Republican candidate for Attorney General Eric Toney was in Milwaukee this week following a fatal police shooting and crash downtown on Friday night. The AG hopeful held a press conference in the city with leaders of the Milwaukee Police Association and Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police where he called for the Wisconsin Department of Justice to handle prosecutions in Milwaukee. “What we want to be doing is adding resources to keep people safe here in Milwaukee with our Department of Justice, with the prosecutor resources, and our DCI (Division of Criminal Investigation) resources to keep Milwaukee safe, because that protects all of Wisconsin,” Toney said. Speaking about the uptick in violent crime across Milwaukee, Toney said “I refuse to accept this as the new normal, and we need an attorney general that is going to make public safety their top priority and number one priority. Not just give it lip service like Josh Kaul has done.”
Responding to Toney’s remarks, Kaul campaign spokesman Joe Oslund said the AG has pushed to obtain funding for 70 new prosecutors as well as increase police training opportunities across the state. The spokesman also said that Toney was “silent as Republicans in the Legislature used the 2018 lame-duck legislation to strain DOJ’s budget. And to this day refuses to stand up to politicians like Robin Vos and call for common-sense steps to fund law enforcement through an increase in shared revenue or investing a portion of the state’s multi-billion dollar budget surplus to help fight crime.”
