MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) will now have some limitations when it comes to police pursuits. It's the first time there's been a major change to the department’s police pursuit policy in nine years.

Under the new policy, MPD officers can’t just initiate reckless driving pursuits based on speed alone. They now have to look for one other example of dangerous driving before a chase can begin. It's just another change in the city and the department’s long and complicated history involving police pursuits.

Police tape after police tape, crash after crash, and for some families, their loved ones caught in the middle.

From January to October of 2025, nine people were killed during police pursuits. More than half of them were innocent bystanders.

“My son got killed on 51st and Center and they don’t have nobody in custody,” said Latrina Sims, in a Fire and Police Commission (FPC) meeting last year. “He was killed. He was killed in a chase. In a reckless driving and police chase.”

That’s why MPD is adding restrictions to their pursuit policy for the first time in nine years, according to online FPC documents, but MPD’s battle with police pursuits began back in 2010 after four people were killed in four months from pursuits.

2010: The policy was revised so that a police pursuit was initiated only if an MPD officer believed a violent felony had or was about to occur.

FPC documents from 2010 state, “Taking into consideration that the policy revision was focused on citizen and officer safety, the revisions to the vehicle pursuit policy have been successful.”

2015: Then-Ald. Bob Donovan wrote a letter to then-Police Chief Flynn asking to rescind the policy as car thefts rose. Donovan wrote, “incidents of vehicle theft have risen alarmingly,” and there were, “more than 750 instances in which officers would have pursued a suspected offender but were forbidden to do so.”

The policy was amended and officers could initiate a police pursuit if they believed the vehicle itself was involved in a violent felony.

2017: Another letter – this time from Ald. Michael Murray. He wrote, “Speeding, reckless driving, and traffic violations is outstanding.”

The policy was revised to include reckless driving and drug dealing; 369 police pursuits occurred that year and 187 of them came in the three months after the policy was revised.

2018: Officer Charles Irvine Jr. was killed in a squad car crash during a police pursuit of a reckless driver. That year, there were 940 police pursuits – triple the previous year.

2021-2013: There are more than 1,000 MPD police pursuits.

In 2025, bystander deaths rose, too, which brings us to today, a policy reminiscent of the restrictions that began 15 years ago.

“It’s not going to get fixed going backwards,” said Alex Ayala, with the Milwaukee Police Association.

Under the 2026 changes, MPD officers must look for one other example of dangerous driving aside from speeding before a chase can begin. Officers will also not be reprimanded for ending a pursuit.

“So now, we’re just gonna let anybody go 100 miles an hour in the streets and we’re not going to do anything about it?” said Ayala. “It’s ridiculous that we’re going back and forth.”

It’s a decades-long struggle for the department to balance the city’s reckless drivers and the safety of its community.

“Just let officers do policework, and being in a pursuit is policework,” said Ayala.

“My son’s life was just taken. He was innocent. I can’t understand it,” said Sims.