MILWAUKEE — A Milwaukee police officer is recovering from serious injuries in the hospital after he was hit by an M.P.D. squad vehicle that was chasing a fleeing driver.
The department says the injured officer was deploying stop sticks when he was struck.
Police say the officer had to jump out of the way of the driver being chased, but he wound up in the path of the squad in pursuit. Police say the suspect got away.
“Is it scary to be the officer out there throwing the stop sticks?” TMJ4’s Ben Jordan asked.
“It’s scary,” said Officer Ben with the St. Louis Police Department. “But I'll tell you what's scarier is knowing that there is a pursuit going on when there is a pursuit. It's not just you in danger. It's the suspects in danger. Any officer involved is in danger. The public's in danger. It is a necessary evil on this job."
The Milwaukee Police Department declined to do an interview Monday, but Jordan found an officer from the St. Louis Police Department who says he’s used stop sticks around 100 times.
“When it comes to training for stop sticks, what are the primary things an officer needs to know when they’re deploying them? Jordan asked.
"The most important thing is to keep something between you and the vehicle,” Officer Ben replied. “If you can use your squad car, it's not perfect but you always want to have some sort of barrier whether it be a light pole, a median, your squad car. Just any large object just to absorb an initial hit."
In this weekend’s crash, we don’t know whether the officer had a barrier. But we do know stop sticks are the only intervention tool Milwaukee police officers can use due to department policy.
M.P.D. data shows they were used about 10 percent of the time in 2022 and 2023. Last year, officers got hurt in one percent of chases.
According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and the Indy Star, at least 19 officers have been hit and killed while deploying tire deflation devices since 2013.
Officer Ben says one of the things that makes deploying stop sticks dangerous is they have to be deployed when the fleeing vehicle is fairly close. Otherwise, the driver could easily go around them — or they could deflate the tires of an unintended vehicle.
"They're not invisible,” he said. “Unfortunately. If they were, they'd be perfect. The bad guys know. Stop sticks have been around long enough."
Jordan recently shared a story about the longest Milwaukee police pursuit he could find in the last 15 years. It lasted 89 miles and 17 of the 20 stop sticks officers placed on the road missed the car. The Milwaukee Police Department spoke with us a couple of months ago about that pursuit.
“What does that say about the ability for stop sticks to really affect these pursuits? Jordan asked.
“This goes to show us that we probably do need to have some more training as a result of when things like this happen as far as the deployment of stop sticks go, to make sure we're getting those repetitions in,” Assistant Chief Craig Sarnow said.
The Milwaukee police union tells TMJ4 that every M.P.D. officer is trained on how to use spike strips. Officer Ben says his department now requires 16 hours worth of training due to the dangers.
It’s about time to watch on your time. Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for “TMJ4” on your device.
Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more.
