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Study: 911 calls fell in black neighborhoods after police violence against unarmed black men

John Diedrich and Ashley Luthern
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A gas station stands in ruins in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 15, 2016 after police in the Midwestern city faced off with protesters August 13 and 14 following the death of 23-year-old Sylville Smith, who officials say was armed.

MILWAUKEE --- The beating of Frank Jude Jr. 12 years ago by off-duty Milwaukee police officers rocked the city, leading to the largest number of firings in department history, federal convictions of seven officers and a series of reforms.

new study reveals another unseen but far-reaching impact: Residents in predominantly black neighborhoods in Milwaukee were far less likely to call 911 for months after the beating.

That dropoff in 911 calls suggests the incident eroded trust and sharply damaged the relationship between the police and neighborhoods that often count on them the most, according to the study.

Controlling for crime and other factors, researchers found that 911 calls dropped by approximately 22,000 citywide over the following year, with the effect much higher in black neighborhoods, according to a first-of-its-kind study done by faculty from Harvard, Yale and Oxford universities. It was published Thursday in the American Sociological Review.

As 911 calls dropped, the city experienced a surge in homicides later in 2005, leading the authors to suggest the lack of reporting of crimes by citizens may have contributed to the spike in killings.

The researchers found another drop in 911 calls in predominantly black neighborhoods after the beating of Danyall Simpson by a Milwaukee police officer. And they also found evidence that an incident of police violence in another city might have contributed to a drop in 911 calls in Milwaukee.

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The findings come at a time when high-profile cases of police-involved shootings contribute to unrest across the nation. Meanwhile, homicide figures have spiked in some cities, including Milwaukee.

The Jude beating was first reported in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation that described the extent of Jude's injuries and spotlighted the failure by police and state prosecutors to thoroughly investigate what would later be described as the torture of Jude by the officers outside an off-duty police party in Bay View in October 2004.

The study's lead author, Matthew Desmond, associate social sciences professor at Harvard University, said the research shows that 911 calls started dropping right after the Journal Sentinel investigation was published and stayed down over the following year.

"Something like the Frank Jude case tears the fabric apart so deeply and de-legitimizes the criminal justice system in the eyes of the African-American community that they stop relying on it in significant numbers," Desmond told the Journal Sentinel in an interview.

Frank Jude Jr. is shown in the hospital after he was beaten by off-duty Milwaukee police officers in October 2004. After the story of this beating and this photo became public, there was a sharp drop in 911 calls placed from predominantly black neighborhoods, a new study found.

Desmond, who recently published a book that examined the unseen effects of evictions on families and communities, did the study with Andrew Papachristos, associate professor of sociology at Yale University whose research focuses on gun violence, street gangs, social networks and neighborhoods; and David Kirk, associate sociology professor at the University of Oxford in England.

The study examined more than 1 million 911 calls in Milwaukee between 2004 and 2010.  To do the statistical analysis, the authors controlled for crime rates in different neighborhoods, weather and other factors. They also removed calls unrelated to crime including traffic, fires and medical emergencies.

The study found 911 calls fell by 20% in the city over that year and the drop was markedly larger in black neighborhoods. Over half of the drop in calls — 56% — happened in predominantly black neighborhoods, which account for 31% of all neighborhoods. Desmond said he was shocked when he first saw the size of the drop.

"That is a huge effect and it symbolizes that these are not isolated incidents because they don’t have isolated effects, they have community-wide effects and those effects can actually make the city less safe by driving down crime reporting and thwarting public safety efforts," he said.

The new findings run counter to a theory that has been advanced to explain the recent spike in homicides in some cities — that the increase is fueled by police becoming timid which emboldens criminals. Coined the "Ferguson Effect" in reference to unrest after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the theory holds officers have become passive out of fear they will be investigated for uses of force.

In the Jude study, researchers found data suggesting people withdraw from the system after an incident of police violence. Papachristos said the study shows that police violence and other misconduct may result in a deepening of so-called "legal cynicism" — the idea that police are either unable or unwilling to help — within communities. That dynamic can perpetuate crime and distrust.

"Our contribution is putting this into cause and effect. Here's what happened and there's a very clear change in behavior. That's what we showed," Papachristos told the Journal Sentinel. "I really think the big takeaway is the effect that cynicism has on black communities. Not only does it impede sort of their view of the law, it actually further impedes their own safety."

'Blue wall of silence'

In October 2004, Jude, another black man and two women went to a late-night off-duty police party in Bay View, Wis. They stayed a short time, felt unwelcome and left.

