On Anniversary of George Floyd Murder: Recognize Police Allies Are the Enemy

Madison, Wisconsin — In Wisconsin, Democrats and Republicans knew what to do during the great protest demanding police stop killing black and brown people.

Wisconsin legislators backed a bi-partisan bill less than two months after the murder of George Floyd to protect its public statues, criminalizing as felonies defacing or vandalism.

This is typical of the response in the worst state to be black.

State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee), the co-sponsor of the statue protection bill, continues his crusade against Black Lives Matter and black people generally, to dead silence from every elected Democratic Party official.

In Kenosha, it's open season again on black people, as exemplified by the police maiming of Jacob Blake during the protests last Summer, officially approved but the Democratic Party Attorney General, Joshua Kaul.

Name a major Wisconsin city, and police engage in misconduct SOP, and does Wisconsin ever hate anything dark. Most Wisconsin bigger cites are long-run by Democratic administrations.

I lived in Wisconsin all my life, and I can predict to a moral certainty, police with Democratic Party backing will not acclaim the humanity of black people.

But this is the fight in Wisconsin and everywhere. Black lives matter.

Wisconsin Attorney General Picks Cop Defender, 'Company Man,' to Review Probe of Killer Kenosha Cop

Update: Madison Police Chief Noble Wray's cops were vicious punks who knew that Wray always had their backs for whatever they did to the public. See Madison Bartender: 'The police almost killed this guy.'

Madison, Wisconsin — Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) signals he'll cover up Kenosha police misconduct in his announcement that he  chose a retired police chief to review the Dept of Justice investigation of Kenosha cop Rusten Sheskey's shooting Jacob S. Blake seven times in the back.

Kaul said he chose retired Madison Police Chief Noble Wray to review the DoJ mandated probe at the request of Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley (D), (Wisconsin Dept of Justice).

Using Wray as a consultant puts a black face on the expected coming no-charge decision. The appointment of Wray follows weeks of the DoJ releasing shaded facts and half truths to justify a no-charge decision against the racist cop Sheskey.

Wray's Troubled Tenure

Wray served as police chief from 2004-13, overseeing the Madison Police militarization, including the notorious new normal killing-first policy that drove Mayor Paul Soglin to defeat in 2018.

Noble Wray's tenure includes his steadfast defense of the infamous 2012 police killing of Paul Heenan.

Wray specifically defended the racist cop Stephen Heimsness' killing of the innocent Heenan.

Writes Madison human rights activist, Amelia Royko Maurer:

Kenosha D.A. Gravely and AG Josh Kaul have chosen former Madison Police Chief Noble Wray to review the Jacob Blake investigative file. They’re doing this because they believe that Wray’s identity alone will pacify those within the Black communities of Wisconsin who have been protesting Blake’s murder. They are doing this so they can say “how can the exoneration of Blake’s murderer be racist if it was done by a Black man?”

While a nice man, Chief Wray is the least objective and impartial person they could have found for this review. He is a “company man” through and through. Let’s briefly review who Chief Wray is and some of what he did here in Madison.

Chief Wray clearly wishes to make a name for himself as a police oversight expert and so it makes sense that over the past year, Wray lobbied against the Civilian Oversight Board (that won’t employ former MPD officers) claiming it wasn't necessary since we have the Police and Fire Commission knowing full well the two are completely different entities with different functions and under different jurisdiction.

Chief Wray also tried to convince the Madison Common Council that the Internal Monitor (that can’t be a former MPD officer) was unnecessary and would cause friction between the chief and the mayor.  As two separate chiefs and one expert in civilian oversight put it “if the chief has nothing to hide, the have nothing to fear.”.  But Chief Wray had a lot to hide so it makes complete sense for him to have advocated against civilian oversight and objectively impartial oversight period.

Chief Wray was Madison’s police chief in 2012, when Paulie Heenan was murdered by then Officer Steve Heimsness. Wray, being anything but objective, exonerated Heimsness in the media a couple days after Paulie was murdered and a full month before the criminal investigation was complete. Half of the Madison Police Department thought Heimsness was going to jail but Wray told me 8 times (because I asked him 8 times) that he trusted our lives in Heimsness’ hands.  He refused to allow an external review of the criminal investigation. He found Heimsness to be honorable, honest and good. He said this knowing that Heimsness had been accused of hazing a female officer and lying about it - a case he was forced (by that same female officer, Sarah Mackasey) to reopen after exonerating Heimsness. Only then did he find 118 reasons to fire Heimsness including but murdering an unarmed man wasn’t one of them.
The list of Heimsness’s offenses include stealing, hazing, saying racist things, harassment, making statements about murdering people and hours before he murdered Paulie he wrote that he was "the right cop for the wrong job, no witnesses, no problem.”  Much of what  he got in trouble for was written on the police messaging system. His behavior and Wray’s negligence in oversight led to the destruction of an officer's job.

