Proving good policing is firm AND caring

Mike Hanson is a Madison treasure!

We have a short list of people we admire. Mike Hanson should be on everyone’s list. After 23 years on the Madison WI police force, Mike is retiring 06-05-24 as captain of the downtown district. 

What can you say about a police officer who, confronted with the body of a suicide or of a murder victim, offers a silent prayer?

Blaska served with Mike Hanson during his three terms on the Dane County Board from 2002-2008. Walked the beat with him when he was the neighborhood officer in the troubled Bettys Lane/Theresa Terrace neighborhood on the SW side. He knew which father was drunk by noon, who were the troubled kids, what families were struggling to succeed.

Mike started out on the night shift rose on patrol, became the department’s spokesman, and rose through the ranks quickly because he is a natural leader — not that he hasn’t studied leadership like a Rhodes scholar. Constant improvement is a professed MPD value and Mike lives it.

 A calling, not a job

Captain Hanson admires former police chiefs Noble Wray — who advised that he walk a beat to really learn how to be a police officer — and Mike Koval, who sought true diversity of background as well as demographics. He’s proud of his fellow officers. Regards policing as a calling, not a job. Mike did a shout-out to former chief David Couper, who introduced a less combative style to Madison policing. His greatest influence was his father Ralph Hanson, for 26 years chief of the University of Wisconsin-Madison police during the turbulent campus protests of the 1960s and ‘70s.

In his post on the Madison police website, the captain wrote:

We join this profession as a “call to serve.” The men and women of the Madison Police Department are intelligent, caring and professional and I have been so proud to serve alongside them. There are countless moments I have experienced illustrating a co-worker’s elite compassion at scenes or investing their time on/off duty to help our community. You, the community, are incredibly fortunate to have a progressive, educated, forward-thinking police department.  

 More books, fewer toys

Captain Hanson thinks outside the squad car. All those Christmas toy drives? STOP, already! Generous Madison donates more toys than there are needy kids, he says. They need books and mentors, not gewgaws and wind-ups.

Mike Hanson does not just spray the weeds, he improves the soil. He works with retired captain Joe Balles to teach disadvantaged teens to read at the Meadowood neighborhood center. Embarrassed at their illiteracy, many of those kids “act out” in a mistaken attempt to assert a shred of dignity. Think of the crime prevented!

He is creative. He’s denounced the annual spring Mifflin Street Block Party. At this April’s drunkfest, 80 were arrested, 14 were treated for medical emergencies (most of them alcohol-related) one automobile was damaged and another was overturned. He posted the abundant social media video posted by the vandals. Eighteen of them ‘fessed up, many pushed by their parents. At least one tearfully begging that his coming internship in a law firm not be jeopardized. Mike and his team are looking to evolve the Mifflin Street block party into something safer and positive.

 Looking for the positive

This is a man comfortable in his skin. He quite frankly admitted that he is confident in his leadership, which requires learning from mistakes. Searching for a fugitive on the coldest day of winter, Mike confessed that he crashed an early aerial drone in the marsh. Being who is is, he sloshed through the ice and reeds the next day to look for it. Eventually it was found, still in working condition. Said former Ald. Paul Skidmore:

The term that I associate Mike with is “relentlessly optimistic.” I recall one incident at an address in my aldermanic district when he was suiting up to confront a potentially armed suspect. He was calm, pleasant, and grateful that he had a professional team that was ready to handle the situation. In any situation, he was a joy to be around.

Plans to learn the guitar in his retirement although avows he “could not carry a note if it was luggage.” Forgot to ask if he would do the Sonny Curtis song, “I Fought the Law and the Law Won.” Or Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff.”

Blaska’s Bottom Line: After a suitable break from daily policing and reconnecting with his young adult children and working wife, the community needs Mike Hanson back in leadership.

Is Madison over the cop bashing yet?