Moore Will Force Council Vote On High-Speed Police Chases

Alderwoman Sharlen P. Moore. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Ald. Sharlen P. Moore intends to force a Common Council vote July 31 on a proposal to restrict when Milwaukee police officers may initiate high-speed chases.

But Moore acknowledges she faces an “uphill climb” to secure the 10 votes needed to change Milwaukee Police Department policy.

“I need eight votes to pull the file on the 31st, and I’ll need 10 votes to pass,” Moore told reporters following the council’s July 14 meeting.

The proposal was rejected 4-1 by the Public Safety & Health Committee in June, with Moore casting the lone vote against shelving it.

If the four committee members who opposed the proposal maintain their positions, Moore can afford to lose only one other member of the 15-member council.

Moore had considered asking the council Tuesday to take the measure from the committee and vote on it, but she held off after the City Attorney’s Office raised concerns about whether a component of the proposal would be legal and enforceable.

The city attorney is working with Moore and Fire & Police Commission Executive Director Leon W. Todd III on revising the specific language in the proposal. Moore said she had not received enough detail to publicly identify the precise changes being considered.

“There was some language that needed to be changed, and I never like to slide things through,” she said. “I want to make sure that the community is aware of what we’re doing and that they have enough time to respond to it.”

Moore said the revised measure is expected to return to the council agenda July 31, the council’s final meeting before its August recess.

“I’m expecting the final vote,” she said. “We want to use that moment as an opportunity to pass this measure.”

The proposal would enact a recommendation unanimously approved by the Fire & Police Commission but opposed by Police Chief Jeffrey Norman. It would prohibit officers from initiating a pursuit when they attempt to stop someone for a non-reckless-driving offense and the driver flees.

The change would not prohibit pursuits involving reckless driving or suspects believed to have committed more serious offenses.

“Some people think that it stops pursuits. It does not,” Moore said. “This policy does not stop pursuits, and I want to really make that clear to the public.”

MPD analyzed its 970 pursuits from 2025 and determined the proposed restriction would have prevented 111 of them, or approximately 11%. Police officials oppose changing the policy so soon after a separate revision took effect in February.

Norman previously declined to adopt the commission’s recommendation, leaving the council as the only body capable of imposing it. Act 12, the 2023 sales tax law, stripped the commission of its authority to directly set department policy and instead gave the council the power to change police policy, but only with a two-thirds vote.

Committee members Mark Chambers, Jr., Peter Burgelis, Scott Spiker and Larresa Taylor voted in June to reject the proposal. Moore said the committee’s recommendation should not prevent all 15 council members from publicly taking a position.

“The committee represents a small portion of the council,” she said. “The beautiful thing about democracy is that we have the opportunity for the full council to have a vote on it.”

Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic is co-sponsoring the measure. Moore said other council members have expressed support, but she did not identify them or claim to have secured the 10 votes necessary for passage.

Two sources questioned whether she had the eight votes necessary to pull the item from the committee on Tuesday.

She urged residents who favor the change to contact their council representatives before the July 31 meeting.

The proposal’s uncertain political prospects come as Moore continues to emphasize the experiences of people whose relatives were killed or injured in crashes stemming from police pursuits.

Ten people died in 2025 as a result of MPD pursuits, including several people who were not involved in the underlying incidents.

“The families that have spoken to me that have lost loved ones, it is heartbreaking,” Moore said. “It is heartbreaking that just on a whim, you’re crossing a street and multiple people at a time are dying.”

She questioned whether officers should continue a high-speed pursuit when the suspected violation is relatively minor, such as an expired license plate. Moore said police could instead follow up later or use GPS tracking, drones and other technology to locate a suspect.

“We’re not going to sit back and allow people to die in our community because we’re pursuing somebody for having expired plates,” she said.

Moore said she has spoken with affected families and advocacy organizations about delaying the vote. She characterized the postponement as a strategic “brief pause,” not a setback.

“We don’t want to just push something through,” she said. “We want to make sure that we’re doing things the right way, and the families are in line with the strategy because we want this to be successful at the end of the day.”

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