But before the four could leave, off-duty officers surrounded their truck and pulled the men out, accusing them of stealing officer Andrew Spengler's badge. The other man, Lovell Harris, broke free and ran.

Jude was surrounded by off-duty officers and beaten savagely as he was down and handcuffed on the street. The officers kicked Jude in the head and body, cut off his pants, yanked back his fingers, jammed pens deep into both of his ears and put a gun to his head as they yelled racial slurs, according to court testimony. An on-duty officer arrived but rather than stop it, he joined in the beating.

Jude was arrested, put in a police wagon and taken to the hospital where he remained for several days. No badge was found; no charges were filed.

After the beating, none of the off-duty police officers at the scene would talk to internal department investigators, forming what officials would later call a "blue wall of silence."

Three months after the beating, in February 2005, the Journal Sentinel investigation publicly showed Jude's battered face and reported that no officers had been arrested or charged in the incident.

Three officers were later charged in state court but were acquitted. A subsequent FBI investigation resulted in charges against those three plus five other officers. Seven were convicted and one acquitted. The three main culprits received prison terms between 15 and 17 years.

Jude sued the city, eventually settling for $2 million. Jude, 38, of Wauwatosa, has been arrested and charged several times since the beating and is currently in jail, awaiting trial on charges of obstruction of a police officer in Milwaukee County.

Police calls fall

Immediately after the Journal Sentinel investigation into the Jude beating, there were calls for accountability by the public and elected officials, and protest marches.

In the days after the story, state prosecutors said they were noticing the Jude beating being mentioned during questioning in jury selection, especially by black jurors who expressed distrust in the system. The prosecutors called it "the Jude effect."

There was another effect unfolding at the same time, the study found. Calls to police were falling in black neighborhoods.

There was no drop off in 911 calls right after Jude was beaten, in October 2004, but that changed when Jude's picture was published in the Journal Sentinel in February 2005.

To test if all calls went down for an unforeseen reason, the authors examined traffic-related 911 calls under the theory that they would not be affected by the Jude beating because people report crashes for practical reasons like insurance coverage. The authors found the traffic calls did not drop.

In the six months after 911 calls began to drop, there was an increase in homicides, the study noted. The researchers looked at homicides because unlike other crimes, the numbers would not be affected by the lack of crime reporting.

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There were 87 homicides in the six months after Jude's beating became public, which was the highest in the seven-year period studied, from 2004 to 2010.

The authors did not list the increase in homicides under the study's findings, but they examined it as a possible effect of the drop in 911 calls.

Desmond said they could not, in this study, definitely say the drop in calls is the reason homicides spiked, but added, "I think the pattern of homicide data does suggest the drop in crime reporting in the immediate aftermath of Frank Jude might have contributed to that spike in a major way."

The study found that the calls to 911 from black neighborhoods did not rebound when officers were charged or fired. Rather, the calls simply came back slowly on their own, Desmond said. The authors think that's because residents realized they had no alternative but to use the system.

Second case, similar pattern

Researchers found another drop in 911 calls, this time after publication of a separate Journal Sentinel investigation that examined injuries suffered by 19-year-old Simpson in May 2006.

Milwaukee police officer James Langer hit Simpson in the face with a flashlight, breaking Simpson’s eye socket and cheekbone while responding to a complaint of public urination. Soon after the department began an internal investigation, Langer quit. Prosecutors declined to prosecute him.

The Journal Sentinel found Langer used force far more often than fellow officers and hit people with a flashlight at least three times during his three years on the job.

The Journal Sentinel investigation reported on Simpson's injuries and published a picture of his bloodied face in February 2007. Shortly after that story was published, 911 calls again began to drop in black Milwaukee neighborhoods, the study found.

The authors did not examine effects on the homicide numbers after Simpson's injuries became public. Figures show that homicides in 2007 were down compared with the months after the Jude beating.

The researchers also tested to see if police violence in other cities had an effect on 911 calls in Milwaukee. The results were mixed. In the case of Sean Bell who was fatally shot in late 2006 in New York, they found calls here dropped. However, 911 calls in Milwaukee did not appear to be affected by the fatal police shooting of Oscar Grant in the subway in Oakland in early 2009.

There have been many more incidents of high-profile in-custody deaths in recent years. In the light of the new study, there are natural questions: Are 911 calls dropping in black neighborhoods in Tulsa or will they in San Diego? Is this a possible explanation for why Milwaukee, St. Louis and Baltimore saw large spikes in homicides last year?

Based on what they found in Milwaukee, Desmond and his fellow researchers say those are areas ripe for more study.