Thursday, November 28, 2013

David Clarke's Misplaced Priorities Exposed. Again.

It is no deep, dark secret that Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke is an incompetent twit whose poor leadership skills are only surpassed by his poor interpersonal skills.

It is also commonly known that Clarke's effectiveness as a law enforcement officer leaves a lot to be desired, as noted by the fact that he helps drunk drivers out of snow banks without even knowing they're drunk.

To help cover up his incompetence, Clarke likes to do a lot of blustery bravado and to raise false alarms about other things to distract the people's from the real problems.  The most recent example is Clarke raising the boogeyman of the "Knockout Game," something that has been around since I was a kid.  Not only is Clarke trying to conflate people's fear, he is also furthering the racism that is all too prevalent in Milwaukee.

Fortunately, we have people like Milwaukee County Supervisor David Bowen who can see through Clarke's nonsense and have the fortitude to target="_blank">call him out on it:
David Bowen
Supervisor David Bowen is speaking out on a recent warning about the "Knockout Game". This "game" consists of someone, or a group of people, punching an innocent victim while someone else records the act of senseless violence. Sheriff David Clarke issued a warning recently about what he claimed is a growing trend.

"While some like Sheriff Clarke have bought into myths that violent mobs of young people are roaming the streets to ‘knock out’ harmless bystanders,” Supervisor Bowen said, “I am here to remind the public that we have many respectful and law abiding young people who are not on a mission of destruction.

"There have been incidents where older people, not just youth, are resorting to this type of violence, but it is not an increasing trend in our community. Let's not be delusional and push our residents to live in fear. We should be doing the opposite by finding ways to mentor and support young people and organizations that work to develop them.”

Supervisor Bowen says there should be more concern about the increase in gun violence and guns ending up in the hands of people who shouldn't have them. This week Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn showed the media where MPD holds guns seized in crimes. There were 11,000 guns in that room. Chief Flynn called for tighter restrictions in the state's Concealed Carry laws.

"We should be far more worried about the growing culture of gun violence than a 'growing trend' of random attacks. Unfortunately this also applies to situations when young people haven't done anything but live in their own community like Treyvon Martin or Milwaukee's own Darius Simmons. They were killed by guns, not fists.

To that end I encourage our community to use this holiday season to be thankful for our many great young people. We should not treat them as a problem but instead help find solutions; by doing that we can work towards improving the quality of life for our entire community."
Anf for those that might have missed it, Clarke has been using taxpayer money to promote the values of the NRA, one of his greatest benefactors. In other words, Clarke is not part of the solutions to our societal problems, but one of the major contributors to them.

And don't look at the county emperor for help in this area either.  Chris Abele doesn't have a clue to what side he's on regarding the gun issue (or anything else for that matter).  And Abele's only solution to dealing with Clarke is to take it out on the deputies and endanger public safety even more.

We can be thankful for real leaders in the community like Supervisor Bowen.

We can also be thankful for the chance to get rid of Clarke once and for all by electing Chris Moews as sheriff.  That is one thing that is long, long overdue.

1 comment:

  1. The "Knockout Game" is an urban myth. When police departments investigate these assaults they find all sorts of motives involved, not a trendy game. The media has found then can hold an audience until the commercial break by playing to the racial fears of the white upper middle class. It reminds me of the mythical "Wilding" craze in New York city which sent a group of innocent teenagers to prison for a decade based on coerced confessions.

    On weekends in Madison, drunken, white college-boys punch each other out on State Street, but it's never called a trend or a game. Go figure.

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