End Police Pursuits
The Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression demands that the Milwaukee Police Department change their standard operating procedure on police pursuits (SOP 660) to enforce a “no chase” policy. Currently SOP 660 has no guardrails on when an officer can engage in a pursuit, with no accountability when something inevitably goes wrong. No policy tweaks, training reforms, or “stricter guidelines” can make police chases safe.
As of September of 2025, there were 778 police vehicle pursuits through mid-September, an average of about three chases every single day through our neighborhoods. These are not isolated incidents. This is routine violence disguised as public safety.
A person fleeing the police whether out of fear, panic, or distrust of law enforcement should never be a death sentence for anyone.
Yet under MPD’s pursuit policy, that is exactly what it becomes.
When police choose to pursue, they are not just “following procedure.”
They are making a deliberate choice to escalate risk, knowing full well that vehicle pursuits are one of the leading causes of civilian deaths related to policing nationwide.
And let’s be real honest about who bears that risk.
It is overwhelmingly working class, Black, brown, and immigrant communities in the North and South sides who live with the consequences. It is people who already live under over policing, surveillance, and state violence. A system that accepts this as “collateral damage” is a system that has already decided whose lives matter and whose do not.
If police cannot arrest someone without turning our neighborhoods into high speed danger zones, then they should not be pursuing anyone at all.
Public safety means protecting the public, not gambling with it and choosing whose lives you deem as valuable.
HOW DO WE END DANGEROUS POLICE PURSUITS?
Amend SOP 660 to create an immediate and permanent ban on all police vehicle pursuits in Milwaukee, except in circumstances of extreme and imminent danger from the suspect.
All incidents resulting from a police pursuit must be treated as critical incidents, whether or not an officer was directly involved in an accident, injury or death. Release all video related to the pursuit to the family/families affected within 48 hours and to the public within 15 days.
Full public transparency on all past pursuits, including injuries, deaths, and property damage caused by MPD. MPD to release publicly available data on any and all pursuits.
Reinvestment of resources away from militarized policing and into housing, youth programs, and community led safety initiatives.
Police pursuits do not exist in isolation.
They are part of a broader system of surveillance, criminalization, and repression.
Ending police chases is not radical.
Accepting preventable death as the cost of policing is.
SIGN ON TO THIS LETTER TO DEMAND THE END OF POLICE PURSUITS!
End Police Pursuits. Pursue real safety not people!
