GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Governor Tony Evers signed several police reform bills into law this week.
One of them bans the use of chokeholds by police.
Green Bay Police Commander Kevin Warych says that in Green Bay, that changes nothing.
“Well, we prohibited chokeholds in 2020,” Kevin Warych said before naming the criteria for using a chokehold. “Chokeholds were only authorized in deadly force situations.”
In Appleton, Chief Todd Thomas says it’s redundant.
“I’ve been in law enforcement in Wisconsin for 37 years and we don’t train chokeholds,” said Thomas.
While other new laws require agencies to publish use of force policies and data, Warych says Green Bay police already submits a monthly report detailing use of force incidents, and the use of force policy is available online.
As for submitting the information to the Department of Justice, “we have the data, it’s all ready to use, it’s just a matter of supplying the data to the DOJ,” explained Warych.
And in Appleton, Thomas adds he’s behind requiring those reports to be public.
“Data takes emotions out,” said Thomas. “The data that we have we are willing to share and we want to share.”
From chokeholds to recording use of force, the new laws are a result of recommendations coming out of a state Assembly task force created last year.
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