How do protesters and others want Madison Police to change?

June 5, 2020 8:27 am

And more importantly, how do we get our elected officials to start talking about that change?I’ve been thinking about this since the protests and riots and revolution began. As chair of the Public Safety Review Committee, what do I put on the agenda? How can we nudge the administration and elected officials closer to addressing the demands of the protestors and others to get the true police reform that we need.

FREEDOM INC, URBAN TRIAGE, PSL

These demands will be on the agenda, asking the committee where can we impact change leading in this direction?

Consideration of demands of the protestors, what can we impact?

#DefundPolice. We demand Mayor Satya Conway Rhodes defund the Madison Police
Department (MPD). Instead, invest in life-affirming infrastructure for Black people. Fund
pro-Black and anti-oppression community-led projects and services.

#FreeEmAll. We Demand Sheriff David Mahoney free all incarcerated people and stop all
projects to rebuild or renew the jail. We demand DA Ishmael Ozanne drop all charges
against people, including protesters and freedomfighters. We Demand Department of
Corrections (DOC) Regional Chief Troy Enger suspend all probation holds.

#CommunityControl. We demand the PFC, the Police Chief, Mayor and all other aspects
of the State to immediately seize and abolish police force powers and acknowledge
safety structures that are pro-Black, pro-woman and girls, pro-youth, pro-LGBTQI,
pro-disabled, pro-immigrant, and refugee community—anti-oppression. Give Black people
decision making power.

NAACP

This letter will also be attached to the agenda, with the Policies that they are asking us to review and others:

The Vice Chair of the Public Safety Review Committee is on the NAACP Executive Committee and a signor on the letter.

BLACK AND BROWN YOUTH

From the Isthmus article “Wake up” Madison yesterday:

“We demand that Matt Kenny be fired and that the community has control over the police. The community should be in charge of investigating police violence — not other cops,” says Ciara. “We have no plans on stopping until then.”

This is not on the agenda because I already approved the agenda – tho I may ask for it to be amended once it is published.

I SHOULDN’T ASSUME BUT . . .

I am assuming that getting the police out of the schools is also on the list.

WHAT AM I MISSING?

What other community demands are missing from this list? Please feel free to send them to me so they can be incorporated into the agenda.

CHALLENGES: WHERE AND HOW DO WE BEGIN?

That about sums it up – where and how do we begin? Our agenda after not meeting for three months is huge, I shoved everything not related to these issues except Surveillance Ordinance and reports from fire, police and mayor’s office off the agenda – including the homeless issues we were working on and several other important issues.

However, the police department won’t give us reports and might not even send staff to the meeting. I originally asked for the following after not meeting for three months:

POLICE

– There will be an agenda item called: :”Unrest in Madison: The latest coverage of the protests ” and Alder McKinney has requested answers to the questions in the letter from Alder Kemble and others – she specifically asked for updates from the Chief.

– COVID-19 responses and recovery

– Operating and Capital budget updates

– Report on ad hoc committee recommendations progress

FIRE

– COVID-19 responses and recovery

– Operating and Capital budget updates

– Report on the EOC and Emergency Management functions over the past three months

MAYOR’S OFFICE

– Update on when we can meet again

– Police Auditor update

Chief Vic Wahl’s response on June 2nd was as follows:

Brenda – given the current circumstances I think it is unlikely we will be able to provide any written updates or documents by next week. We will try to have someone attend the meeting and give verbal updates, but that will be dependent on availability and staffing needs for the ongoing protests, etc….

My response was:

Clearly you must have reports and documents you do in your normal course of business that could be provided to us?

Chief says:

What would you be interested in specifically? We likely have hundreds of pages of documents regarding COVID-19…

My response:

I think people on the committee would be interested in:

– What policies were put in place to protect the officers (PPE, policy changes)

– What procedural changes were made for the officers on the street and what impacts did it have on arrests and numbers of people who went to jail

– Any other challenges presented by COVID-19 that might not be obvious or covered above

– Your role in the EOC, thoughts on emergency management structure

– Any monthly summaries for March, April or May that you might have done

Anything that will cut down on the amount of time you or your staff have to talk during the meeting and that will pre-empt questions that people might have. I’m sure you’ve been getting tons of questions and can anticipate what the biggest questions might be.

If you have a list I’d be happy to review it or if you have documents you’re not sure about I could take a look at them

That was yesterday morning before 8am – I haven’t gotten a response yet, but I’m sure I’ll get one.

So, we may not even have police staff present at the meeting? Where and how to we begin with virtually no staff support for our committee to address these complex and complicated issues and without information? I have ideas, the police department won’t like it at all, but if they refuse to cooperate and be a resource for our committee then we are left to our own devices. This isn’t a threat, it’s merely a fact. I was an alder for 8 years, and thanks to Cieslewicz I know how to make things happen when staff are uncooperative and won’t assist with what you’re trying to accomplish, but we’d need an alder or two to support us in that. The three alders on this committee (Barbara Harrington-McKinney, Christian Albouras and Patrick Heck) all voted to support the curfew, so I’m not sure we’re going to have much luck for anything that goes against the mayor or police department without outside help, if we can get anything to pass. But we’ll see. Due to walking quorum and generally shitty city attorney advice, I haven’t talked to them and maybe I’m wrong.

So, back to where we started – “how do we get our elected officials to start talking about that change?” Or can change not happen until we change our elected officials? Imagine if the council had some of that fierce leadership you see on the streets, on the council.