NFL Player Targeted by Cops for Political Expression, Faces 10 years on Trumped-up Charges

Michael Bennett refuses to stand for ridiculous
ritual, police violence and racism. He faces
10 years in prison on trumped-up charges
brought by the Houston Police Department.

Land of the free, home of the brave? Bullshit

Dave Zirin has a column in Colorlines on the Houston police targeting of NFL star Michael Bennett in retaliation for Bennett's voicing his opinion on racism and the police violence.

Zirin's writing is his typically brilliant, piercing analysis.

His subject is a black man targeted by police in the age of the lunatic in the White House.

Michael Bennett faces 10 years, 10 years, in prison for a charge made up of whole cloth.

Bennett is also the victim of a premeditated character assassination project by the Houston Police Dept Chief, the odious Art Acevedo, (ThinkProgress).

From Zirin in Colorlines:

I co-wrote a memoir and manifesto with Philadelphia Eagle and outspoken political athlete Michael Bennett called “Things That Make White People Uncomfortable.” In the book, Bennett writes about being motivated by everyday injustices; food deserts in Black and Latinx communities, the tired eyes of the young people he visits in juvenile prisons, the fight against police violence, the need to link struggles against racism with movements to uplift women and stand up to gender violence.

I chose to work on this project because in 15 years of sports writing, I had never met an active athlete who was so able to critically examine his own sport and so willing to use his platform to speak for those silenced by violence. He’s a remarkable human being, the sort of person who if you know him, you understand the phrase, “ride or die.”

The book was released today (April 3), and we were set to embark on a multi-city tour together this week. Tickets had been purchased, venues were sold out. Especially exciting was the idea of going to Seattle, a city where Bennett won a Super Bowl ring and made three consecutive Pro Bowls, and is such a mainstay in the local nonprofit and activist worlds through his foundation that he earned the nickname Black Santa.

But all of that has been postponed, Bennett’s fearless voice temporarily muted, because he is fighting outrageous criminal assault charges out of Houston. I am not going to rehash the case. What’s important to me is that Bennett says he is innocent of these charges. That is enough for me. It’s also enough for many other people, both inside and outside the sports world who have signed a letter of support, including 1968 Olympian John Carlos, Angela Davis, Cornel West and Naomi Klein. ...

Cops Gun Down Minneapolis Woman; Bride-to-Be Killed in Cold Blood

Just another human being killed by police, (Facebook)

Rub-Out in Minnesota by Killer Cops

Yogi teacher was to be married next month

"Fuck police," says grieving son of a gentle woman who phoned police about a disturbance near her home, after which police shot her to death, (Facebook).

Reports Frederick Melo and Nick Woltman in the Twin Cities Pioneer Press:

Zach Damond, who identified himself in a Facebook video as the son of the woman’s fiance, said she had called police for help after hearing a noise near her house. In the video, which was posted Sunday to the Women’s March Minnesota Facebook page, Damond described the woman who was shot as his 'best friend.'

'My mom is dead because a police officer shot her for reasons I don’t know,' Damond said. 'These cops need to get trained differently. I just know she heard a sound in the alley, so then she called the police, and the cops showed up. … Next thing I know, they take my best friend’s life.'

In an email message on Sunday, Damond said, 'Tell people to call the police and demand answers.'

At a news conference Sunday afternoon, Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges called on the BCA to share the details of the shooting as quickly as possible.

Police will kill for any or no reason.

Police are now working on protecting the killers, while the citizenry demands answers.

Wisconsin Rep Offers Self-Limiting Bill Guiding Cops to Preserve Life

Madison, Wisconsin — In the better-than-nothing-I-guess category comes a bill in the Wisconsin legislature suggesting in essence police employ measures not to kill people quite so often.

The police-please-stop-killing-people proposed legislative package is in memo form.

The memo is being circulated to Wisconsin Assembly members seeking legislative sponsors for what will be three separate bills. Legislators have until May 31 to sign on as sponsors.

Because the bills are drafted by a Democratic legislator, Rep. Chris Taylor, (D-Madison), the gerrymandered Wisconsin legislature controlled by Republicans will not allow the package to pass and most likely not allow a vote.

The bills themselves are self-defeating and self-negating reform.

The legislative package amounts to a tame set of proposed guidelines and principles that fail to address the reality that post-911 police act as occupying armies in communities and are allowed to kill, harass, abuse, arrest, fine amid myriad other police-state tactics against the citizenry committed by our friends in blue and military-black. (Think of a gang of anti-intellectual thugs with bad attitudes flying under the color of law with a siege mentality, lined up in opposition to people especially the darker ones.)

