Police tentative plan to shut down S. César E. Chávez Drive during the Cinco de Mayo weekend celebrations to prevent gathering of chaotic crowds, impromptu Mexican flag waving, parading and cruising.
By H. Nelson Goodson
Hispanic News Network U.S.A.
April 20, 2024
Milwaukee, Wisconsin - On Friday, April 19, 2024, the S. César E. Chávez Drive Bid 38 business owners and several Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) officers including Sergeant Guadalupe Ramirez Cervantes from the MPD District Station 2 met at the Cristo Rey Jesuit High School to discuss public safety measures during the impromptu Cinco de Mayo celebrations in the Southside of Milwaukee.
Sinai Mendoza-Zarate, the Executive Director of the S. César E. Chávez Drive Bid 38 says that the Bid 38 is working with police to make sure that this year's anticipated Cinco de Mayo impromptu flag waving, parading and cruising by the Chávez Bid 38 Corridor is safe for the community celebrating the historic event.
The tentative plan, police are planning to shut S. Chávez Drive from W. National Ave. to W. Greenfield Ave. after 5:00 p.m. during Saturday, May 4, 2024 and Sunday, May 5, 2024 to prevent a large gathering of vehicles with individuals engaged in impromptu flag waving, parading and cruising along the S. Chávez Drive business corridor. (YouTube video of police tentative plan at link: https://youtu.be/FOtKZzZnLQM)
Also, police will ask business owners with large parking lots on S. Chávez Drive to close them to prevent vehicles from parking.
Mexican food trucks will not be allowed on S. Chávez Drive after the street is shut down. The food trucks that usually park along S. Chávez Drive will need to move to side streets, according to police.
Victor Huyke, from El Conquistador Latino Newspaper and sponsor of the one-day Cinco de Mayo festival on Saturday, May 4 at the United Migrant Opportunity Services (UMOS) Corporate parking lot at the 2700 block of S. Chase Ave. told the attendees that on April 9, 2024, Milwaukee Police Captain Eric Pfeiffer from Police District Station 6 alleged that the Cinco de Mayo festival at UMOS had a car show and that afterwards some violence occurred at S. Chávez Drive. Captain Peiffer wrote, "There were some concerns that stemmed from last year's event that we wish to address and avoid some of the violence that happened later that night on César Chávez. One of the things of concern was the car show on the lot at UMOS. As you know from past events, the car show acts as a catalyst for cruising problems after the festival is done. Even though these past violent events have happened off the UMOS grounds, there is no doubt that the vehicles at the car show were part of those problems later..."
Huyke told police and those at the Chávez Bid 38 meeting that last year, there was no car show at the UMOS Cinco de Mayo one-day festival and what happened at S. Chávez Dtive occurred on its own and police failed to neutralize the chaos ending with two shootings at W. Scott Street and S. 15 place and at the 1200 block of S. Chávez Drive in the Southside of Milwaukee.
This year, the Cinco de Mayo festival at UMOS will include a car show and contest, according to El Conquistador advertisement.
Huyke also stated, that in the last 50 years of doing the Cinco de Mayo festival by UMOS in the Southside, no problems were ever reported.
Police haven't released any information about how many citations were handed out and how many vehicle related infractions occurred in the Southside of Milwaukee last year during the Cinco de Mayo impromptu flag waving, parading and cruising event.
Last year, a 17-year-old male suspect shot an automatic handgun in the air, he was then shot by a Milwaukee police officer for failing to put down his weapon, arrested, charged and convicted. (Full article link: https://tinyurl.com/2vwkdywk)
The Chávez Bid 38 members say that they are working with police to make sure the Cinco de Mayo impromptu flag waving, parading and cruising next month doesn't turn into violence and chaos like last year and the tentative closure of S. Chávez Drive will provide public safety for those celebrating the Cinco de Mayo weekend.
The Chávez Bid 38 plans to work with Kevin Kuschel, the Executive Director of Clarke Square Neighborhood Initiative to have an organized Cinco de Mayo event on S. Chávez Drive in 2025.
Editor's note: Prior closures of S. Chávez Drive has only diverted the impromptu flag waving cruising to other Southside mainstream areas that include W. Lincoln Ave., S. 6 Street viaduct, S. 13, W. Historic Mitchell Street, W. Burnham and W. Pierce Streets. Also, police and the S. Chávez Drive Bid 38 and the Clarke Square Neighborhood Initiative haven't reached out to local Latino media to educate the community about the consequences of engaging in chaotic acts and reckless driving during the impromptu flag waving cruising in the Southside of Milwaukee. As Police Sgt. Ramirez Cervantes explained, that last year they had a lack of resources to handle the anticipated problems that come with unorganized parading and flag waving cruising. Sgt. Ramirez Cervantes says that this year, they received resources to manage any anticipated issue during the Cinco de Mayo impromptu flag waving parading.
The lack of Latinos in supervisor positions in the Milwaukee Police Department, for example having Hispanic police captains and Latino supervisors in the chain of command at MPD has become an issue of trying to reinvent the wheel to handle the same community issues dealing with reckless driving, chaotic crowd gatherings, public drinking (beer/alcohol) and shooting incidents in the community not associated with organized Mexican and Puerto Rican festivals in the Summer months.
Source: Hispanic News Network U.S.A. (HNNUSA)
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