But we have a police monitor anyway!
Memphis TN, we have a problem. The police killing of Tyre Nichols looks to be even more egregious than the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. But Memphis is more confounding, given that the five accused police officers are black, as was their victim. As is their police chief, as is our chief in Madison WI. Therein lies today’s tale.
The usual Defund the Police suspects blame the police culture. “We have to talk about this institutionalized police culture that has this unwritten law, you can engage in excessive use of force against black and brown people,” said the apparently go-to lawyer in these cases, Ben Crump. (He also showed up at the “mostly peaceful” Kenosha-is-burning riots in 2020.)
"The race of a cop is 'cop'" — Elie Mystal in The Nation.
Or racism!
“There’s nothing white supremacy can’t do,” Rich Lowry marvels at National Review: “It is supposedly so pervasive and powerful that it can cause black men to sign up to serve as police officers in a majority-black city and severely beat a black arrestee.”
Odd thing is that Memphis lacks what our fair Madison WI possesses: a 13-member, taxpayer-paid police civilian oversight board! Now helmed by inveterate cop basher Shadayra Kilfoy-Flores, she is one of the two who brought charges against former police chief Mike Koval for calling one of them crazy. (Was he wrong?)
After two years of fits and starts, the Oversight Board finally found someone willing to take a $122,000 annual salary to be its “independent police monitor” — one Robert Copley out of Milwaukee — to start work 12-02-22. Nearly two months later, the Werkes wants to know what is his Werk-load? How many complaints filed? Innocent citizens tased, beaten, shot, cuffed, detained, questioned or otherwise inconvenienced?
Back to Memphis:
January 7 — Tyre Nichols beaten
January 8 — Five police officers relieved of duty pending investigation
January 10 — Tyre Nichols died
January 20 — Police name and fire the five officers
January 23 — Family views police body cam video
January 26 — Prosecutors criminally charge 5 officers
January 27 — Police video released to public
All within three weeks!
What does Memphis have that Madison does not? Police body cameras!
Try to contact Madison’s Independent Police Monitor! There is a website: https://www.cityofmadison.com/independent-police-monitor. But no office e-mail or phone. No on-line form to complain about (or praise) Madison police. Search the city’s website for Copley or “monitor.” Zip, nyet, and nada. The City’s human resources offices could find no telephone number for Mr. Copley but did provide an e-mail address. (As a service to our Platinum+ subscribers, it is rcopley@cityofmadison.com)
But credit to where it is due! Mr. Copley responded to my query within the hour:
I haven’t received any complaints since I began but that is likely because a formal complaint process has not been started yet. The Office is really being built from the ground up at the moment and I am the only full time employee of it. My current priorities are staffing the Office and the creation of various procedures for overseeing the police department. Those staff positions [one program assistant and one data analyst] and foundational procedures will ensure that the Office survives when my time as Independent Monitor ends. They also ensure that a complaint process, once begun, will operate efficiently, equitably, and transparently.
— Robert Copley (he/him), Independent Police Monitor
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Really? Does anyone expect an avalanche of complaints awaits some kind of formal process? Maybe because, after two months, no one knows how to get ahold of the Independent Police Monitor? As the President might say, C’mon man! Not even a drop box?
The Werkes is on record that a Police Civilian Oversight Board and its appurtenances are more useless than a job applicant reference from George Santos. Madison already has a Police & Fire Commission to oversee hiring and disciplinary matters, well as a district attorney with an itchy finger. Last we heard from the Civilian Oversight Board, they appear to be ordering business cards.
Blaska Policy Werkes 
20 responses to “Madison is not Memphis”
The Independent Monitor position is just another example of Liberals expanding government bureaucracy.
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More tax dollars for do nothing positions. I wonder if there is an office? Chairs or desks or maybe a computer? I think I’ll go to the Cities “New Model for City Planning” for northeast side tonight and see what they are going to transform. Maybe a way to spend more money.
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remind them they could spend money on a new jail….
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Most likely a non accountable, work from home position.
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yup, another money pit.
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“We have to talk about this institutionalized police culture that has this unwritten law, you can engage in excessive use of force against black and brown people,”
Crump of course could care less when excessive force is applied against white people. That would not further his agenda or fill his pockets with money. Sorry Paulie Heenan, you were just too white.
