The Milwaukee Police Association (MPA) president told the city's Public Safety and Health Committee concern has intensified over officer service weapons accidentally discharging.
"I can tell you that our members have lost all trust in the Sig P-320. We have received numerous phone calls our officers will no longer be taking this firearm home and endangering their families," MPA president Wagner told the committee.
Since 2020, the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) has had three accidental discharges while the Sig Sauer P-320 was holstered. An officer was injured in two of those cases.
The most recent was in early September of this year.
Before going into closed session, city officials said they were limited in how much they could discuss openly given the ongoing lawsuit the union filed against the city demanding to replace the guns. The lawsuit also claims that the city knew or should have known about the safety issues when purchasing firearms.
Wagner and MPD's chief of staff noted the accidental discharges have been an ongoing issue for a couple of years and that they have been in talks with the city attorney over that time.
Following the closed session, aldermen were frustrated over an uncertain timeline and how it got to this point.
"It's frustrating that we have an incident that happened and in hindsight, it looks like a couple of things happened before. Now where to put that blame is what gets decided in the courts. I have some frustration with the manufacturer. Again, not everything has seen the light of day so that's as much as I can say," Ald. Spiker said.
"I'm glad that the aldermen are meeting. I'm glad this issue has come to their attention and they're meeting to discuss hopefully plans to replace these weapons," Wagner said following the meeting.
Common Council members asked Wagner why the union is not suing the gun manufacturer. He replied, they want the firearms replaced quickly for safety reasons and they are not doing this for money.
Wagner told TMJ4 News that if the city makes a plan to quickly replace the guns, they would probably drop the lawsuit entirely.
The city still has about a week left to respond to the lawsuit.