Consider not killing people, is the force of legislation.

Rep. Taylor's press release is reproduced below:

Rep. Taylor Announces Safe Communities Package
Legislation aimed at making law enforcement and community members safer

MADISON – Today, Rep. Taylor (D-Madison) joined legislative colleagues and community leaders to circulate legislation regarding law enforcement use of force principles, aimed at reducing incidents of officer-involved deaths and increasing safety for everyone in the community, including law enforcement.

Currently, law enforcement agencies are required to have a written policy on when force is used, but very little guidance is given about what should be in that policy. All of the policy recommendations incorporated in the legislation come directly from law enforcement professionals, including both individual officers and national groups and taskforces that have studied policing issues. Additionally, the Law Enforcement Standards Board (LESB) has indicated these principles are entirely consistent with the way law enforcement officers are trained.

A piece of the package would require a law enforcement agency’s use of force policy to incorporate that the primary duty of law enforcement is to preserve the life of all individuals, that deadly force should be used as a last resort, that officers should use skills and tactics that minimize the likelihood that force will become necessary, that if officers must use physical force, it should be the least amount of force necessary to safely address the threat, and that officers must intervene if they witness a colleague using excessive force.

“Adopting more specific use of force standards makes everyone safer,” said Rep. Taylor. “Departments around the country have seen quantitative success in reducing officer injury, the use of force, and officer-involved deaths. Having these principles, which are consistent with the way officers are trained, in a written policy, is important so that the community can see these critical pieces are an expectation.”

Other pieces of the package specify that at least 8 of the annual 24 hour officer training requirement focus on use of force options, emphasizing de-escalation. Additionally, the package directs the LESB to establish a model use of force policy addressing interactions with the mentally ill and other vulnerable populations. Finally, the package requires that a law enforcement agency’s written use of force policy be published online to increase transparency and accessibility.

“These are common-sense reforms that communities and law enforcement can agree upon to enhance the safety of everyone in the community,” said Rep. Taylor. “It’s time to move forward together.”

Blacks Did It

A black man affiliated and aligned with other blacks killed three Louisiana cops after the black openly disagreed on social media about the harassment and killing of blacks by cops, the corporate media reports this morning.

Different language used, but corporate coverage over the weekend of the massacre in Louisiana of three cops by Gavin Eugene Long is mindless blather, unburdened by facts.

White supremacists are quick to condemn Black Lives Matter and other assorted darkies, (U.S. Uncut). Can't those unpleasant blacks pipe down and we all come together in silence and prayer, with blacks living in their areas?

Moronic of course. And never think about the tenets behind society, certainly not police.

Others disagree.

"If police departments continue to use tactics that polarize communities against them, then we risk losing that consent and are always just one critical incident from a flashpoint," writes J. Scott Thomson, and Thompson's not even black, (The Marshall Project).

Spent much time in hyper-segregated Milwaukee in 2006-08 in both the black sectors and non-black sectors.

Told friends I thought Milwaukee was a tinderbox then.

Have to revise this hypothesis in light of the limitless capacity of our small urban and suburban societies populated by tame demands sustaining normally functioning institutions that support police-prosecutor states, and the related capacity of black and white and brown liberals to abandon institutional criticism and change, in favor of small police states counting on atomized and unthinking populations.

Stupidity of the American people lives forever in the present tense, and most black folks are just as shit-stupid as white folks in this respect of demanding nothing.

What Madison Can Learn from Baltimore

Undated family handout picture of Freddie Gray,
murdered by Baltimore Police (Baltimore Sun)

"Felony running" arrest of black man in Baltimore ends with near-severed spinal chord and death as noted by attorney Mary Koch, part of legal team representing the Freddie Gray family. I want know why"people think somehow it's not okay for a young man to run ... ." (Lawrence O'Donnell Show)

Baltimore — City officials suspended six police officers Monday as they investigate the death of a 25-year-old man who suffered a severe spinal cord injury while in police custody.

Freddie Gray had been hospitalized since his April 12 arrest and, according to his attorney, was in a coma when he died Sunday. On Monday, the mayor and police commissioner publicly pleaded for calm and promised a full accounting — an effort to keep Baltimore from becoming the latest flash point in disintegrating relations between police and communities across the country. (Hermann and Bui, Washington Post) ...

