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Madison police officer is unsung hero

Posted on October 27, 2021 by David Blaska

All in the line of duty?

Madison has a hero in its midst but no one is talking about him. Where is the news coverage? Mayor’s Satya’s commendation? Who is painting the laudatory mural on Monroe Street?

Madison police officer Edward McKinley is a hero! Ed McKinley saved the life of a young black man when he could have shot him dead and be justified for doing so.

Madison police officer Edward McKinley Katoine Richardson was on the lam for armed burglary. Three times he had jumped bail. The 19-year-old was court ordered to be at home by 10 p.m. and to remain unarmed. (Even concealed carry permit holders must be age 21.) Instead, he’s packing heat and prowling the streets after midnight.

Police spotted the fugitive in the 500 block of State Street. Richardson apparently drew his loaded weapon and pointed it at responding police. Officer McKinley (pictured here) could well have shot the young man then and there. Instead, he risked his own life trying to wrestle the weapon away with his bare hands. The gun went off during the struggle, with Katoine’s finger on the trigger.

Officer McKinley saved the lives of his fellow police officers, innocent passers-by, and Katoine Richardson by risking his own. Why aren’t the social justice warriors praising his restraint? Because they hate police, because they need victims, because Ed McKinley destroys their narrative.

On a school day!

This morning 10-27-21 at 10:36 am a stolen vehicle was being operated at a high rate of speed on Raymond Road just before the intersection with Whitney Way. The vehicle attempted to turn north on to Whitney Way, but lost control, striking the curb and disabling the vehicle in the northbound lanes of Whitney Way. A Madison Police Officer in the area witnessed four juveniles flee from the vehicle after it became disabled. Due to the fact the subjects fled on foot towards Toki Middle School, MPD notified school staff regarding the incident.

All four subjects were taken into custody shortly after the incident. The vehicle had been stolen from a residence on Madison’s north side earlier in the day.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Which alder will sponsor the commendation recognizing Ed McKinley’s heroism?

Or is the untold story being:
that is what police do every day?

Posted in Uncategorized, War on Police | Tagged Ed McKinley, Katoine Richardson | 7 Comments

Democrats’ war on police allowed BLM riots

Posted on October 26, 2021 by David Blaska

Only in Kenosha WI did citizens fight back against the rioters

The New York Times takes a deep dive into the BLM riots in the summer of 2020 that put Kyle Rittenhouse on the defendant’s block. His trial begins with jury selection Monday 11-01-21 in Kenosha. Expect wall to wall TV coverage. The NY Times story is surprisingly balanced. We offer this fair usage excerpt:

It began with the video of a white police officer shooting a Black man named Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., … on Aug. 23, 2020. …

The next day, the mayor attempted a news conference but was forced to retreat inside the public-safety building ahead of a furious crowd that broke the glass of the building’s front doors. … Several streets’ worth of businesses and a parole office went up in flames. A man in his 70s trying to defend the Danish Brotherhood Lodge and a store next door sprayed rioters in their faces with a fire extinguisher until a man hit him with a concrete-filled plastic bottle, breaking his jaw.

Mayor Satya sides with Madison rioters

The afternoon of June 23, a black man named Devonere Johnson walked into a pub in downtown Madison with a baseball bat and, for several minutes, shouted accusations of racism at employees and patrons through a megaphone he pointed directly at their faces. … After he was arrested … the Capitol’s “Forward” statue, a female figure representing progress, was toppled. Another statue, depicting an abolitionist, was beheaded and thrown into Lake Monona. … As he tried to assure the protesters he was their “ally,” [State Sen. Tim Carpenter] was beaten by several of them, suffering a concussion and a broken nose. …

Clashes between racial-justice activists and the police had been regular occurrences in Madison since late May, and Satya Rhodes-Conway, the city’s Democratic mayor, struggled with how to respond to them.

“Thank you for being angry,” she told participants in one early march, explaining that she had spoken with the city’s police chief about “the need for de-escalation and restraint.”

Kenosha’s local elected officials, virtually all Democrats, had shown up, along with local law-enforcement officials, for the June 2 Kneel for Nine [in support of Black Lives matter]. … The same people did not show up for the Back the Blue rally in support of law enforcement several weeks later.

Kenosha heats up

“This is anarchy,” said Van H. Wanggaard, a Republican state senator and former police officer from Racine. “These are terrorists. These are domestic terrorists.”