Would love love to see how many times body cams have exonerated Memphis police. Despite this incident most of the shitbirds like Crump would rather not have them.
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Was (Koval) wrong>/i>?
Considering to whom he was referring?
F**k NO!!!!!!
The Gotch
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Was (Koval) wrong?
Considering to whom he was referring?
F**k NO!!!!!!
The Gotch
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Jason Whitlock (who The Gotch’ll go out of his way to read) suffers no despicable Lefty fools, and refuses to embrace the Race Hustler’s wildly hysterical narrative that these bLack officers were in the service of White Supremacy; to wit:
Whitlock: Yes, BABY-MAMA CULTURE Explains The Tyre Nichols Tragedy
It explains a lot of other tragedies past, tragedies present, and tragedies future as well.
The Gotch
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Madison liberals never tire of portraying themselves as champions of transparency–except when it’s inconvenient for them. The Independent Monitor position is yet another example of how in Madison doing the right thing is less important than being seen to do the right thing.
When the Tyre Nichols case first broke, reporters were clearly disappointed–and flummoxed–that the cops weren’t white. Ditto for the shooters in the two cases of Asian Americans killed in California. The media is never happier than when they’re spinning any crime into a hate crime.
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Mr. Copley,
I understand you are in the process of “staffing” your office. Might I inquire how many staff will you be hiring, and what will be the total cost to us taxpayers?
Norman Sannes
HIS RESPONSE…….
Good afternoon.
Two staff positions are expected right now. I don’t know what “the total cost” is or how you would calculate that.
Sincerely,
Robert Copley (he/him)
Independent Police Monitor
City of Madison | Office of the Independent Monitor
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Office of Independent Police Monitor budget authorized for calendar/fiscal 2023: $464,899.
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And people are worried about covid money ending?
We obviously have all the money in the world. What’s the problem?
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Once again woke up to a heated home with electricity, running water and internet.
Goddamn white supremacy.
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In my opinion, our city council and mayor are the most inept people to ever run a city. I doubt that they will do anything more than screw up the police department worse than they did Madison Metro. In the name of inclusivity, they changed the bus routes so that the bus routes that used to make sense, have been changed so that they no longer make any sense. So I doubt that they will do anything more than screw up the police department worse than they did Madison Metro.
(For example, you can take the #68 bus from Old Sauk Road to the Prairie Town Shopping Center but only on the weekends, not on the week days as there is no bus that runs down Old Sauk Road that goes there. You used to be able to take the #15 down Junction Rd. to that location on the week days but no longer.)
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Wait till you see what the planning and development department have coming. I went to the north east neighborhood meeting last night to see the city’s view on high density housing. Imagine high rise apartments on east town parking lot. West side meeting coming in February.
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I have to disagree, at least where SRC is concerned. The big problem is she is very capable, which is a bad quality for someone moving the city in the wrong direction.
I’ll take all the inept I can get with this bunch.
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“In my opinion, our city council and mayor are the most inept people to ever run a city.”
Consider including the Dane County Board in your assessment of WOKE ineffective impotence and civic sterility.
A Gotch pal who serves on it claims, thus far, a cool $23 million ( that’s Million with an M!) has been p!$$ed away studying the new jail; paralysis by analysis.
It gets worse.
The meter is running!
Not only that, but $70 large is spent EVERY_FREAKIN’_MONTH ferrying prisoners around because of the inadequate, over-crowded facilities while these irredeemable f**k-wits slobber over correct pronouns, Counselors-Not-Cops, and taking turns sticking their heads up their over-sized a$$e$!
The Gotch
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The scary thing is not so much that a toon like Elie Mystal says things like this, but that The Nation has a loyal contingent of readers that will gleefully sponge up whatever bile it prints. One has to wonder just how much of a sock puppet Mystal is for John Nichols—the latter hiding behind the former knowing that Mystal will get more of a pass for this type of hate speech.
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I talked to Metro about this today and they said that once covid hit that is when they changed the route from going down Junction to going down High Point. Funny thing is that covid hit almost 3 years ago but the bus stops on Junction still have the #15 listed as stopping at them.
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