"It ain’t about being mad," Adrian Muldrow, vice president of the Baltimore City chapter of the NAACP, yelled to fire up the crowd. "It is about asking for

Baltimore? This is Madison, Wisconsin, with
an enlightened police force that Chief Mike
Koval described as "cordial" last week. In the
shot above just a bit more force and this
non-violent young protester could be the
recipient of police-inflicted fractured vertebrae.
Quite sure that would be good for a few
chuckles from Madison's finest.
Photo: Reproduced from video by
Leslie Amsterdam at SSWIDTMS.

justice."

The first thing Madison can learn from Baltimore and the Freddie Gray murder pertains to police: Madison police should do their killing of our citizenry behind closed doors with no on-lookers with cell phones.

Madison police officer Matt Kenny knows this lesson well, which is why—in part—we can expect no charges in Kenny's killing the unarmed Tony Robinson with five shots. (Ferguson, AP, The Grio)

I would reiterate that the greater Madison community cannot with any justice blame Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne when Ozanne clears killer Kenny in the coming weeks.

Ozanne can not fabricate evidence, and the evidence his office has by statute was gathered by the Wisconsin Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation led by an appointee of Republican Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, former district attorney of Waukesha County (R-White People). (Mal Contends)[Schimel was in the news again a couple of weeks ago for voting for an order banning the use of the words "climate change" in the offices of a Wisconsin state agency charged with state land management to the applause of a Scott Walker spokeswoman. (Roston, Bloomberg)]

As for the minority public anywhere, when you see the police: Take cover, run, and get near a trusted adult with a cell phone video. Mark Godsey posts other tips yesterday for innocent people to protect themselves from the police.

Godsey breaks down the non-legal, informal advice into six sections:

I. Have a Lawyer You Can Call

II. Don’t Talk to the Police

III. The Plea Bargain

IV. Be Ready for Trial

V. Shaken Baby/Child Abuse (Abusive Head Trauma)  [This requires special attention and treatment.]

VI. If You Are Wrongfully Convicted

As well, know the police have little to do with justice, though many police like to dispense their version of justice with deadly consequences, corrupt the judicial system, and for minor offenses determine a conviction. If you are harassed, consider yourself lucky. You were not killed.

In Tulsa, policing and killing blacks has become the new sport of wealthy campaign donors. (Love, The Grio)

That's the status of America, on a trajectory that ought to frighten every citizen.

Police lie on their reports, on the stand in the courtroom, and in dealings with the public. And police kill.

The Police Killed Him

Updated - "Last week I was in Madison, Wisconsin, where I was informed of the killing of Tony Robinson by a police officer. Robinson was high on mushrooms. The police were summoned after he chased a car. The police killed him. A month earlier, I'd been thinking a lot about Anthony Hill, who was mentally ill. One day last month, Hill stripped off his clothes and started jumping off of his balcony. The police were called. They killed him. I can't see the image of Tamir Rice aimlessly kicking snow outside the Cleveland projects and think of how little we invest in occupying the minds of children. A bored Tamir Rice decided to occupy his time with a airsoft gun. He was killed."

So notes Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic in a piece in mid-April, commenting on the already 100s of killings by police in 2015. [Update: New day, new police killing: See Sherman, Kaltenbach and Campbell, the Baltimore Sun with video: "What we know is that while in police custody for committing no crime — for which they had no justification for making the arrest except he was a black man running — his spine was virtually severed, 80 percent severed, in the neck area," attorney Murphy said. He called Freddie Gray's injuries "catastrophic."] Cops broke a 25-year-old man's spine virtually into two, he was killed.

Madison police chief Mike Koval ought to consider what police killing is the next time Koval opens his mouth.

Asks Coates: "[I]n this time of heightened concern around the policing, a more essential question might be, 'Were we justified in sending them?' At some point, Americans decided that the best answer to every social ill lay in the power of the criminal-justice system. Vexing social problems—homelessness, drug use, the inability to support one's children, mental illness—are presently solved by sending in men and women who specialize in inspiring fear and ensuring compliance. Fear and compliance have their place, but it can't be every place."

I would not look to police for answers. As an institution, police tend to be anti-intellectual, careerist and authoritarian in their psychology. And duplicitous and tribal.

This is because police departments are self-selecting, attracting someone capable and inclined to kill people.

This does NOT appear be lost on the folks who knew Tony Robinson.

