This is written by Gregory Gelembiuk . . . but I wish I had written it. Thanks Greg!!!! The council will be having a special item on their agenda on Tuesday to talk about the recent police shootings . . . I hope they take a look at all the resources and information Greg has dug up and laid nicely at their feet! You might also be interested in Amanda Hall and Mayor’s Soglin’s responses here. If you have an opinion, email your alders (allalders@cityofmadison.com) and the mayor (mayor@cityofmadison.com). There will not be a chance for public input on this item (#22) at the meeting.
On March 24, headlines blared “Koval: Madison shots-fired calls up 300 percent year-to-date“. On April 25, Koval held a press conference demanding more funding and staffing, saying that “the city has had 48 shots-fired cases so far this year, an increase of 45 percent over last year“. The presser was replete with the typical Koval rhetorical flourishes (e.g. assertions of a “horribly compelling night of crime” and that “We need to have a come-to-Jesus moment here where this city gets a grip on the realities of what this department has had to contend with”).
In contrast, an official inquiry with MPD obtained the response: “We don’t have shots fired data, unfortunately” and stated that the limited data they do have is not “a particularly reliable or accurate account of shots fired instances in the city.” So what is it Koval? 45%, 300%, or none of the above?
Koval has claimed of Madison that “we’re behind and we’re not as safe as our contemporaries”, when in reality, Madison is far safer (with a lower violent crime rate) than most American cities. In response to criticism of MPD use of force, he’s repeatedly asserted that that MPD officers only use force on 0.0025% of all calls for service (implying that MPD officers use force a total of less than five times a year, which is obviously false). He claimed that, after the killing of Tony Robinson, “Comments such as ‘kill the cops’ and ‘we have guns too’ were yelled frequently” by protesters at the City County Building, a claim, apparently fabricated out of thin air, that is inconsistent with all police reports and communications, witness accounts, and video from that night.
This all reminds me of Trump’s dishonest “American Carnage” speech. For understanding why leaders like Koval (and Trump) act as they do and elicit the responses they do (both favorable and unfavorable), this article is useful. Though gun violence is something that needs to be addressed, the problem with having a Trump-style B.S.er as Police Chief (seeking to boost his budget): it makes it difficult to assess what’s really going on.
From Koval’s rhetoric, you would have no way of knowing that Madison already has more officers than typical for a city with its size, violent crime rate, and number of calls for police service. Moreover, evidence-based public health approaches to gun violence, such as Cure Violence or the Richmond Office of Neighborhood Safety program, have proven themselves to be a far more effective means of reducing gun violence than expanding law enforcement. Recognizing that violence acts like a contagious epidemic, public health approaches use strategies associated with disease control – interrupting conflicts, working to change norms, and identifying and treating the highest risk individuals. In contrast, criminal justice tactics (suppression by law enforcement and arrest) may ultimately cause more crime than they prevent.
