Alexander "Alex" Ramirez Sworn In As First Hispanic Chief Of Police In Racine, Wisconsin

Ramirez had been serving as interim Chief of Police in Racine since July 2023.

By H. Nelson Goodson 

Hispanic News Network U.S.A.

December 2, 2023

Racine, Wisconsin - On Friday, Alexander "Alex" Ramirez was sworn in as the first Hispanic to become Chief of Police for the City of Racine. Ramirez became the Assistant Chief of Police in July 2021 and was appointed interim Chief in July 2023 after former Chief of Police Maurice Robinson resigned.

Interim Police Chief Ramirez became Chief of Police on November 2, 2023 after the City of Racine Fire and Police Commission voted to promote him as permanent police chief.

Ramirez is a retired Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) Inspector. Ramirez had been a member of the Milwaukee Police Department since March of 1991. After graduating from the Police Academy, he was assigned to patrol duties in District 6. He was promoted to Sergeant in 1997, Lieutenant in 2001, Captain in 2017 and was assigned to Police Station District 2 in the Southside, and was later promoted to Inspector in 2019. 

Throughout his career at MPD, he had been assigned to a number of department work locations, including the Narcotics Division/HIDTA, Districts 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, Communications Division, Internal Affairs Division, Intelligence Fusion Center, and Office of Management Analysis and Planning.

Inspector Ramirez holds a master's degree in Public Service specializing in Administration of Justice and a bachelor's degree in Criminology and Law Studies from Marquette University. While at Marquette, he also obtained a graduate certificate in Law Enforcement Leadership and Management. 

Inspector Ramirez is a 2005 graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy, and a 2017 graduate of the Police Executive Research Forum's Senior Management Institute for Police.

Ramirez in the City of Racine is the second current serving Latino Chief of Police in Wisconsin and third to become Chief of Police. The other current serving Latino Chief of Police is Alfonso Morales, who was hired on October 2021 in Fitchburg, a Madison suburb. Morales is a former City of Milwaukee Chief of Police, he served from February 2018 to August 2020. The first Hispanic Chief Of Police in the City of Milwaukee was Philip Arreola and served from 1989 to 1996.

Brief history: In the early 1970's only one Latino Police Officer was in the Milwaukee Police Department. The officer was Procopio Sandoval who retired as a Detective in 1993. The height requirement of 5' 7" (est. 1885) and 5' 9" for hiring a police officer under police Chief Harold A. Breier kept many Hispanics from being appointed as police officers by the City of Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission.

In the early 1970's,  members of the Latino community led by Jesus Salas, Marla O. Anderson and others protested the height requirement in front of Chief Breier's Milwaukee Police Administrative building downtown office claiming it was discriminatory. The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission height requirement kept most Hispanics from joining the police and fire department, which Salas and Anderson claimed it discriminated Latinos because of their height. The Hispanic community was being defranchised and unable to have members from the community appointed to the department in order to serve their community, according to the protesters.

After several protests, the Commission lowered the height requirement, thus paving the way for Hispanics to join both the Milwaukee Fire and Police Departments.

It also allowed for Asians and other minority groups and women to apply for police officer and fire fighter positions otherwise not available to minorities and women in the early 1970's because of the prior discriminatory height requirement.

Hispanic News Network U.S.A. (HNNUSA)

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