Echoing Vicki McKenna, he urged listeners to blame not the rank-and-file police but a leadership beholden to Democratic officials. Mike Koval, the recently retired police chief of Madison, agreed. The police, he said, were “thoroughbreds that are basically being put on a pony cart and told to walk around in circles.” He spoke darkly of officers’ being “muzzled” and insisted that “strings are being pulled from the highest level.” …

McKenna was particularly furious about the absence of the National Guard, which Evers did not deploy until that day. “Here’s my idea,” she told her listeners: “We get a couple of hundred people with AR-15s to descend into the downtown area in Madison and just walk the perimeter. I tell you something, Tony Evers would see that sight, and he would declare a state of emergency so fast.”

Returning to this idea throughout the broadcast, McKenna was always careful to present the aim of that deployment as not vigilante action but rather forcing Evers’s hand: If the Black Lives Matter activists could get what they wanted by flooding the streets, why couldn’t conservatives?

City appeals to Trump for aid

[Tony] Evers, the governor, issued a statement that made no mention of the destruction, addressing only Blake’s shooting and expressing solidarity with his family, friends and neighbors.

[The morning of August 25, Kenosha Mayor John] Antaramian, along with … Daniel Miskinis, the Kenosha police chief at the time, had already called Bryan Steil, the Republican congressman whose district includes Kenosha, to request more federal assistance. When Steil called the White House switchboard, he soon found himself unexpectedly on the line with Trump himself, urging the president to send U.S. Marshals, A.T.F. agents — whatever reinforcements were available.

“You want me to call your governor, even though your governor hasn’t called me?” Trump asked, according to Steil. Steil said he did. “Talk to Mark,” Trump said.

Steil explained the situation once again to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff. That evening, Meadows appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” He told Carlson that he spoke with Evers earlier that day, offering more National Guard troops, and Evers had declined the assistance. …

Britt Cudaback, a spokeswoman for Evers, disputed Meadows’s account … She said that the chief of staff had in fact offered not the National Guard but personnel from the Department of Homeland Security.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: If Kyle Rittenhouse is convicted, Democrats like Tony Evers, Mayor Satya, and Kenosha’s mayor should be tried as accessories.

What will be the verdict on Kyle Rittenhouse?

Posted in George Floyd riots, Mike Koval, War on Police | Tagged Kyle Rittenhouse, Vicki McKenna | 16 Comments

Mope on the Street interview

Posted on October 25, 2021 by David Blaska

What are YOU contributing to the Katoine Richardson bail fund?

Katoine Richardson is the 19-year-old fella who pulled a loaded gun on police on State Street well after midnight despite court orders to be home by 10 p.m. and refrain from firearms. And three felony bail jumpings. Hero of WI State Journal columnist Esther Cepeda, Freedom Inc., and Woke progressives, everywhere. After seven days, a GoFundMe campaign has raised $380 toward its goal of $10,000.

UPDATE: Turns out Richardson was bailed out 10-20-21 by Free the 350. The GoFundMe is trying to recover that bail money from donors.

The Policy Werkes told our unpaid intern to hit the troubled streets of Madison WI to ask the usual assortment of idiots and malcontents:

How much will you give to free Katoine?

“Promotion to positive behavior coach at Whitehorse middle school.”

“Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women.”

“Coupon 10% off for 24-month course in anger management at Columbia Correctional Institution.”

“Where is the GoFundMe for the injured police officer??”

“Let’s Go Brandon!”

“I gave at the office.”

What will you donate?

Posted in Man on the Street | Tagged Katoine Richardson | 11 Comments

Minority kids funneled into legal system by progressive enablers

Posted on October 24, 2021 by David Blaska

Who is gaslighting whom?

Police are the bad guys (wouldn’t you know) because they “misled” the public about Katoine Richardson firing a weapon at police. So claims Esther Cepeda for the Wisconsin State Journal.

Police are liars and criminals, Cepeda infers, because the initial Department of Justice statement carefully noted that an officer had been wounded by gunfire on Madison’s State Street 10-10-21 but never accused Richardson of shooting him. Trying to satisfy the public’s immediate right to know during an on-going investigation, DOJ said, simply: “During the arrest a round was fired and an officer was struck.”

Didn’t stop Richardson’s family from claiming “that Katoine never even so much as fired a gun.”

