… but she’s pretty steamed!
Amanda Hall
Steam
“Neighbors, I am trying so hard to be patient. What’s been going on in our city has me pretty steamed. While the further east side of Madison is by far the safest residential area in the city, the rest of the city is contending with way more gun violence than we’ve dealt with in recent memory. I’m pretty fearless but I get that the general sense of peace and security that most Madisonians have felt their entire lives here is falling away. As one of our city’s many leaders, I’m feel strongly protective of that sense of peace, and I’m starting to feel pretty angry.”
So writes Madison Ald. Amanda Hall who:
- Voted to spend $400,000 to investigate the Madison police for signs of racism.
- Voted to deny recompensing Police Chief Koval for defending himself against spurious charges made to the PFC.
- Who signed a letter damning the police for restraining Genele Laird after she threatened East Towne Mall employees with a knife.
- When Chief Koval called for more help after a night with six shootings, Hall kvetched: “Instead of doing his job and administering our Police Department, [Koval] was trying to score political points not only for his department’s budget but also for his current personal legal battle with regards to his professional conduct.”
Let Amanda Hall know you’re steamed, too! E-mail the alder and don’t forget to add steam!
‘Gunfire is becoming commonplace in Madison’
That’s the lede sentence in the Madison newspapers about yet another shooting today. This is not the Squire’s first rodeo. You don’t need to read tea leaves to discern that Hall is attempting to mollify a constituency increasingly fed up with the Madison shooting gallery. How? By pretending she is concerned, as well.
The far-Eastside alder is trying to remember other things, too. (Perhaps consuming fish oil would help?)
I’m trying to remember the basic logic that people with the economic opportunity for family-supporting jobs and wages don’t just decide that robbing someone else would be a lot more fun.
Now that is an elected city official going on full-bore Little Miss Buttercup! Plus some fractured English. Ald. Hall seems to be saying that the shooters aren’t shooting out the windows of passing motorists for the fun of it. The gang that vowed “Dude gotta wait, I’m getting that money” isn’t holding a gun to an honest workman’s head at the hamburger stand for kicks. They gotta have that money because … what? Because they don’t have family supporting jobs? In Dane County, with a practical rate of full employment? In Madison, where Now Hiring signs are more ubiquitous than orange traffic cones in July?
Or maybe (just maybe) Crime Causes Poverty! I.E., people who make poor choices get poor results.
I’m also trying to remember that it’s not the government’s or anyone’s place to demean anyone with labels or pity in the process of understanding individual actions.
No, Amanda, that’s our job here at the Blaska Policy Werkes. Don’t demean the gang bangers or the thugs with labels. We’re not Raging Lunatics here at the Asylum. But pardon us all to hell, we’re trying to remember something ourselves, like: What kind of anti-police message has the Madison Common Council been sending these past few years?
The more whacked-out of our liberal-progressive-socialist acquaintances (a-Bob? Baldy?) would have to argue that the wealthy white folks of Nakoma and University Heights are shooting each other but just aren’t being arrested. How laughable. (Incidentally, zero arrests for loitering, curfew, or public drunkenness. Drug arrests? Whites were arrested by a greater margin: 532 to 296.)
