Deja vu from Sheriff Clarke

Stop me if this sounds familiar:

After a lakefront shooting Sunday that injured two, law enforcement officials unveiled plans Monday to saturate the area with officers on foot, horseback and bicycles and in squad cars.

For the first time in recent years, Milwaukee police will conduct regular patrols of the lakefront during busy periods, along with Milwaukee County sheriff's deputies, officials said. In the past, Milwaukee police would only respond to calls at the lakefront

The Sheriff's Department is responsible for county lakefront land. The Police Department handles the streets...

The Sheriff's Department had a patrol plan for the lakefront but didn't roll it out this weekend because sheriff's supervisors didn't think the situation warranted it, said Sheriff David Clarke.

At 7 p.m., an hour before the shooting, traffic was snarled on Lincoln Memorial Drive with no police or sheriff's deputies in sight.

On Monday, Clarke discussed the situation with his commanders and wondered whether supervisors had factored in the warm weather forecast late last week when planning for the weekend.

"I want that kind of thinking going on in this department," Clarke said. "I was a little bit disappointed.. . . Could we have had (the increased patrol) last weekend? Sure. Should we have had it in hindsight? Sure."

The sheriff, however, said it was impossible to say whether the shooting could have been prevented by the heavier patrol.

It's a Journal Sentinel story from April 19, 2004.

It makes you wonder whether "that kind of thinking" was going on in Clarke's department before the hot Memorial Day weekend, which certainly had been forecast, and which produced 48 shootings.

Clarke's response to the recent violence:

Clarke also said he would dispatch up to 50 deputies on warm weather weekends to "occupy" the lakefront and enforce "zero tolerance" for any law-breaking or misbehavior.