The Milwaukee Police Department on Oct. 2 notified the Fire and Police Commission of updates to three standard operating procedures: SOP 114 (domestic violence), SOP 280 (alarms) and SOP 990 (compliance management/inspections).
Assistant Chief Craig Sarno told the commission two of the changes do not affect public safety: SOP 280 simply renames the Technical Communications Division to the Department of Emergency Communications and updates internal terminology. "The only updated change to this SOP is we changed the term technical communications division to the Department of Emergency Communications," Sarno said.
Sarno said SOP 990 replaces the former "inspections" title with "compliance management section," removes references to Internal Affairs for duties now handled by the compliance unit, and shifts responsibility for formal staff inspections to work-location commanders. He said audits may be initiated by the commanding officer of the administration bureau or the department27s risk manager, James Lewis, and that the update formalizes responsibilities for the CJIS coordinator and the time agency coordinator.
On SOP 114, which the department and commissioners said has public-safety implications, Sarno described a change to how a victim27s refusal to authorize release of their information is handled. If a victim does not authorize release to the domestic violence hotline, "the officer will now complete a DV hotline refusal form in the records management system instead of sending an email" so supervisors and the Journey Family Peace Center can be notified and the refusal tracked more quickly.
During public discussion Commissioner Fung asked about large redactions in the posted SOPs. The chief of staff explained the redactions—pages 6 through 10—concern panic alarms installed inside police stations (locations and activation details) and are withheld for security reasons. "The redactions are related to panic alarms, installed, within, police stations and, for different types of personnel," the chief of staff said, and described that level of detail as nonpublic for security reasons.
The director noted commissioners receive a memorandum summarizing substantive changes (not public) and that the Legistar file typically includes a clean and a tracked-change (roll-call) version of each SOP. As this was provided as a communication to the board, no formal action was required.