Unfortunately, for Madison this fact does escape the police chief branding himself as reformist, now openly attacking a protesting community objecting to the police killing Robinson.

Chief Koval, Madison Police Lose Credibility, In Full CYA Mode

Madison Police - "Professional, Cordial, and
Respectful," says Koval. Knees on the head on
this young man's head show respect? If this
is professional, cordial and respectful, one
must question the police standards in this
regard. Perhaps shooting Tony Robinson
to death in March is cordial.

Madison Police hit the PR circuit hard yesterday.

Police Chief Mike Koval now says the police violence captured on video shows no police violence, and anyone who says differently loses his/her "credibility." (Savidge, Wisconsin State Journal)

At right is a shot from the video by Leslie Amsterdam of the Madison Police acting "very professionally, cordially and respectfully," as described by Koval, with protestors at a peaceful demonstration on Tuesday.

It would appear Koval and the cops are subject matter experts on what constitutes peace and violence.

And perhaps Tony Robinson really wasn't really shot to death. Right.

"Preliminary autopsy results released [in mid-March] show Tony Robinson was shot multiple times by a Madison police officer. Robinson, 19, died from firearm-related trauma to the head, torso and right upper extremity, according to the Dane County medical examiner's office. The exact number of gunshot wounds was not released, though friends and family have said he was shot five times in the chest." (Luthern, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Shot Five times. Wonder why police held that fact back. Clear now is why Tony Robinson's family said they have lost faith in the "investigation" last week. (Schneider, The Capital Times)

Anyone expecting candor from Koval and the Madison Police will be disappointed very soon.

Below is Leslie Amsterdam's video.

Professional, cordial and respectful?

This is what criminal law experts and law enforcement reformists call bullshit.

The State Journal ran a video this morning omitting nearly five minutes of another video featured on the YGB Ferguson To Madison site (Facebook) as Madison police up its propaganda efforts as the decision on whether to prosecute the killer cop approaches.

From YGB Ferguson To Madison on Tuesday, April 14, 2015:

The culmination of a national day of action against police brutality was met, some might say ironically, with a further escalation of police violence when peaceful protesters were arrested on East Washington Avenue in front of East High School. If you pay attention to who they target first, you can see how the police set this up. What comes after is just people reacting to unprovoked police violence and then getting arrested. #Justice4Tony #BlackLivesMatter
Posted by YGB Ferguson To Madison on Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Violent Arrests by Madison Police

Anyone expecting justice and peace from the City of Madison is deluding herself.

Clearly, peace and justice are not why the police are in business.

As for Chief Mike Koval, just another careerist with a gun.

This is a shame, and the conclusion is inescapable that this is a betrayal to the community.

From YGB From Ferguson to Madison

Violent Police Arrest Peaceful Protestors

April 14, 2015 – Madison, WI

Between 6:30 and 7:30 pm on Tuesday April 14th, Madison Police officers at the intersection of East Washington and 4th Street arrested more than ten peaceful protestors.

Roughly 35 people, mostly youth remained in the intersection after a day-long protest, for which residents shut down East Washington for several hours to demand justice for Tony Robinson and as a part of a national action against police violence and mass incarceration.

As the young people continued to sit in the intersection, 30-40 officers approached the group from the west, spanning both sides of East Washington. The officers approached the youth telling them they had 5 minutes to leave before they would be arrested. While the youth deliberated as to whether they would take arrests, the police ambushed the group. Officers arrested three people initially, Jivonte Lee Davis, Mary Jo Walters and another protestor. They subsequently approached Leslie Amsterdam (Peterson), a member of the media, who was recording the arrests. They told her to move, and when she revealed herself as a member of the media, they destroyed her camera and forcibly arrested her. The remaining youth then decided that since they could not be in the street without being arrested, they would march legally in the crosswalks across East Washington during the light changes.

After roughly an hour, they were caught in the median during a light change. Two adults, Adeyemi Balogun and Brandi Grayson attempted to protect the youth from the police. “They grabbed Brandi and dragged her, so I grabbed her,” reported Balogun. “Then they jumped on me. They came up behind me and grabbed my neck. Then another cop grabbed me and they had me wrapped up. They just kept saying ‘stop resisting, stop resisting!’ But I wasn’t doing anything.”

