Ald. Rebecca Kemble:
Maybe things will get better now that Chief Koval is gone

Wants ‘community-based solutions’

The secretive shareholders of Blaska Policy Werkes thank Madame Brenda Konkel for her faithful, gavel-to-gavel transcription of the Madison Common Council’s budget deliberations Tuesday (11-12-18). We excerpt from that transcript this soliloquy delivered late in the evening by one of Madison’s touchiest feelies, Ald Rebecca Kemble, District 18 (northEAST side — corrected) who, like the Madame, is Progressive Dane through and through.

Burglarized while they slept in their beds
by repeat offender and bail jumper
wearing ankle bracelet 

This is Brenda’s transcription, only lightly edited:

Ald. Kemble says it was a rough weekend for her family. On Friday (11-09-19) you may have read [the Madison Police incident report re: Damontae D. Tillman, age 17] about footsteps in the snow. That was [Ald. Kemble’s] mom and her sister. [They] were burglarized while they slept in their beds and their deaf dog did not wake up and did not bark. They had a number of items stolen from them … They live next door to each other and they leave their doors unlocked. They are not doing that any more.

Police in the north district responded immediately, found the footsteps in the snow, the detective was right on it… the suspect was taken into custody within 45 minutes. But it was really scary for her sister and her mom. This young man was wearing an ankle monitoring bracelet because he was out on bail for burglarizing other people’s homes.

The detective told her mom and sister that [the burglar] was in the house for a half an hour. So, you can imagine how they felt. Scared. They spent all morning dealing with their credit cards and passwords and all the things you have to do when you’ve been robbed and getting updates from the detective which were really appreciated. They were talking about what could have prevented this [like] locking their house.

Wants more ‘talking to people’

Then they started thinking about the young man who did this and what was going to happen to him and the more they learned about him, he’s been charged with six counts of bail jumping and one misdemeanor bail jumping. This is someone who has done this criminal activity time and time again.

What [Kemble’s] 87-year old mom was thinking about was she wished that program that Brandi [Grayson] is doing around Urban Triage to support families in the community to talk to people who are going the wrong way and get them more integrated in the community. I wish there was something like that in this kid’s neighborhood.

[Kemble] wasn’t saying I wish there were more cops. She knows more police would not have prevented what happened to them. What she wanted, and her sister, too, they were talking about Focused Interruption Coalition for more than just homicides.

What if the community capacity was so robust that people couldn’t get away with that because the grandmas would be on them.

Thank the spirit gods, Chief Koval is gone

My family members were victims of scary crimes, unknown dude with a criminal record in their bedrooms. And that is what they were talking about.  

[Kemble says] she thinks their discussion around more police officers has been really confused … on the one hand there is public safety … and on the other hand there is the internal morale issues. Those get confused. … The former chief who was extremely divisive and inflammatory, who openly  disparaged and threatened this body, who openly disparages residents who raise valid concerns about policing — he is gone now. 

We will have an opportunity to hire a new manager of that department who [Kemble] hopes will have a different philosophy and attitude towards elected officials while dealing with the OIR [consultant] recommendations.

… Three more [police] officers is not worth the opportunity costs to being able to invest in community-based solutions to actually create real public safety. Whether people [who] are driven by fear perceive that or not. …

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Are you driven by fear! Then you are unperceptive.

What do YOU think?