The Milwaukee Police Department is made up of many different divisions, bureaus and units. One of the more interesting units is the Specialized Patrol Division. The commander of this division is Captain of Police Jeffrey A. Sunn. He is a seasoned veteran of the department and well-liked by his officers and office staff. He was born and raised in Milwaukee growing up on the northwest side of town, attending Burroughs Middle School and Vincent High. He attended UWM-Milwaukee and graduated with a history degree. His father is a retired MPD sergeant, and one sister is still on the job. Jeffery took the police exam in 1995 and came on the job in 1997. After graduation he spent time at District 7 and later at District 5 on the motorcycle unit. He later was promoted to Sergeant then lieutenant before his current Captain assignment.
Captain Sunn has many specialized units that he is responsible for. This includes motorcycles, TEU, traffic safety, harbor patrol, horses, bomb squad, crash reconstruction, dive team, and planning and operations. Many people are interested in the department horses. A new location on the south side has just been built for them. The rawhide organization helps build the location and the department shares the location with them. They have 12 stalls for horses and the department has 12. Rawhide brings in kids with special needs and Vets to interact with the horses.
The Chief created the Traffic Safety Unit in 1921. They are deployed in all the seven police districts. Usually, they will work in an area for about 4 hours and put-up signage for drivers letting them know that they are in the area. Their point is to change behavior not just writing tickets. Crime analysis is used to decide where to set up along with complaints from citizens about reckless driving in their neighborhoods. In addition, they look at accidents, and complaints from Alderman office. The unit uses something they call HVE, High Visibility Enforcement, which is designed to create deterrence and change unlawful traffic behaviors when it comes to things like reckless driving. It combines highly visible and proactive law enforcement targeting. So far this year and even the last few years Captain Sunn reports no major issues with cruising and blocking up streets. In addition, no accounts of street racing that used to occur on the far northwest side of town.
Captain Sun reports the new street designs are helping a lot by putting the planters on the corners to cut down on passing in the right lanes. A good example again is on North 27th Street between Wisconsin Ave and Highland Blvd. You cannot easily pass or try to go around someone in that whole section of 4 blocks or so. On many corners you see the walk/don’t walk signs flashing. But I myself like the ones that have numbers counting down to zero instead of the walk flashing. When you see the numbers counting down you know how much time you have left to safely cross the street. Putting all this together we will slowly make our streets safer for everyone.
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