Katoine did so much as fire a gun, according to court testimony. But Cepeda does not accuse the family of misleading the public. Instead, she’s doing more gaslighting than Charles Boyer. The gun just went off “while struggling with an officer … though Richardson’s finger was on the trigger.” Are we allowed to ask why was the lad’s finger on the trigger of a loaded gun? Or why he was struggling with an officer? Why he was illegally packing heat in the first place? Cepeda sides with the gunman:

A black domestic violence advocate from Freedom inc, is working with Richardson. She told me … that kids and others with few resources often get funneled into the criminal justice system and then can’t get out because of the surveillance they contend with. … No wonder our black youth run from police.

Critical race theory in practice

Maybe Mr. Richardson funneled himself, enabled by apologists like Esther Cepeda. Dane County’s progressive justice system gave the young man chance after chance. Signature bonds, low bail, public defender. Three times the 19-year-old blew bail. Judges asked only that he be home by 10 p.m. and stay away from firearms. Couldn’t or wouldn’t — matters not to Cepeda. Katoine is a victim of “this biased and powerful system of criminalization.”

The Werkes understands that the WI State Journal feels obligated to devote column inches to a minority race contributor. But one so irresponsible as Esther Cepeda? One so injurious to the prospects of young men of color? Neither she nor the WI State Journal’s other minority columnists, nationally syndicated Leonard Pitts and Cynthia Tucker, represent hard-working, minority-race America. Only the AOC / Al Sharpton wing of the Democrat(ic) party.

Glenn Loury

Why not print any of the growing number of conservative minority voices: Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Jason Riley, John McWhorter, Burgess Owens, Stanley Crouch, Candace Owens, James T. Harris? Or Glenn Loury of Brown University. The professor addressed the Wisconsin Institute of Law & Liberty for its 10th anniversary banquet Some excerpts from Dr. Loury’s talk in Waukesha WI 10-20-21:

Activists on the left of American politics claim that “white supremacy,” “implicit bias” and old-fashioned “anti-black racism” are sufficient to account for black disadvantage. …. To respond, “No. It’s mainly a sign of anti-social behavior by criminals who happen to be black.” …

Those in prison are, in the main, those who hurt others, or stolen things, or otherwise violated basic behavioral norms which make civil society possible. Seeing prisons as a racist conspiracy to confine black people is an absurd proposition. .. It is self-evident that those taking lives on the street of St. Louis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Chicago, to a man, are behaving despicably. Moreover, those bearing the cost of such pathology, almost exclusively, are other blacks.

→ ‘Black and conservative‘ features our friend Eloise Anderson.

Bottom Line goes to Professor Loury: “An ideology that ascribes this violent behavior to racism is laughable.”

Why aren’t you laughing?

Posted in Critical Race Theory / Identity politics, Freedom Inc., War on Police | Tagged Eloise Anderson, Esther Cepeda, Glenn Loury, Katoine Richardson | 23 Comments

‘A sleeping giant has been awakened’

Posted on October 23, 2021 by David Blaska

America’s schools are being held hostage!

As we detailed in the last thrilling episode of the Werkes, Democrats are in full panic that they’re losing the soccer moms to Republicans. These mothers, often from affluent suburbs like Milwaukee’s Mequon and Thiensville, deserted the louche incumbent President in 2020. That explains why Trump lost Wisconsin by roughly the same hair’s breadth he had won four years earlier. And why Democrats are panicked!

The progressive scribblers at The New York Times retaliated by going nuclear on the housewives of Mequon-Thiensville who are recalling four members of their Woke school board. Any development inimical to the progressive project — as is resentment over the foisting of critical race theory hate onto young children — must be recast as a cynical Republican reaction to win elections. They hope it will be enough to pull Terry McAuliffe over the finish line in Virginia November 2. The Times’ original headline:

‘How Republicans are weaponizing Critical Race Theory ahead of midterms.’

When the old Democrat(ic) warhorse proclaimed, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” he was reciting the progressive belief in rule by expert.

We get that there are no farmers but …

Is there any doubt that the radical left runs Madison WI’s public schools? Look at our school board. Where is the shopkeeper, the real estate agent, the construction worker, insurance salesman, business executive? Maybe one among the seven. In order of appearance:

Seven Madison school board members

School board president Ali Muldrow* is co-director of the Gay/Straight Alliance for Safe Schools. (Voted to expel police.)
Found no employment for Savion Castro but fought efforts to punish university students who shouted down campus speakers.
Ananda Mirilli*, education equity consultant at WI Dept of Public Instruction and former racial restorative justice coordinator.
Nicki Vander Meulen, attorney for juveniles.
Cris Carusi*, events and communications manager, American Family Insurance Data Science Institute.
Christina Gomez Schmidt, director of enrichment at Galin Education.
Maia Pearson is state director of something called “Rise,” which insists “black America and people of color continue to be victims of unjust violence at the hands of police.”

