Milwaukee police, formerly incarcerated skydive together: 'Leap of faith'

JEFFERSON, Wis. - A groundbreaking event took two unlikely groups into the air – showing, to find common ground, you sometimes need to take a great leap of faith.

On a hot August day at Wisconsin Skydiving Center, 10 Milwaukee police officers and 10 people who were formerly incarcerated skydived together. At first, the idea was met with a fair amount of skepticism.

"I was like, are you serious?" said MPD Sgt. Amy Rivera.

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"Let’s talk about jumping out of a plane with officers and formerly incarcerated," said Adam Procell, the man behind the idea. "Whenever I say it out loud, it’s like, that’s crazy."

Procell pitched the idea to skydiving enthusiast MPD Lt. Michael Dix, who took it to the department.

"I remember saying there’s no way the department is going to go for this," said MPD Inspector of Police Craig Sarnow the day the event actually came to fruition. "We’re mitigating bias, we’re changing perspectives. That’s never a bad thing – everybody at some point has to take a leap of faith."

Procell said when two groups seem about as far away as possible, sometimes you’ve got to take a jump together.

"It’s tough to kind of lower those walls," he said. "It’s going to be hard to hate another group when you’re 10,000 feet up in the air."

Finding common ground

"It’s a bonding experience," said Bo Babovic, owner of Wisconsin Skydiving Center in Jefferson. "It removes these boundaries we have and personal bubbles and all this social distancing, it removes all that instantly."

Babovic said from his experience skydiving for decades, the idea made sense.

"When the door up there opens, we’re all the same," he said.

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"Sometimes it takes faith to overcome the obstacles in front of us," Dix said, adding that it’s easy to lose sight of what we have in common and to let decisions be based in fear. "When we start to paint others – and when others paint us with a broad brush – it’s harmful for everyone.

"I couldn’t do this because of this fear perspective, and a lot of times on the other side of that, is great joy, intense joy."

Procell works to erase the divide. As the interim director of Partners in Hope, a faith-based organization that helps people who have been incarcerated get back on their feet – and with this event, up into the air.

"Society thinks ‘do the crime, do the time.’ I understand that, but after that point if someone can’t get a job, if they can’t live in a certain area because of their offense, we push them into the darker corners of society," Procell said.

Procell said he hoped the line of division, perhaps so clear on the ground, would be a lot harder to see 10,000 feet in the air.

"It’s an equalizer," Procell said. "We’re all coming from different perspectives, different life choices, but we’re all feeling that same fear, that equalization of, we’re human."

Before the jump, Procell had already taken quite the trip.

"My journey to this seat started three days after I turned 15 when I was sentenced to life in prison for gang-related homicide," Procell said. "We can’t un-ring that bell, and we’re not trying to minimize that, but we don’t want to hurt somebody else again."

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Since he was paroled in 2018, Procell has dived into reentry work. On the day of the Leap of Faith event, he was set to jump with MPD Sgt. Amy Rivera. She was hesitant to skydive when she first heard the idea, but eventually got on board.

"Somebody’s gotta make that first leap of faith," she said. "That vulnerability, that ‘holy crap,’ – all those innovators in this world, they had to do that."

At the Leap of Faith event put on by Partners in Hope, she said she didn’t see the divide between groups that exists elsewhere.

"This is essentially almost like ‘Narnia,’" Rivera said. "So yeah, I’m gonna say the F word: He’s a friend."

Rivera and Procell waved goodbye to their comfort zones and welcomed an unforgettable lesson on what it means to be human. Procell said, before the skydive, he had no idea his tandem jumper working at the center would be a former police officer, too. He said it’s the kind of experience that gives whole new meaning to finding common ground. 

"It’s like, how can I hate this person?" Procell said. "How can I have any sort of bias to this person who’s going to protect me?"

"You’re just human up there, everybody," Rivera said after her jump with Procell.

"Finally two years later to come to fruition, I feel like I can breathe," Procell said, adding that the most memorable part of the day wasn’t putting his faith in a police officer and jumping out of the airplane, but rather watching officers and those formerly incarcerated bond after it was all said and done. 

"When there’s no plane, and it’s two human beings you continue to talk, that for me, I got goosebumps seeing…I can’t unsee the image," he said.

FOX6 News asked Procell if he has a next big idea. He said there’s always something to bring humans together – both in the air and on the ground.

"How do we top this right? We’re already 10,000 feet up," he said. "Maybe there’s a rocket ship. I don’t know, scuba diving? There’s always something.

"It’s beautiful to see people just come together and just be human."

Those behind the Leap of Faith event said they hope to put on a similar event in the future.