The Madison chief prior to Wray had a policy for reviewing the police messaging data system but Wray had discontinued it. He didn’t seem to oversee or manage much actually and any progressive steps towards shifting power away from punitive responses to restorative ones were ones that he was forced into.

Sometime in 2013, retired Captain of Training and Personnel Chief Maples called Wray out for failing to promote any BIPOC or women in general to meaningful positions. He had flanked himself with conservative white men and did little to make the department safe for anyone else. 

This all being said, we have a presidential election coming up, racism is a hot topic for the candidates and this is currently the most high profile case in the country. Also, Blake survived. Wray doesn’t take risks where the gain isn’t obvious to him and it is much safer for Law Enforcement, the AG, the DA to find an officer in the wrong if the victim is still alive and in this case, hiring Wray takes the pressure off of the DA and Kenosha’s Chief. Wray might have more to gain in finding the officer at fault but whatever decision he does make will be about what he has to gain from it and not justice, at all.

Other cops who worked in Wray's regime — Justin Bailey, Gary Pihlaja and Matt Kenny — later gunned down Ashley DiPiazza in 2014, and Tony Robinson in 2015.

Wray never issued a public statement objecting to any Madison police killings.

Noble Wray is putting on a show now; he will give his imprimatur to another sordid story of Wisconsin law enforcement.

The Wisconsin Dept of Justice Sept 21, 2020 press release is reproduced below:

UPDATE: Kenosha Officer-Involved Shooting
Sep 21 2020

KENOSHA, Wis. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley today provided an update regarding the investigation of the officer-involved shooting (OIS) of Jacob Blake.

At DA Graveley’s request, AG Kaul has identified a consultant to review the investigative file and provide the district attorney with an analysis of the incident. DA Graveley and AG Kaul agree that having such an analysis prepared for the district attorney’s consideration will serve the interests of justice in this case. The consultant identified by AG Kaul, who is being retained by DA Graveley, is Wisconsin native and retired Madison, Wis. Police Chief Noble Wray.

The shooting of Mr. Blake has been vigorously and thoroughly investigated. At this time, the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) is in the final stages of its investigation, and it will soon provide the investigative file to Chief Wray. While investigative files from DCI’s investigations of OIS cases contain reports regarding the relevant facts, they do not contain charging recommendations.

The next phase in this case will be Chief Wray’s review of the file and preparation of his analysis. Chief Wray’s analysis will assist the district attorney in his review of the facts and their relationship with standard law enforcement practices as he makes a charging decision.

“At the request of DA Graveley, I have identified an independent expert who can help ensure a just outcome in this case,” said Attorney General Kaul. “Noble Wray is a longtime Wisconsin resident and a widely respected retired Madison Police Chief who has extensive experience in law enforcement, including experience at the national level as a police reform specialist for the U.S. Department of Justice.”

When DCI is the lead investigating agency of a shooting involving a law enforcement officer, DCI aims to provide its reports of the incident to the prosecutor within 30 days. In this case, the prosecutor has directed that those reports be forwarded to a consultant for review and analysis. Following review and analysis by the consultant, the prosecutor will confer with the consultant, review the reports of the investigation, and then make an independent determination about what charges, if any, are appropriate. If the prosecutor determines there is no basis for prosecution of the law enforcement officer, and no other circumstances prevent the release, DCI will thereafter make the reports available to the public.

DOJ has previously provided the following information:

On the evening of Sunday, August 23, 2020, Kenosha Police Department officers were dispatched to a residence in the 2800 block of 40th Street after a female caller reported that her boyfriend was present and was not supposed to be on the premises.

During the incident, officers attempted to arrest Jacob S. Blake, age 29. After the initial attempt to arrest Mr. Blake, Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey deployed a taser to attempt to stop Mr. Blake. When that attempt failed, Kenosha Police Officer Vincent Arenas also deployed his taser, however that taser was also not successful in stopping Mr. Blake.

Mr. Blake walked around his vehicle, opened the driver’s side door, and leaned forward. While holding onto Mr. Blake’s shirt, Officer Rusten Sheskey fired his service weapon 7 times. Officer Sheskey fired the weapon towards Mr. Blake’s back. No other officer fired their weapon. Kenosha Police Department does not have body cameras, therefore the officers were not wearing body cameras.

The shooting officer, Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey, has been a law enforcement officer with Kenosha Police Department for seven years. Kenosha Police Officer Vincent Arenas has served with Kenosha Police Department since February 2019, with prior service with the United States Capitol Police Department. Also present was Kenosha Police Officer Brittany Meronek who joined Kenosha Police Department in January of this year.

