Wausau Police Department Releases 2023 Report

Wednesday, May 15th, 2024 -- 9:00 AM

(Wyatt Williams, WAOW) The 2023 Wausau Police Report is now out with Chief Matt Barnes highlighting everything from shootings to parking violations all in an effort to be more transparent.

According to Wyatt Williams with WAOW, starting on the streets, traffic citations, and warnings are all considerably down since 2019, in some cases, by the hundreds. While the numbers are important Chief Matthew Barnes says this is more for holding the department accountable to the community.

Barnes said, "Every police department throughout the country receives its authority to police from the community, so the community needs to, in order to feel good about their police department and trust their police department, we need to be transparent and share with them information about what we're doing and why we're doing it."

In fact, the only rise from 2023 against any year at all was for traffic warnings. 2023 saw over 4,000 citations, and 4,100 warnings, but the report also showcases each member of the department and the interactions and events in public, something Chief Barnes takes very seriously.

Barnes continued, "One of the wonderful things about the annual report is it tells the story of our department. It tells who's in what position, and how did they get there, who spent careers here, and, as that change occurs with an organization, it's highlighted in our annual report so we've got a great staff here."

In addition to the booklet, a digital copy of the 47 page report is a video version posted on the department's Facebook and YouTube page.

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