Grayson was violently thrown to the ground and then drug along the ground before she was arrested. Balogun along with approximately six more people, including youth, were arrested at that time. Marnie Schroeder, another arrested person described the scene: “He [CJ Terrell] wasn’t talking, wasn’t doing anything and they slammed him to the ground. They had their knee on his neck and his face in the dirt. I tried to put my hand under his face to protect it, but then they arrested me.”

Community members are outraged but unsurprised by this gross display of state power by MPD. “This is a clear example of the state violence we have been talking about for months,” said Grayson. “They brutalized me, and they arrested our babies who were mourning and protesting against the police violence that led to the murder of their friend, Tony Robinson.” For more information, visit www.facebook.com/fergusontomadison or ygbcoalition.org.

March Was a Good Month for Killer Cops

Update: Madison Police Chief Mike Koval is attempting to "distance the [Tony Robinson investigation] outcome from the national narrative" of white cops killing unarmed young, black men. (Godar, The Capital Times).

One expects better from Koval who is playing public relations and CYA politics in outright denying the problem. For a reality-based assessment, I recommend the Young, Gifted and Black, From Ferguson to Madison site. (Facebook)
 ---
March was a very good month for killer cops: they racked up at least 111 bodies, the majority of them unarmed Black and brown men. "Any genuine movement for criminal justice ‘reform’ must aim to abolish the Mass Black Incarceration State, root and branch, by removing the ‘occupation’ army from Black areas and replacing it with a force of Black people’s own choosing."
- Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report

Winnebago County Sheriff's Dept Attack Man for Filming Hostile Questioning

It's a safe bet the Winnebago County Sheriff's Department—Winnebago County (Wisconsin) is infamous for its corrupt district attorney's office (see DA Joe Paulus bribery scandal and DA Vince Biskupic's misconduct scandal, for example)—does not take the idea of community policing and civil liberties too seriously.

So, it's open season on citizens filming sheriff deputies caught in the act of deceit, misconduct and hostile questioning.

Ask Bryan Payne (Facebook). Concerned about the way the Winnebago County Sheriff's Department were questioning his girlfriend, he decided to film the questioning with his phone.

This provoked retaliation, and a hostile and violent response by deputies who pretended Mr. Payne was attacking a deputy. [video is below] "Get your hands off me," yelled a deputy, fabricating a crime of the victim.

Another deputy then screamed, "do not fight," twice while attacking Payne, again fabricating a crime of the victim.

This is a crime by the deputies, is corruption and certainly grounds for a civil action.

Contacted by phone this morning, both the Winnebago County Sheriff's office and Winnebago County District Attorney's office refuse public comment on the policy of filming law enforcement and refer all public comment to voice-mails (the blow-off).

I asked the woman answering the phone at the Winnebago County District Attorney's office if I could get a comment on what the law is in Wisconsin filming law enforcement. She replied, "that's something we do not provide to citizens."

The law is an individual may video tape police as long as the taping does not obstruct the police.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press site states, in Wisconsin "An individual who is a party to either an in-person conversation or electronic communication, or who has the consent of one of the parties to the communication, can lawfully record it or disclose its contents, unless the person is doing so for the purpose of committing a criminal or tortious act. Wis. Stat. Ann. § 968.31 (West 2011)."

The ACLU site for photographers states, "Taking photographs of things that are plainly visible from public spaces is a constitutional right – and that includes federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties. Unfortunately, there is a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs from public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply." (emphasis added)

Watching the video below indicates more evidence that those entrusted with police power need to be monitored in a free society, no matter how hostile some police are to the idea.

Writes Payne: "Was not resisting, but was standing by while the Winnebago County Sheriff's Department was questioning my girlfriend. The situation was then turned onto me because I was intimidating [the police] with the filming of my phone. You be the judge... resisting or not resisting."

Watch the video of police misconduct and deceitful machinations caught on tape:

Post by Bryan Payne.

Innocence Is No Defense

Update: See GOP Returns To "White Voter Strategy" for a look at why profiling and racism plays.

Oh yeah, Henry Louis Gates Jr is an innocent man. An insignificant detail not mentioned by those who cheerlead all the progress we have made in race relations and defend the cop who persecuted an innocent man.

Bob Herbert reminds us this morning of this minor detail of Prof Gates' innocence and the propensity of cops to target people of color.

No one is immune. Colin Powell told Larry King that he had been profiled many times. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke last week about how humiliated he felt as a college student when a cop made him stop his car and open the trunk so it could be searched for weapons.

Young, old, innocent as the day is long — it doesn’t matter. Your skin color can leave you perpetually vulnerable to a sudden and devastating criminal injustice.