During the investigation following the initial incident, Mr. Blake admitted that he had a knife in his possession. DCI agents recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of Mr. Blake’s vehicle. A search of the vehicle located no additional weapons.

Law enforcement immediately provided medical aid to Mr. Blake. Flight for Life transported Mr. Blake to Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee.

DCI is leading this investigation and is assisted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Wisconsin State Patrol and Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office. All involved law enforcement are fully cooperating with DCI during this investigation. The involved officers have been placed on administrative leave.

DCI, along with the FBI, have completed the following as part of the investigation:

    Conducted 88 witness interviews,
    Collected 102 evidence items,
    Downloaded 28 videos for review,
    Issued 4 search warrants, and,
    Dedicated over 600 hours working on this case as of Saturday, August 29, 2020.

DCI is continuing to review evidence and determine the facts of this incident and will turn over investigative reports to a prosecutor following a complete and thorough investigation.

No additional details are currently available.

Please direct all media inquiries regarding this incident to DOJ.

Broken Liberties Theory of Policing

There is a massive body of American law that in plain meaning and theory is the foundation of our country — civil liberties and human rights.

We did not establish our country and states for the police, but police don't get it.

Human rights activists and civil liberties workers do not populate local, state and federal police, a force that operates with gang precepts and monarchical bearing.

State and federal constitutional liberties do not animate the conduct of the collection of thugs, hate-mongers and broad anti-social psychology that comprise police.

The entities for whom states and our republic were founded — certain white people, and gradually them, still do not occupy a prominent place in police psychology as human beings.

And police do not look upon criticism by citizens with only suspicion, but outright hostility as exemplified in the musing of police killing the civil rights worker, Shaun King, actually plotting King's assassination on  a secret Facebook site, (Medium, L.A. Times).

The George Floyd torture and killing is instructive to understanding how the police work. Black Lives Matter has been sounding the alarm for years, but the police come down against the proposition that lives matter.

Just as revealing is the Broken Windows theory of policing, the license to terrorize, harass, imprison and destroy.

After-all, police are the 'man,' royalty that is free to harm and kill the citizenry. So, police bullied and terrorized the citizens, fining $100s, resulting in mandatory sentencing for repeat "offenders," policy that a few Broken Windows advocates felt would deter felonies.

How about a practice of protecting civil liberties and human rights for the people and a theory of broken liberties policing?

Police incursions into the liberties of people, small and mean-spirited, should be stopped to create a culture of respect for human rights, a wall against the type of people who become police.

This would help prevent the George Floyd torture and killing, and eliminate the killer psychology of police in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Louisville, Atlanta, and the whole country.

Cops encountering citizens should be aware they are talking to free human beings, who should be given a wide berth by those who would destroy them.

Police Are the Problem

Update: "On Sunday afternoon, a veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members will announce their commitment to disbanding the city’s embattled police department, which has endured relentless criticism in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, on May 25." - The Appeal  


Madison, Wisconsin — "You can’t tell me when that man had his knee on my brother’s neck, taking his life away, with his hand in his pocket, that smirk on his face didn’t say, 'I’m protected,'" said Stephen Jackson, retired NBA player and friend of George Floyd, (Gay, Wall Street Journal).

The police entitlement on a personal level is the belief — internalized perhaps — that I have a right to kill you, to inflict harm, torture, assault, harass, defame and assassinate your character because I am the police, you are not. 

And, I don't like your black hair, your dark skin, or your politics; and if you're white, I still might not like you, and I am God.

This collective malignant narcissism thrives in police culture, and the community here, and of course not just here, knows it.

A city of Madison cop told me a couple of years back that there was a substantial rush of early retirements from non-killing cops who were fed-up with being becoming social outcasts, virtual untouchables in the community.

Police psychology has never been well-explained despite worthy effort in  social psychology during the 1950s-70s that tried to find out how NAZI Germany and other fascistic states could have happened, how people could have jettisoned their own sense of morality and followed the anti-human directives of sick institutions and states.

Police tend to be anti-intellectual, careerist, hostile and authoritarian in their psychology. And duplicitous and tribal. Assholes.

Below is video from this weekend in Minneapolis of police passing peaceful citizens and shooting pepper balls at the human beings. Assholes. How many police will object? How about sexually assaulting women in LA. Cops did it, it's funny, right?

MINNEAPOLIS: Several MPD police cruisers drive by peaceful demonstrators and pepper spray them from moving vehicles for no reason. #BLUEFALLpic.twitter.com/aQQMbyYD17

— Chad Loder (@chadloder) June 5, 2020

A few years back, we don't know exactly why Madison police saw it necessary to beat up, taze and punch out a young woman, [a "bitch" as termed by a cop] who had phoned police filing a complaint that her phone had been stolen. The then Madison chief of Police, Mike Koval, termed the assault a "transaction."

