Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office cracking down on speeders, reckless drivers with new technology

MILWAUKEE -- Last fall, Acting Milwaukee County Sheriff Richard Schmidt began saturating random areas on the county's highway system with extra patrols to catch as many reckless drivers as possible. Now, those deputies are also equipped with special radar guns to build more evidence against offenders.

In a matter of minutes on Tuesday, July 10 Milwaukee County Sheriff's Deputy Keith Villwock identified several drivers going between 10 and 30 over in a 55 miles-per-hour zone on I-41 near Florist.

Villwock used a special radar gun -- equipped with a video camera -- to not only register the speed, but record footage of the vehicle and its license plate. He then radioed the information to squads parked up ahead -- ready to pull over the offenders.

"Looking at six to eight months that we've had this brand new technology," said Sheriff Schmidt.

Sheriff Schmidt said the new tool is part of a larger effort to make the roads safer.

"Milwaukee County absolutely has a serious reckless driving problem," said Schmidt.

Richard Schmidt

So far in 2018, deputies have responded to 2,500 crashes; four of them resulted in five fatalities.

"In addition to that, we've had 467 drunk drivers that have been taken off the streets," said Schmidt.

Schmidt's message to the public: it's not worth the risk to drive recklessly -- whether it's a $600 ticket or a life.

"What I'm trying to get people to realize is one of these days, it's going to be your car that's up against the wall," said Schmidt.

So far, the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office has four of the new radar guns, thanks to state funding. Deputies perform saturation patrols two to three times a day, seven days a week.