The Village of Brown Deer’s police chief reported steep declines in several crime categories in 2024 and outlined ongoing community engagement and enforcement activity, while village staff described the process the municipality will use to demolish a derelict house and recover the costs.

Chief Nimmer told trustees that retail theft and related theft categories fell 54% from the prior year and that robbery was down 41% while motor-vehicle theft dropped 44%. “I went back 25 years in the UCR around here, and I could not find another year that was lower in this category than it was in 2024,” the chief said. He attributed part of the reduction to partnerships with local businesses and prevention work.

The nut graf: The annual report — included in trustees’ packets and summarized at the meeting — shows what village leaders described as historically low figures in multiple felony and property-crime measures and details enforcement activity, staffing, and outreach that village officials say support those trends.

In detail, the department reported 17,681 officer activities in 2024 (a category the chief said includes traffic stops and welfare checks), 2,800 traffic citations, about 1,800 parking citations, 574 municipal-code citations and roughly 3,300 traffic warnings. The chief noted a spike in burglaries that he said was driven by a single storage-unit incident that counted as multiple offenses under UCR reporting rules. He said detective work and specialty units also appear in the packet and that use-of-force incidents remain low — reported at about 0.04% of contacts.

Captain Kevin Schmitz (code enforcement oversite on the police side) and Mark Stearle, the village’s code-enforcement specialist, gave trustees an overview of the enforcement program. Stearle, a retired Brown Deer officer hired about a year ago, divides his time among proactive patrols to identify violations, follow-up on public complaints submitted through the village website, and coordination with other departments, the presentation said.

Stearle’s recorded activity in the packet shows long grass and nuisance-vehicle complaints as among the more frequent cases; the captain said roughly 10% of cases required citation or direct DPW action after voluntary-compliance efforts. “Our code enforcement program is based upon trying to get voluntary compliance,” Schmitz said. The presentation also showed a monthly breakdown and the village’s progressive-enforcement approach: contact, written notice, citation and, if needed, further enforcement.

Trustees asked about staffing. The chief said the department had one recent resignation for personal reasons and three vacancies; background checks were under way for candidates and two recruits had already attended the academy. The chief said the department’s average officer tenure in Brown Deer is about 10 years and reiterated recruiting through employee referrals.

On demolitions, a village staff member described the process for the house near North 60th Street: the village sought a repair order in court, the circuit court did not grant the order, and the village is now moving to secure a contractor, ask We Energies to disconnect utilities, and perform a sole-source demolition if necessary. The village will pay for the demolition and place a special assessment on the property tax bill; in this specific case staff said taxes are current and that the property appears to be held in a trust that could pay the assessment. If the owner fails to pay, staff said Milwaukee County is the ultimate backstop for unpaid demolition charges under the village’s normal collection process.

The presentation closed with trustees and staff highlighting community engagement efforts — including shop-with-a-hero, Citizens Academy and outreach events at local retailers — and requests that the department’s report materials be published in the village tracker and linked to the meeting recording.

The packet and presentation contain the detailed crime tables and activity counts trustees referenced; the board received the annual report for information and did not take formal action.