‘Drama,’ directives and secrecy: Milwaukee's Fire and Police Commission demoted Chief Morales in much the same way it appointed him
Two years after he last was a finalist for the job of Milwaukee's top cop, Michael Brunson Sr. has the job.
He took over after the city's Fire and Police Commission removed Alfonso Morales as chief and returned him to his prior rank of captain on Thursday, completing a rapid rise and fall for the hometown cop who had pledged to improve police-community relations and restore confidence within the rank-and-file.
Morales became Milwaukee’s police chief in a process marked by confusion, political accusations and likely violations of Wisconsin’s open meetings law. He left the post Thursday in much the same way.
In some ways, the city is in the same position it was in back in 2018, searching for a permanent chief to lead the department into an era of reform.
To understand where the city is heading, it is useful to look back at how, exactly, Morales came to be chief.
The last days of the Ed Flynn era
In January 2018, Milwaukee's then-police chief Edward Flynn was rapidly approaching a job performance evaluation with the city's Fire and Police Commission.
Six months earlier, the commission had given him a directive to change his chase policy, arguing it was restrictive and had contributed to a culture of reckless driving and violent crime in the city because people knew officers often did not chase fleeing drivers. If Flynn failed to make changes, he faced discipline up to firing.
Flynn changed the policy, but the relationship between him and the Common Council remained strained, with some public officials feeling the chief was unresponsive to their concerns and that of residents.
On Jan. 8, 2018, one day after the 10th anniversary of his appointment, Flynn announced his retirement, effective the following month.
At the time, Assistant Chief James Harpole was next in the chain of command and had served as acting chief when Flynn was out of town. Harpole also had been among five finalists for the chief's post a decade earlier.
But the Fire and Police Commission declined to name an acting chief and instead launched an internal search for an interim chief, indicating a national search would come later for the permanent chief job.
That national search never happened.
An unusual interim search process
The commission named three finalists for the interim chief: Harpole, Morales and Brunson, then an inspector.
Flynn, who still had a few weeks before retirement, harshly criticized the process.
"They’ve done it perversely, completely wrong," Flynn said at the time, adding the process had "destabilized" the department and he knew of no other major city that had undertaken anything similar.
Harpole withdrew from consideration after his interview with the commission and retired the same day as Flynn. It was clear, he said, the board wanted to go in a very different direction from Flynn's tenure.
That left Morales and Brunson. Morales wanted to bolster the detective ranks after Flynn had focused on patrol and bring a new shooting review model to the department. Brunson thought there was still value in some of Flynn's strategies and wanted to continue some of them.
In the midst of this process, Flynn and the commission's then-executive director, MaryNell Regan, traded accusations of misconduct.
Flynn said Regan tried to interfere with an internal investigation into a personal friend of hers who was a police captain and her actions posed a potential conflict of interest. Regan said Flynn abused his police powers and had shifted the investigation to her.
The clash spilled into the interim chief meeting, when several residents were unhappy about the allegations involving Regan and suggested she showed favoritism for Morales.
Steven DeVougas, the commission's chairman, defended Regan, and the commission voted 4-3 to select Morales as the interim chief. DeVougas cast the deciding vote.
"People are looking at us like this is a joke, what you guys are doing," Markasa Tucker, director of the African-American Roundtable, said at the time. "They're wondering if people got a fair shake, does this stuff even count, did you make a decision prior to."
Two votes after open meetings law violated
Flynn retired in February 2018 and Morales took over as interim chief without a defined term.
After two months on the job, the commission voted to appoint Morales as police chief to serve until Jan. 7, 2020, which was when Flynn's term was to have ended.
But two aldermen immediately raised concerns about how the vote on Morales was communicated to the public. The confirmation of Morales was listed under "unfinished business" on the agenda, which was released less than 48 hours before the meeting.
"It seems like they just want to punch it through with one day’s notice, and the public and public input be damned," then-Ald.Terry Witkowski said.
DeVougas defended the commission, but the city attorney's office later said a court would likely find the commission had violated the open meetings law. The commission had to vote a second time to appoint Morales to finish Flynn's term.
