Milwaukee alders issue joint statement on the Sterling Brown case

Milwaukee Alds. Ashanti Hamilton, José G. Pérez, Nik Kovac, Cavalier “Chevy” Johnson, Chantia Lewis, Mark A. Borkowski, Tony Zielinski, Bob Donovan, Milele A. Coggs, Robert J. Bauman, Khalif J. Rainey, Michael Murphy and Russell W. Stamper II issued the following statement:

As council members, we’ve had front row seats to witness far too many situations where the law fails to deliver justice.

Despite how we may sometimes feel about the legal process we must remember that it is important to honor that process.

While this is a national issue, we have had more than our fair share here locally.

We are striving to be better stewards of administering justice and it is in that spirit that we make this joint statement.

The city attorney's legal response to the petition filed by Sterling Brown's attorney does not reflect the policy position of the city.

We hold that every resident should be approached with the highest level of professionalism and always treated with dignity and respect by all city employees. The content of the body-worn camera videos from the incident with Sterling Brown clearly does not reflect what we expect from police officers or any other city employee.

As a council, we are calling for unity from the many people who are rightly paying close attention to this case.

We think that this case — and the too many others like it in our community and beyond — should get all of us to focus on enacting the systematic change we have been calling for.

We are collectively redirecting our efforts to identify solutions (including the directives to the MPD that are a part of the stop-and-frisk lawsuit settlement with the ACLU) that will prevent incidents like the one involving Sterling Brown and others in the community from occurring in the future.