Milwaukee Police Department Office of Media and Communications July 28 - News articles have reported a 23 percent increase in those calls after a local news outlet used the number of total logged assignments in the Computer Aided Dispatch System (CAD), rather than actual calls for police service. Milwaukee Police Chief Edward A. Flynn met with the media in a news conference that may be seen here on YouTube to clarify the misinformation.
The Milwaukee Police Department reported 254,044 calls for police service in 2009 - a decrease from the 266,577 in 2008 and 292,927 in 2005. There has been a marked increase in traffic stops and field contacts made by officers in 2009, rising to 167,612 from 78,585 in 2008 and well above those done in 2005-2007, which were under 68,000 each of those years.
The original numbers are misleading - the newspaper reported the CAD logged 817,725 total assignments in 2009, up from 678,232 in 2008. What was not made clear is that number includes every single activity conducted by officers - all visits to the station house, requests to pick up an officer's partner at the jail, and every time an officer uses a computer to communicate with the dispatcher. Chief Flynn emphasized in 2009 that he wanted officers to report all their activity during his or her shift, so that number was expected to increase in 2009.
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