With the vote, the commission essentially decided to make Morales the permanent chief, bypassing any further search and ensuring that when his term came up, he would be considered for reappointment rather than competing against other candidates as part of a new search.
Morales quickly promoted Brunson to be one of his assistant chiefs.
A reappointment in limbo
Like most new chiefs, Morales enjoyed a period of popularity and good will. He reorganized the department. He pledged to restore morale within the department and had strong support from the Milwaukee Police Association, the police union.
The commission went through its own changes. Regan resigned as executive director, saying the mayor wanted the board to go in a new direction. New commissioners were appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the Common Council.
Morales faced challenges, including three officers killed in the line of duty. He also weathered criticism over his handling of high-profile misconduct cases and lack of communication with the community. Despite a swirl of rumors about a possible new chief last fall, Morales said he wanted to stay on the job. The commission outlined a process for his reappointment in October that would culminate in a December vote.
Around that time, Morales said DeVougas made it clear in discussions about the reappointment that he wanted Morales to fire an officer involved in the arrest of Milwaukee Bucks player Sterling Brown — a claim DeVougas has denied.
In early December, DeVougas began to cast doubt on whether the commission would even vote on the reappointment before Morales' interim term expired, saying if he left, the job would fall to one of the assistant chiefs.
On Dec. 16, DeVougas said the board would not vote on Morales' reappointment that week, despite calls from the mayor to do so.
The next day, the Milwaukee Police Association called for DeVougas to resign and accused him of ethics violations after learning he had accompanied a politically connected real estate developer accused of sexual assault to an interview with a Milwaukee police detective.
The Journal Sentinel already had independently obtained some documents and video related to that interview and begun reporting on their contents. The news organization published an article online later that same day detailing the possible ethical concerns.
That evening, Commissioner Nelson Soler called for a special meeting for the next day, a Wednesday, to vote on the reappointment. Commissioner Raymond Robakowski, who had been confirmed by Common Council that day, seconded the motion.
The contentious meeting took place Dec. 18. Morales was reappointed to a full, four-year term on a 4-2 vote. Commissioners Angela McKenzie, Ann Wilson, Soler and Robakowski voted yes. Commissioners Everett Cocroft and DeVougas voted no, and Fred Crouther abstained.
Directives, then a demotion
As Morales faced a six-month performance review, as outlined as part of his reappointment, the commission repeatedly canceled other regular meetings and said Morales was not giving them the information he promised.
In the meantime, protests against police brutality and racism swept across the city and country after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Morales and his department were heavily criticized for the use of tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets during the civil unrest.
And the city's Ethics Board, which rarely opens investigations, decided to move forward on the Milwaukee Police Association's complaint against DeVougas after another independent report ordered by the commission itself found DeVougas likely committed ethics violations and lied about his representation of the developer.
On July 20, the commission convened a special meeting to give Morales seven pages of directives and threatened discipline up to and including termination if he did not follow them. Commissioners did not publicly explain how or why they issued the directives.
Morales, like Flynn before him, hired an attorney to help navigate the situation. Although the police department disputed the legality of the directives, Morales said he was committed to fulfilling them and had been doing so.
On Thursday, with the deadline for at least three directives not yet passed, the commission unanimously demoted Morales, with some board members calling him a liar and saying he had failed the city. They named Brunson as the acting chief for an unspecified time.
The commission has refused to say if the remaining directives, which include revamping the department's policy on civil unrest to discontinue the use of tear gas and pepper spray, apply to Brunson.
The commission has not yet outlined how it will find a new chief. It's unclear if that process will occur before or after a replacement is found for Griselda Aldrete, the commission's executive director. Aldrete cited a toxic City Hall environment when she withdrew from her reappointment process but has said she will remain until someone else is appointed.
The turmoil at the commission has been noted by everyone from the mayor — who said Morales and DeVougas had appeared locked in a "blood feud" — to the commission's new chairman.
"We need to move forward from drama and get to action," Soler, the chairman, said.
Contact Ashley Luthern at ashley.luthern@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @aluthern.