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A Year After the El Rey Raids, Fire & Police Commission Drags Its Feet
When will the Commission investigate?
September 17, 2003
On September 18, 2002, armed Milwaukee police officers stormed the El
Rey grocery store and tortilla factory during business hours. Pointing
guns at employees and customers and shouting orders in English -- which
many in the store and factory did not understand -- the police detained
dozens of employees, forcing many to sit on a concrete floor in handcuffs
for hours.
Why was this raid carried out? Police allege that El Rey was selling
antibiotics without prescriptions. “But that doesn’t justify tactics more
suitable for a midnight raid on a crack house than a neighborhood grocery
store at 9 in the morning,” said Oscar Cervera, director of the Latino
advocacy organization, the Federation for Civic Action.
Six weeks after the raid, 25 El Rey employees filed a complaint with
the Milwaukee Fire & Police Commission. Yet a year after the raid and
more than 10 months after the complaint was filed, the Commission has
still not taken any meaningful action. Incredibly, the Commission claims
that it lacks the power to investigate.
According to Neifor Acosta, one of the attorneys representing the employees,
the Commission has put the burden on the workers to figure out which officer
was responsible for which violation. In other words, they insist that
people who were terrorized at gunpoint and handcuffed by police shouting
in a language many did not understand to provide names, badge numbers
and other identifying details. The Commission claims it can’t investigate
otherwise. However, Section 62.50(19) of the Wisconsin statutes says the
commission shall investigate complaints, and Section 62.50(1m) authorizes
the Commission to conduct a review of the Police Department’s policies.
And the Commission is missing the larger point: The decision to conduct
a crack-house-style raid was completely improper. It could and should
have been handled as a simple licensing violation. In fact, that is precisely
what the state Department of Regulation and Licensing suggested. Certainly,
it could have been handled in a far less confrontational manner.
It is time for the Fire and Police Commission to take its responsibility
to investigate seriously, and to right the wrongs caused by the El Rey
raid.
Contacts: Karyn Rotker, ACLU-Wisconsin Foundation, 272-4032, ext. 21,
Oscar Cervera, Federation for Civic Action, 672-8777
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