This is a very difficult issue, one that law enforcement has not been held accountable to in the history of Milwaukee. Judge Sheedy’s summits after the WCS racial disparities report were very serious attempts to look at race and law enforcement and the courts, and find solutions. City police, suburban police chiefs, the DA, many judges, county officials and criminal justice reformers were involved in those discussions, each with a certain amount of plausible deniability in hand to refute any claims of a racial bent in law enforcement.

Realizing of the awkward situation that Ald. McGee may have found himself in that night, and the seriousness of the DWB issue, he’s given us a paper tiger that’s already got holes burning in it.

Milwaukee does need to take a serious look at law enforcement and race, to look with new eyes at the task force work of Judge Sheedy, work that continued through 2001 in the drug courts, and then go beyond it to work on some real solutions.

What McGee, and now Mayor Estness, have proposed is shameful. I sincerely hope they aren’t serious about the idea of taking this regional.

So long as an iota of plausible denial exists (no matter how preposterous any number of touted explanations may seem), it will be a losing battle for civil rights activists and, hence, this may be something of an unscratchable itch.

What is truly needed - or, at the very least, what would be most effective - is documentation of such abuses by a third party and, unfortunately, that is just the kind of thing to galvanize ‘Tosa natives and police to cry foul even louder than potentially victimized motorists and not too unreasonable so because who, after all will watch the watchdogs?

But don’t, at any level, expect result from potentially politically motivated internal inquiry. It’s a paper tiger.

Communities outlying, I’m afraid, are a lost cause until metro Milwaukee decides upon taking the lead in that very same issue. The best political motivator in promoting pro-active policy and behavioral change, these days, seems to be criticism from the outside that bears both teeth and accountability.

http://www.ci.mil.wi.us/display/router.asp?docid=1760

Alderman McGee is married and is the father of three children.

I can also guarantee that if the following were true, we’d hear differently:

Mike McGees son/daughter worked there
The police were not called
The place was robbed and the son/daughter injured

We’d be hearing about the irresponsilbilty of the clerks and the mega-lawsuit that was soon to come against everyone involved.