MILWAUKEE — Bumping along Milwaukee streets, stomachs drop regularly when traffic lights go from green to yellow as drivers need to make a critical decision with a Shakespearean echo in their brains.
To go, or not to go? That is the question.
Sometimes, the answer is easy; a driver is so close to the light they can easily blow through with no fear of running a red light or, alternatively, they’re too far to even have a shot at making it through before the light transitions to the next symbolic color to stop. But that “no man’s land” can create a bundle of anxiety for drivers as they navigate whether they can get through the intersection without fear of running a red light.
It's a split-second decision that can have far more serious consequences than a Milwaukee Police Officer pulling you over for a traffic violation. It’s a decision that was on full display last summer at 7th and Locust.
“It was plain as day, this man never stopped,” Janice Crump said. “They didn’t charge the individual that killed my son.”
Janice Crump’s son Bobby Brown was killed in a crash at 7th and Locust on June 14, 2022. The I-Team covered Crump’s son’s death Wednesday.
Crump did the work to get surveillance, body camera, and dash camera video of the incident. She put it together in a documentary to bring awareness to her son’s death and the injustice she feels her family is facing because the 21-year-old driver who crashed into Bobby was held accountable for killing her son.
“It was swept under the rug,” Crump said. “It is very troubling.”
“Justice should be served in any situation,” Hope Young, Bobby’s girlfriend said. “Because people have families and have people that care about them. They have kids that one day grow up in it and see these things. Who knows how long we’ll be fighting for this justice for Bobby.”
TMJ4 News is not naming the 21-year-old driver because he was never charged with a crime. The District Attorney’s Office initially told the I-Team, “No criminal charge will be issued here because we cannot prove [the 21-year-old] received notice of his suspended status, which is one of the elements of the crime that we must prove. Apparently, the method of notice to [him] was standard U.S. mail to his last address known to DOT.”
However, at the request of the family, the DA is taking another look at the case. Chief Deputy District Attorney, Kent Lovern, provided this statement to the I-Team about reexamining the case:
“This particular matter is being reviewed again to determine if there is any criminal negligence here warranting a charge. Fatal accidents caused by ordinary negligence are handled in the civil justice system. Negligence that becomes criminal is at a much higher level than ordinary negligence. In order for a person to be charged with criminal negligence, that person must know that their conduct alone created a substantial and unreasonable risk of death or great bodily harm to another. Reaching this conclusion requires analyzing the conduct of both parties to an accident and how their actions may have contributed to the fatality.”
In the surveillance video, Crump points out, at the point of impact with Bobby’s crash, there is a visible red light for traffic in the opposite direction on Locust.
The I-Team requested data from the Department of Public Works about the timing of the red, yellow, and green lights from 7th and Locust on the day of Bobby’s crash. According to DPW, that intersection has a 4-second yellow light and a 2.5-second red clearance interval.
“That’s a safety mechanism from that perspective,” City Engineer Kevin Muhs said. “That allows to make sure that people are clearing the intersection. We don’t have somebody entering the intersection having a green and hitting another car.”
Muhs says every single one of the roughly 750 intersections in the City of Milwaukee follow an interval cycle like this. There is a lot that goes into deciding how long each light should be. For starters, green light timing is decided to both maintain the flow of traffic but not allow people to fly through a corridor in any part of the city. Muhs says they tend to be between 15 and 30 seconds.
“It usually depends on how many cars are trying to get through and use that street at once,” Muhs said. “We try to accommodate that so that we’re not resulting in kind of unnecessary queuing of red lights. We aim for three to four greens before someone hits a red. It’s a little bit of a speed management technique.”
That length of time also depends on how wide an intersection may be. The green lights also need to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists to cross safely too.
Yellow lights take the speed of the roadway into account. Essentially, a yellow light is where a decision needs to be made by the driver about whether they can safely go through the intersection or not. This decision-making time can be different for someone on a 45 mph roadway versus a 25 mph roadway.
“The faster the driver is going, the more time they need to respond to the input you’re giving them which is, hey, it’s yellow and about to turn red. You should be stopping if it’s safe to do so.”
According to Muhs, yellow lights are typically between three and five seconds long. With that knowledge, drivers should still be stopping at these lights.
“It is not for people to decide they can floor it through all the yellows,” Muhs said. “They should still be stopping if they can. But the red does accommodate that so that hopefully we’re reducing conflicts between all the users at the intersection.”
That’s where the red clearance interval comes into play. This is when all lights at the intersection are red for a brief amount of time to avoid any potential crashes. This time is dependent on the length of an intersection as well.
“The distance a car is going to need to clear the intersection,” Muhs said. “Those can vary quite a bit. They can be relatively short, or they can be longer. It really just depends on the width of the intersection. It allows people to clear the intersection, so we don’t have somebody entering the intersection having a green and hitting another car.”
According to DPW light interval times, at the time the 7th Street light should turn yellow, Bobby’s minivan is not in the frame. According to DPW records, four seconds later the light should first turn red. This is when Bobby’s minivan enters the picture. Then, almost 2.5 seconds later, the same length of time for the red clearance interval, Bobby’s minivan is struck by the 21-year-old.
“He had the light,” Crump said. “The light was yellow.”
“For a single person to say, we think the dead victim is at fault is simply unacceptable,” Attorney William Sulton said. “[The District Attorney] needs to make it right.”
Sulton is representing Bobby’s family as they pursue justice, but Sulton says liability isn’t the same in civil and criminal courts.
“The civil system, liability is clear,” Sulton said. “The criminal system, it should be as well. The City does maintain light intervals and the light intervals support what we’re saying about [the 21-year-old driver’s] behavior. Some questions need to be answered in court and this is one of them. Make it right and issue charges against this individual who killed someone.”
With no charges filed, Crump feels the DA’s Office is placing the responsibility for Bobby’s death squarely on Bobby’s shoulders.
“They are,” Crump said. “That’s why I want the world to see what happened.”
The DA’s Office did not give a timeline on when it could render a decision on this case. If the decision again results in no charges filed against the 21-year-old, Sulton says they will likely file for John Doe proceeding. Essentially, Sulton says, this would allow the judge to look at the case and determine if there is probable cause that a crime was committed and pursue charges that way.
Either way, the scales of justice are on pause for Bobby’s family.
“There is not a day I don’t think about him,” Crump said. “This man should not be allowed to walk right here after you kill somebody. If it was my son, he would be in jail. He needs to be in jail. That’s the justice I want seen.”
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