More than 180 complaints were filed against Milwaukee police officers in the first half of the year, and the 66 formal ones marked a 13.8 percent increase over that number for early 2008, itself a record year for complaints.
But the numbers don't reflect a corresponding increase in police misconduct, said Michael Tobin, executive director of the city's Fire and Police Commission.
The majority of this year's complaints - 122 - were informal. More than 90 percent of them had been closed by the time of the report. Tobin said they are often more like inquiries than complaints, by residents who want to know if something an officer did or didn't do is standard procedure. They get a "rapid resolution," in the form of a response from a police supervisor, which Tobin reviews.