Kyle drew a little attention with his post questioning the Mayor’s role and promises with the protests on Monday. Blaska vowed to get to the bottom of it. I had already asked and got and answer from Soglin but not the police and shared that with Kyle, so Kyle made a clarification . . . but here’s what Soglin said.
Here is what happened. I had two conversations about this with one person, Joe Conway Jr.. The first time we spoke, I said I would RECOMMEND to the police that warnings be given before arrests were made, and that included citations followed by towings if vehicles were involved.
So first would come the warning, then would come a traffic citation – In other words, first a verbal warning, a period of time to reflect, then a citation, and then the threat of towing of vehicles followed by towing if the vehicles were still there.
In the second conversation, I told Joe, that I was not sure the police would follow my recommendation and I arranged for a direct conversation between a police inspector and Joe. Clearly what happened is that people were warned and when they refused to comply they were immediately given citations without any time to ‘reflect.’
I read some other comments that seemed to imply that I gave direction to the police on the afternoon of the demonstration. I postponed a meeting Ald. Clausius and went to the square about noon. Watched the march for a while and then went to my appointment. I did not have any conversations with any police personnel on Monday other than to say, ‘hello.’
Civics Lesson for the day – note the careful language here. He “recommended” what should be done. The ultimate call, and the person to be held responsible it the police chief Noble Wray. The chief and captain John Davenport (I always want to call him “captain couch”) were cc’d on the email and they, so far, have had nothing to add, but I did ask. I suspect that any call made was done on their part. Because the PFC (Police and Fire Commission) does the hiring and firing of police and fire, in these matters and many others, the police answer to no one but the police and fire commission. Kinda like the sheriff answers to no one but the voters (think immigration issue and how the county board can’t force him to do anything.) An often frustrating situation for elected officials in Wisconsin. The only real power we have is in the purse strings (budget) and even that is somewhat limited.
The mayor appoints the chief. The mayor influences the budget.
To say the mayor has no control on the police is disingenuous.
Is soglin to be like Obama , and be immune from criticism from the left. Bad trend to start.
The Police and Fire Commission appoint the chief. http://www.channel3000.com/news/3501446/detail.html
I think I said that the only control is the purse strings, not that they have no control.
And don’t worry, I’ll criticize the Mayor when he deserves it. You don’t think I won’t, do you? 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsm1NC3v3cU
This is video of a woman who was knocked to the ground by police as they where pushing protesters out of the M&I bank doors. Although she was not participating in the act of civil disobedience she felt the effects of MPD’s intolerance that day for protesters at M&I. Some protesters just standing or sitting in the first set of doors, instead of being cuffed and cited, were physically grabbed and tossed out of the building causing this injury. If the original plan for the protest was honored by the parties that had this supposed “handshake” agreement for the days protest activities, protesters would have stuck to the structured plan. Once that plan was shattered when police blocked vehicle access to the square is when protesters went off in all directions. In my opinion this was the roughest I’ve seen MPD members respond to protesters since this all began on 2/14/11 and the roughest I’ve seen any cops behave since the day after the violation of the open meetings law. Protesters are also about fed up with the lack of access to the Capitol and the police state it has seemingly become, adding tensions. i believe Soglin’s response because he has given me no reason not to thus far and have not heard a peep from the other parties involved.