Warm Night Keeps Police Hopping
By George Mallet
MILWAUKEE - When the thermometer climbed into the 50’s Friday afternoon, Sgt. Roberto Colon knew it would be a busy night on the streets of Milwaukee. But he also knew the Neighborhood Task Force would be ready.
“Oh it will get busy,” he said with a smile as he climbed into his police SUV. “We’ll have a lot more traffic and a lot of traffic stops.”
Earlier in the week, a TODAY’S TMJ4 photographer captured video of young people riding down Capitol Drive hanging out of car windows and rooftops. That kind of activity, often called cruising, is something police have made a concerted effort to cut down on.
Often, the first step to stopping such activity is a traffic stop. Traffic stops catch the little stuff and that often enables police to catch the bigger stuff too.
“The stereo was loud enough I heard it two hundred and some odd feet away,” one of Colon’s officers said to his sergeant after pulling over a car. “I clocked his speed at 52 miles an hour in a 30 zone.”
Moments later it became clear the man was also driving with invalid plates. He would soon be leaving his car behind and either getting a friend to pick him up or walking.
It isn’t cruising season yet, but Colon knows it will be soon.
“We’ll be out there keeping an eye on it,” he said confidently as he turned onto Vliet Street. “We’ll have a unit addressing this and just focused on that cruising element.”
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