Tosa PD use a variety of tactics against The People's Revolution protesters

Mailing $1,300 tickets and utilizing spike strips are cited by TPR as the Police and Fire Commission considers rules to limit police complaints


Since August, the Wauwatosa Police Department (WPD) has deployed a variety of tactics against a group of Black Lives Matter protesters known as The People’s Revolution (TPR), in its efforts to more aggressively police the demonstrations in the suburb. These include laying spike strips in the road to halt car caravans, mailing protesters $1,300 citations and taking photos and video of marchers at protests.

“This type of policing is not an anomaly,” TPR’s press committee stated in a press release on September 14. “It is a pattern of abusive behavior in recent months.” The press release documented incidents stretching back into early August to better illustrate its claim of the pattern of behavior. One of the first major escalations occurred on August 14, on a suburban street in Wauwatosa.

Officers had monitored a protest, which included car caravans, as it crossed an eastern border between Wauwatosa and Milwaukee. With marchers in the streets, car caravans carry residents who don’t want to walk and also block intersections as marchers cross the street. After the caravan turned off into a side street, officers in marked and unmarked cars blocked the road and arrested a single protester. The person arrested was part of a group of protesters on bicycles who goes far ahead of the demonstration to direct traffic away from the oncoming marchers.

There followed an hours-long standoff between the marchers and Tosa PD. The department called in other suburban police departments to help form a line of riot shield-wielding officers. No property damage occurred, and officers eventually retreated and allowed the protest march to continue. The protester who had been arrested was released around an hour later. Protesters complained of officers punching and shoving marchers. The standoff on Aug. 14 was the final day in a full week of similar confrontations between marchers and WPD.

Read more: https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2020/09/18/tosa-pd-use-a-variety-of-tactics-against-the-peoples-revolution-protesters/