Well, Gates like Colin Powell and Attorney General Eric Holder is black; so I guess he had it coming. We just need to ignore such distasteful facts like the man's innocence and understand the perpetrator because he wears a uniform and a badge.

Authority and Liberty

Update: "Blacks -- in particular, black men -- swap their experiences of police encounters like war stories." - Henry Louis Gates in the New Yorker (1995); from Liberal Cambridge Reflects on Racial Rift (Krissah Thompson and Cheryl W. Thompson) -

You, the reader—veteran, police, Marine, civilian, whatever—this moment are likely criminally responsible for breaking the law.

Be it federal, state, or municipal, you are criminally indictable for violating criminal statutes.

“With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone,” said Robert H. Jackson.

That was in 1941.

It’s fair to say the sphere of unlawful behavior has expanded immensely since then.

In this reality, we should expect police officers and prosecutors at all levels of government to exercise a measure of discretion, intelligence, and empathy in dealing their fellow citizens, their fellow human beings.

Recent events reconfirm that even approaching this imperative is elusive. The last thing we should do as a society is deprive another of liberty. Only when there is no other way should we resort to this drastic action.

As seen in the actions of Crawley of the Cambridge Police Department or Dalma of the Madison Police Dept [Cambridge and Madison are surely among America' most liberal places with a deep tradition of working for civil rights], too many police, prosecutors, and other politicians seem determined to reject the sage advice of Robert Jackson and are hostile to liberty.

Take Crawley. Does he really not understand why accosting a black man arriving back to his own home would illicit indignation and anger? Welcome home, Prof. Gates.

Apparently not, Crawley just needs to arrest somebody who challenges his imperial vision of himself.

I have a lot of dealings with real police and military veterans through family and friends. And this type of cop or military officer as Crawley is universally reviled; Crawley’s a scumbag seeking out ass-kissers.

Here’s an example of discretion.

A couple summers back, my girlfriend was driving to her sister’s house to dog-sit and house-sit for two weeks. Jackie told me being alone in the house scared her at night, even with the dogs and wonderful neighbors. There had been several break-ins in the vicinity, with one right next door just the week before.

Ten minutes after Jackie left our apartment, she called and said some man was following her in a large black truck as she serpentined through numerous turns to get to her sister’s house. Then as she pulled into the driveway, the guy parked right in front of the house, blocking the driveway.

Jackie was still in her car as she spoke, “Come over right NOW.” It was already dark out, and Jackie was too frightened to walk from her car to the front porch with the man sitting in his vehicle staring at her.

I understood. I drove over fast full of adrenaline and slowly came up behind the car, wrote down the license plate numbers, flipped my brights on and off, got out of my car and walked briskly over to ask the guy what he thought he was doing.

The guy took off, very fast for this neighborhood where 25 mph mean 25 mph because of the number of children usually around.

We called the cops, and this Marine veteran dude came and talked to Jackie and me. We explained the situation and gave the officer the guy’s plates. Jackie thought the guy might have been objecting to her “Out of Iraq Now” and “Peace” bumper stickers since this had happened quite a few times before, but usually not this aggressively. I thought that, 'maybe the guy was just pulling over to make a phone call or to smoke a joint,' and said so to the cop. He nodded and said he couldn't say that, but that I could as the boyfriend.

The cop came back later and asked if we knew the guy in the black truck – he gave us a name and general address. Neither of us recognized the name.

The cop told us the guy in the truck didn’t have any record, didn’t seem to be dangerous, and would not bother us any more. The officer also asked if there was anything Jackie could have done to provoke the man’s actions – like cutting him off in traffic or doing anything that could have been perceived as threatening. She didn’t think so and reiterated that she had had trouble with what some people perceived to be “unpatriotic” bumper stickers. [Shit doesn’t happen when I drive her car I feel the need to add.]

The police officer assured us that after he spoke to the guy, the last place the guy would go to is the address my girlfriend was staying. The officer also would his keep an eye out on the house during the next two weeks while on patrol.

With the police officer’s assurances that he didn’t think the fellow was dangerous, I left. No charges were filed, and more importantly, Jackie felt that the officer had listened to her complains, and she felt safer for his having been there. It was a good example of how police officers should protect and serve. Everyone’s happy, no arrests. End of story.