Koval, by the way, expressed astonishment in 2017 that condemning police at football game protests for brutalizing black people is "self-absorbed ... diatribe," (WISC-TV). One wonders if Koval understands now.

There were quite a few Koval-approved transactions around here in previous years.

In 2016, Koval, exemplifying police, faced widespread condemnation for verbally assaulting a black grandmother whose young grandson, Tony Robinson, was gunned down in cold blood by Madison Police killer cop, Matt Kenny.

For police, killing is a ritualistic act, always worthy of defense against protesters. Consider, as we work to join the the freedom fighters for George Floyd:

• Ashley DiPiazza, gunned down by Madison Police in 2014, resulting in a record $7 Million verdict against Madison. A new record, and still standing
• Tony Robinson, gunned down by Madison Police in 2015, resulting in a $3.5 Million settlement against Madison. A short-lived record
• Paul Heenan, gunned down by Madison Police in 2012, resulting in a $2.3 Million settlement against Madison. Another short-lived record
  

The city of Madison disputed and criticized every settlement.

For victims of killer cops, inflicted trauma is never healed. Not ever.

But cops like to fuck with people, and not just kill them. Ask any black or brown person, how he feels when he sees a cop in a car coming near him, or saddling in behind him.

Cops are out to fuck with you.

Consider the parable of DeForest, Wisconsin Police Chief Daniel Furseth.

Furseth was caught on video mocking in a pathetic, racist and skin-crawling hostile narrative a group of young black youths out for something to eat.

The racist Furseth on video was too much even for white Wisconsin.

But no worries.

Furseth was quickly hired by the town of Madison, not the City, in October 2018.

An official with the town of Madison police department, not the City, confirmed by phone with me on August 14, 2019 that Furseth is still employed with the Town police, locally notorious for racism, harassment, bogus citations and misconduct.

Furseth and cops feel entitled to terrorize and belittle what the rest of us recognize as human beings.

And Ferseth is the perfect cop because we are not people, and we do not matter, not to cops.

Joe Biden Says Ten to 15 Percent of Americans Are "Not Very Good People"

"Former Vice President Joe Biden told supporters during a virtual town hall on Thursday he estimated 10 to 15% of Americans were 'not very good people' but said the majority were 'decent' people whom the president should work towards uniting," reports Nicholas Wu in USA TODAY.

Biden has divined what percentage of the population is "not very good," to use the phrase of the cognitively challenged presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, who evidentially has not apprehended empirical science any more than he has police violence, (Bloomberg video).

Biden's remarks were made in an online event moderated by actor Don Cheadle, after being asked what he intended to do for black people if elected president, amid the police murder of George Floyd.

Biden's comments are intended to inform the challenge of mass incarceration and the menace of police, but offer nothing to address the cause of police violence. Police violence is not accident.

What municipal and state police inflict onto the population, especially black and brown, is not a consequence of the number of not very good people among the population.

Joe Biden still does not get it, and he never will.

His remarks are a mambo-jumbo of a confused mind — the perfect Democratic Party candidate for president.

This ought not surprise anyone as this is same politician who bragged about sending 100,000 cops to municipalities to fill jails and prisons.

Biden is the embodiment of the Democratic Party that avoids historical and institutional analyses of what police inflict onto black, brown, native Americans, human beings who may just be targets of opportunity, the labor movement, the civil rights and peace movements.

As Christopher D. Cook writes today in In These Times:

For black and brown people, racism-fueled policing has been here all along—'stamped from the beginning,' as author and scholar Ibram X. Kendi puts it in his bestselling book of that title. Now, many white Americans are getting an acrid taste of this toxic deadly force.

In a 2014 interview, renowned scholar Angela Davis noted, 'There is an unbroken line of police violence in the US that takes us all the way back to the days of slavery.'

Make it known: You do not have vote for Joe Biden.

Hillary Gets Behind Brandi Grayson and We Win

Human beings

Hillary Clinton should champion minorities now

 Scott Walker has in his own words tried to "divide and conquer" the Wisconsin people.

Brandi Grayson of Young, Gifted and Black (Facebook) has a retort to Walker and the Republicans and their persistent message from our society: State violence and the attacks assaulting Ms. Grayson as less than human will be met with resistance.

Hillary Clinton listens to Grayson, and we all win.

Walker and the Republicans will continue to divide and try to conquer.

As for the police killing people, well more intellectuals and civil rights activists on the force would be a nice start.

Try love, put away your bullets.

Try peace, measure your success by the vacancies of jails and prisons.

Long live Tony Robinson.