MILWAUKEE — Overall violent crimes were down 15 percent in Milwaukee last year, but murders were up 11 percent.
Milwaukee police say 214 people were killed in 2022, which is up 21 from the year before. While Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman says the primary reason behind the increase may never be known, "What we do know is that conflict argument and domestic violence is contributing to that increase."
He said during Thursday's news conference, "I am pleased to note that the homicide clearance rate has increased to 57 percent in 2022, compared to 51 percent in 2021."
- 2022 CRIME NUMBERS: City of Milwaukee homicides up 11%, serious crime down 15%
"I think that number should be a lot higher," said Andrew Wagner, President of the Milwaukee Police Association. He was not impressed with the Milwaukee Police Department's (MPD) homicide clearance rate. MPD tells me that is when a murder suspect is officially charged.
Wagner said, "In 2015/2014, our clearance rates were as high as 90 something percent, and high 80 percentile range."
Milwaukee police would not confirm those numbers with us.
on Thursday, MPD tells us out of 1,610 current sworn officers, 139 are detectives.
- MPD COMBATING VIOLENCE: Milwaukee police struggle to get ahead of violent, ‘personal’ crimes
Wagner said, "We're scheduled to have 191 detectives." That's 52 detectives short. Police Chief Norman did address retention issues Thursday, "We do have issues in regard to our attrition - so that is always a concern of making sure we have the appropriate resources to address the issue from a policing standpoint."
Wagner says the workload has gone up for detectives, "Detectives go out to all of our shootings... so everybody's workload as detectives has skyrocketed."
The chief says he is looking to the entire community. He pointed to grassroots work being done in the office of violence prevention, "And if you don't have the trust of your community it's a difficult lift to clear cases to get to the bottom of things."
As far as non-deadly shooting investigations, there were 877 last year, and 33 percent of those cases were cleared. That is the lowest clearance for non-fatal shootings in five years.