* up for election next Spring

→ Committee to rename Madison Memorial high school (named for author of U.S. Constitution) meets 5 p.m. 10-27-21
→ School board to vote Monday 10-25-21 to stop suspending elementary school troublemakers. Meeting starts 6 p.m. on-line.

Biden’s AG targets parents

“A sleeping giant has been awakened,” former U.S. Rep. Peter King announces at The Hill. King theorizes parents saw what was being force-fed to their children when the Covid-19 pandemic forced distance learning from home: critical race theory, gender equity, trans-gendered pronouns, and the 1619 Project.

Even former Madison mayor Dave Cieslewicz, a dues-paying Democrat, admits Democrats made a mistake by expelling police from our troubled high schools. (Read it here.)

The Democrat(ic) party has its fingerprints all over white privilege, boys in girls’ bathrooms, and America bashing. The New York Post asks, “When does an attorney general “make a high-profile public announcement that he’s ordering his minions to get on top of a purely imaginary danger?”

The simple truth is that the education establishment across America (sometimes pushed by politicians) has been embracing CRT for some time now, albeit usually under the label “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.”

Blaska leaves the Bottom Line to Rep. King: “This cannot be good news for Democrats, who will have to play defense on all these issues while being compelled to explain why the Biden administration has sicced the FBI on parents who publicly protest school policies.”

How will YOU save Madison schools?

Posted in Cops in schools, Critical Race Theory / Identity politics, Madison schools, Progressives | Tagged Ali Muldrow, Ananda Mirilli, Cris Carusi, critical race theory, Dave Cieslewicz, Madison schools, Mequon-Thiensville school board, Merrick Garland | 24 Comments

Freeing Katoine from jail isn’t free

Posted on October 22, 2021 by David Blaska

Blame the police and the news media!

This being the Emerald City, there are several “Free Katoine” movements afoot. Katoine Richardson is the 19-year-old with three felony bail jumpings prohibited from possessing a weapon and under a court curfew. (More here.) Madison police found him out and about on State Street after midnight in possession of a gun, which he fired. A police officer fired back and mistakenly hit another officer.

Allies for Black Lives – Madison expressed sympathy. For Katoine Richardson. “Policing in Madison is a very safe job except when the police get involved.” Followed with hashtags: #FreeKatoine #DefundPolice

Katoine Richardson brandishes guns

Wisconsin Right Now’s capture of Richardson’s social media page

Freedom Inc., the taxpayer-supported social justice warriors who bullied the school board into expelling police, is also on the case. They rallied Thursday in front of the jail shouting “F-bomb 12.” Incredibly, Freedom Inc. blames the police for “further criminaliz[ing] him.” Notice how the statement read at the poorly attended rally absolves the young man of any personal responsibility:

Katoine is currently still incarcerated, but the cops and news reporters whose lies further criminalized him are not currently facing any charges. This traumatic experience has forced Katoine back into a cycle of criminalization that is made intentionally impossible for Black youth to escape. …

Which is rich because the courts kept releasing Katoine Richardson onto Madison streets, only asking that he be home by 10 p.m. and quit packing heat. Apparently, the was too much to ask. Freedom Inc. segues into its Defund the Police rant:

All other Black people must be released from systems of policing, including that of detention centers and cash bail. We must immediately defund MPD and abolish policing. Close all prisons and jails, and instead invest resources into our own communities for community control and infrastructure that would have our needs met.

Rather than shoot a fully armed man, one of the police officers tried to wrestle Katoine’s gun from him. In the struggle, the gun went off. BTW: The Officer McKinley referenced in the following Wisconsin State Journal account is black:

When Richardson was down, Officer Edward McKinley testified, he saw that Richardson had a gun in his hand and that it was aimed momentarily in McKinley’s direction. He said he wasn’t sure whether the aim was willful or not.

→ In other words, Officer McKinley saved the poor mope’s life!

Liam Manjon of the Social Justice Center is trying to raise money to throw Richardson’s bail, which is now $11,000. (Good on D.A. Ismael Ozanne — he actually sought $50,000 bail!)

Blaska’s Bottom Line: If there is any good news, it is that in four days they have raised $360 toward a goal of $10,000.