What's going on in Wisconsin?

An anonymous reader has tipped me off (many thanks, by the way, and please keep them coming, everyone) to two eye-opening stories out of Wisconsin that I think are worth passing along.


1. "Two Iraqi war veterans have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, alleging two police officers forced them to lap up what was believed to be urine in June."

The "public servants" were from the Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin police force.

The vets apparently strongly denied urinating in public and questioned whether the substance in question was indeed urine, but the power-tripping, cowardly cops made the brave patriots lick it up off the ground anyway.

Punishment for the two cops? I guess:

"[Officer Wayne W.] Thomas was fired and [Officer Collin H.] Jacobson was suspended for two weeks without pay."

Jacobson actually got to keep his job after this? And why weren't the officers charged criminally for their abuses, anyway? Those actions sure sound like provable assault and battery. They must have received the "special people" consideration that we chronicle so frequently here.



2. Another man, this time in Altoona, Wisconsin, has also filed a civil suit, this one against the Eau Claire Police Department as well as the Eau Claire County Sheriff, over an incident that transpired on Thanksgiving Weekend 2006.

The man, Arthur J. Thompson, alleges that he was the victim of a warrantless home invasion and was subjected to false arrest by the departments he's suing.

He claims that his front door was broken down without warning and he, his partner and a minor child were forced to the ground at gunpoint by the cops. Thompson then spent Thanksgiving Day in jail, based solely on the following allegation:

"Earlier in the day, the officer had been advised by another officer that Thompson was a convicted felon who had pawned a firearm at National Pawn and then later redeemed the gun in question, violating the law."

Yep, you know where this is going. The "another officer" was mistaken. Thompson wasn't and isn't a felon, and a simple 5-minute records check would have clearly turned up that important little nugget. Interestingly, the article reports that the Eau Claire County Court House and its records are housed in the same building as the police department, so the clueless officers wouldn't have had to go very far in order to do a quick check on the person whose house they were about to invade.


As always, any settlement from these two lawsuits won't be coming from the pockets of the officers involved, but from the ones of the chump taxpayer, who refuses to rein in the ever-expanding powers of the police state that are the catalyst for these abuses.

As an aside, Wisconsin has long been on our radar because it and Illinois are the only two remaining states with absolutely no provision for lawful carry of firearms by its citizens, however restricted some of the other states' policies might be. Open carry is technically legal in Wisconsin, but many local police officials and prosecutors there have made it quite clear that they will attempt to jail anyone who does so on disorderly conduct charges, so people who dare to exercise that right are basically nonexistent.

It sounds like some of the law enforcement administrators in that fair state need to stop worrying about lawful carry by its residents, but instead should begin conducting extensive remedial training for their peace officers. First up: educating the cops that they aren't in fact Judge Dredd, and as such may not do such things as charge into citizens' homes and arrest them without evidence or a warrant, nor may they dispense their own "street justice", however masculine it makes them feel.