions weren’t allowed to be discussed at that table and there are some other bills that have already been out there with Representative Meyers, my colleague with the ban on no-knock warrants. My colleague Rep. Moore Omokunde with decertification and qualified immunity and then the 12 bills we have here in the “Enough is Enough” package.

Frederica Freyberg:

What are you saying wasn’t allowed to move forward or be discussed? What are those?

David Bowen:

Sure. So one of the bills in our package is to highlight the decision-making around prosecuting officers and that should lie with a special prosecutor decided by a court, rather than the current process is to give that investigative report to the DA and the local DA makes a decision, even though there is a very close relationship between a local DA and a police department. We should recognize that we don’t want to have a conflict of interest there. Another bill is to ensure that in investigations, any investigator is not related to someone on the same force that they are doing that investigation on. And that they themselves have been at least ten years removed from working for that same police department. It’s important to remove the conflict of interest, things that could get in the way. The hurdles that are creating a lot of distrust in this system, especially when it is very shown that it’s possible that an officer made a move of misconduct, made an abuse of power.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so as to your slate of bills you’re proposing, one of them you’re introducing is on police use of force. What precisely does it call for?

David Bowen:

Essentially, it’s very specific. It’s calling for directives in state statue to every officer in the state of Wisconsin. It is preserving the sanctity of life. It is ensuring that officers are using the least amount of force possible in situations to keep people alive. And we know that those — that definition of use of force is not complete to come out of the task force, so we wanted to make sure that was a part of the “Enough is Enough” package, a collective of solutions from the people and from those in law enforcement. We also have a bill to respect the decision of police chiefs when they make a decision of firing an officer. A lot of onus needs to be put on police chiefs to make that decision and when they do it should be respected and it should take more than a regular majority of a fire-police commission to overturn a decision of a police chief. We also want to ensure that police unions aren’t advocating for standing up for officers that have exemplified misconduct, that have exemplified not having the proper conduct to be in their positions and go against a decision of a police chief. So we’re getting those local solutions from clearly different folks that are connected to this system.

Frederica Freyberg:

I want to ask you just very briefly, we don’t have a lot of time left, but how do you and other Democrats accomplish more on police reform with majority Republicans without that seat at the bipartisan task force table?

David Bowen:

I think it’s exposing the riff that exists in our state Legislature. It is about power to some of my colleagues, instead of actual solutions to keep people alive. We are talking what about what folks have been marching, what folks have been advocating for since the death of George Floyd in an extraordinary way, in ways we haven’t seen since the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s. It is incumbent on Speaker Vos and Representative Steineke who is in leadership to hear the cries of people that they want bold change. They just don’t want stutter steps and talking and lip service towards real solutions. We have to get at the root. That is what our task — that’s what our “Enough is Enough” package creates. It is about bringing those solutions to the table in decision-making and prosecuting and direct contact with law enforcement on the front end, and law enforcement has a really big role to embrace these reforms that keeps them safe as well, and that’s what we really want to highlight here.

Frederica Freyberg:

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. We’ll have you on again to talk for longer duration on these issues. Representative David Bowen, thank you.

David Bowen:

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.