Breakdown

In a development that should surprise absolutely no one, Milwaukee’s $88,000 art car has already broken down. Unveiled a month ago to fanfare from city leaders and scorn from city taxpayers, the rolling monstrosity officially known as “The Moving City” was designed to raise awareness of the dangers of reckless driving.

“Maybe we are not able to affect the change of people doing the reckless driving, but we can make sure that the woman who has three kids and lives on 36th and Capitol can get home tonight,” said artist Sarah Davitt, who was paid a handsome salary of $43,000 to stick parking cones on an old Ford Ranger as part of Milwaukee’s “Vision Zero” initiative.

“The Moving City has a mechanical issue that is preventing it from being driven, currently,” Vision Zero Executive Policy Director Jessica Wineberg told CBS 58 News. “Like all car owners know, vehicles need maintenance. We are lucky to have a team of experts that can fix fire trucks, street sweepers, and also The Moving City (which is really just a Ford Ranger). We are investigating the repair needed and do not know the cost yet.”

The day after CBS 58 first reported on the breakdown of Milwaukee’s pet project, a far more significant breakdown in the city’s efforts to combat reckless driving turned deadly. Late Saturday night, 23-year-old De-Lisha Dunmore and her 20-year-old sister Talise were crossing 76^th Street near Good Hope Road after a birthday party.

Investigators say a car barreled into them at a speed of at least 80 miles per hour—double the speed limit—and then took off. The 34-year-old driver was eventually tracked down and arrested, but the damage was done. Talise was killed and De-Lisha badly injured.

Law enforcement sources have identified the suspect, who as of this writing has not yet been criminally charged (and as such will not be identified by name), as a 34-year-old woman with four prior convictions for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated.

In April of 2020, the woman was charged with three felonies—bail jumping, possession of narcotic drugs, and possession of a firearm by a felon—but released by Milwaukee County Court Commissioner Barry Phillips on $2,500 signature bond. Although she was charged with bail jumping, Phillips didn’t think she needed to post a single cent to secure her release.

Two weeks later, the woman was charged with an additional eight felonies—five counts of manufacturing or delivering heroin and one count each of possession with intent to deliver heroin, possession with intent to deliver cocaine, and maintaining a drug trafficking place.

An arrest warrant was issued, and she was taken into custody but freed again, this time on a $5,000 signature bond.

In January of 2021, she was arrested again and again charged with bail jumping and possession of a firearm by a felon. Almost unbelievably, she was again released on $2,500 signature bond: this time by Court Commissioner Maria Dorsey.

The woman now faced 13 felony charges, but agreed to a plea deal in which Judge Michael Hanrahan’s three-year prison sentence was stayed, and she would serve only 12 months in the House of Correction (five months of which would include Huber work release privileges) and be placed on probation for four years.

She was still on probation Saturday night, when she allegedly drove twice the speed limit and crashed into two innocent women. One of them is because a hardened criminal was repeatedly allowed back on the streets. One of them is injured because in Milwaukee, 13 felonies won’t even bring a sentence of 12 full months in jail. A family is devastated because of the utter breakdown in criminal justice.

And a community is perpetually in danger because its leaders prefer the feel-good virtue signaling of a broken-down art car to the challenge of fixing a system that seems utterly beyond repair.