MILWAUKEE — A Milwaukee traffic study exposes a major problem on the city’s streets. It shows a third of all crashes in Milwaukee are hit-and-runs. That figure is far higher than anywhere else in Wisconsin.
The city report cites data that shows in recent years, 6,000 hit-and-runs are reported annually in Milwaukee. That’s about twice as many as there were a decade ago.
The growing problem comes with all sorts of consequences, especially for victims and their families whose cases remain unsolved.
“I don’t know how a person can live having done something like that,” said Cheryl Bast.
Cheryl and Jan Bast will never forget the call they got in the middle of the night last September when they found out their son Arne was injured so badly in a car crash that he was barely recognizable.
“I think the hardest part was he was still alive and knowing that he was suffering so much,” Cheryl said.
Living on the East Coast, Cheryl and Jan had to say their goodbyes over the phone before Arne passed hours later at the hospital.
“We sang to him, we talked with him, we prayed with him,” Cheryl said.
That night, Arne was walking across Brady Street to meet up with friends when police say an SUV smashed into him. The Milwaukee Police Department says the driver took off and the person behind the wheel has yet to be found.
“This isn’t right for a person to get mowed down in the middle of a street with a 25-mile-an-hour limit and that there’s seemingly nothing we can do,” Jan said.
The Milwaukee Crash Analysis shows it’s a crime that’s committed at an alarming rate in the city. 32 percent of all crashes in Milwaukee are hit-and-runs. That percentage is twice as high as the hit-and-run rate in Madison, Green Bay and the state as a whole.
“Hit and run cases present a lot of difficulty,” Milwaukee Police Inspector David Feldmeier told TMJ4 last spring.
Inspector Feldmeier says hit-and-runs are often tough to solve due to a variety of factors, from finding witnesses and surveillance video, to ultimately tracking down the person responsible.
“Many times, hit and run cases, there was nobody there to see it,” he said. “Sometimes it’s late at night.”
Between 2019 and 2022, Milwaukee police records show only 26.5 percent of criminal hit-and-run cases resulted in an arrest.
“One year later, are you hopeful that someone will be brought to justice?” TMJ4 reporter Ben Jordan asked.
“Ultimately, yes,” Jan said. “In the near future? Unlikely.”
Cheryl and Jan say they learned a crucial piece of evidence was impacted by the weather conditions on the night Arne was killed. They say heavy rain and fog left the driver’s license plate unreadable.
“There was one or two little flashes that showed the vehicle and gave them the make and model,” Jan said.
Arne’s parents say they’ll never get full closure after losing a son, but they’ll feel one step closer if the person responsible has to explain what led up to the crash and why they felt the need to flee.
“I’d probably ask him how he’s able to live with himself,” Cheryl said. “Is his conscience so seared that he has no feeling or empathy for the person that he hit?”
Milwaukee police say they are actively investigating this hit-and-run death. Anyone who has information on the vehicle or the driver is asked to call 414-224-TIPS.
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