Bullying Milwaukee Police Fine 70-Year-Old Widow for Defending Dog

Update: Readers can contact the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (MJS) on this matter at:

Letters to the Editor http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=766191

Milwaukee, Wisconsin—Donna Ganong is a 70-year-old widow running a corner tavern on Milwaukee's near-south side.

In early July, Mrs. Ganong tried to help a crying, hungry dog in an alley, and the Milwaukee police fined her $350 for her trouble.

Located at the corner of 1400 West Orchard Street and South 14th Street, Ganong’s Corner, has seen its share of life, though the neighborhood bar is not much of a blip on the Milwaukee radar screen.

Apparently the people don't matter all that much to the Milwaukee police either.

Mrs. Ganong lost her husband, Ron, and one of her three children; but loves running her bar (she has been in the tavern business for 34 years) and is one of the community's unofficial neighborhood watch leaders—keeping in frequent touch with neighbors about the area's heavy vandalism and crime problems.

Nice woman, right?

Not according to the Milwaukee police and one Officer Baker whose apparent priorities and lack of discretion do discredit to the force.

On the rainy night of July 7th, Mrs. Ganong, an animal lover, heard a dog yelping and crying in the alley adjacent to her tavern.

Investigating, she found a dog, appearing hungry, tied up in the alley, and told a man she believed to be the owner of the dog that he should take the dog inside and feed him.

According to Mrs. Ganong, the man, (described as about six-foot, approximately 160 lbs), refused Ganong’s request, and said not very nice things to her in response to her suggestion, statements allegedly that included "... white bitch."

Nice.

Mrs. Ganong phoned the police, who arrived, and gave both people disorderly conduct tickets, though the man with the dog may have been given a ticket for disturbing the peace, or as Ganong says in a heavy south-side accent, for “cruelty to animals.”

Mrs. Ganong’s ticket described the six-foot man as a "victim," to whom the "subject (Mrs. Ganong) intentionally made threats to cause bodily harm ... causing the victim to flee for their safety."

So, let's see a five-four, 70-year-old woman berates a six-foot man in an alley to take care of his dog, and the cop describes the man as a victim.

"If someone mistreats an animal or a kid, I'm right there. I speak up," said Ganong, though she said that she is not always keen on the idea of walking alone into alleys on summer nights, she just loves dogs.

Apparently, Ganong told the arriving officer to take care of the dog or she would.

This is the “threat” that Officer Baker contends is disorderly conduct.

It gets worse.

Ganong left the alley and went to home, and then heard heavy banging on her door that now has visible dents and looks like it had been smashed.

Apparently, it was the cop banging something against the door that sounded like a nightstick to Ganong. But this 70-year-old woman became scared, refusing to open her door. She had had enough drama for the night.

Not enough for Officer Baker (now there's a real hero) who promptly wrote a second $175 disorderly conduct ticket reading "(Ganong) intentionally obstructed the issuance of a citation by going inside her residence and refusing to talk to police. ..."

Apparently, Officer Baker can't quite comprehend how two men in an alley might intimidate a woman who tried to help a dog in distress.

Ganong's son, Greg, is angry. "I guess the cops think a 70-year-old woman is a real threat," he said bitterly, sipping a beer.

So, Mrs. Ganong, who says the worst thing she has ever done is get a speeding ticket, was cited twice on that July night for disorderly conduct, tickets totaling $350 that Mrs. Ganong is very insistent on challenging at her court date on August 25.

Area homeowners at the bar say their yards are regularly littered and vandalized by often loud patrons walking by after other taverns close blocks away, and that they appreciate the efforts of Ganong and other neighbors keeping their eyes out for each other.

But I can see why they would think twice before calling the police to report anything — when that alert might make them the object of unwelcome and unpleasant police attention. So goes the Milwaukee Police Department's attempts at community relations.

The gregarious Mrs. Ganong always has a story to tell at the bar, and the regulars say she is the "salt of the earth."

Ganong says she is content, though she says there is growing lack of respect among the young people she encounters, and she objects to the direction that she sees her neighborhood going.

But she says not to feel sorry for her; she can take care of herself.

I believe her.

But now, the Milwaukee police have this 70-year-old woman very disappointed, angry, and scared, wondering just whose side the police are on.

A fine of $350 may not seem like a lot of money, but the sense of betrayal that Mrs. Ganong and her customers feel cuts pretty deep.

Mrs. Ganong says anyone from the Milwaukee media who wants to call and talk to her about this incident can call the bar at: (414) 645-3707.