Milwaukee’s Criminal Police Chief and Civilian Disarmament
by William Grigg
at April 24, 2009 02:02 PM
In August of last year, Brad Krause of West Allis, Wisconsin was planting a tree in his own backyard when he was ambushed by police.
Krause’s next-door neighbor, the type of timorous busy-body upon whom the Homeland Security State’s snitching apparatus depends, had called the police to complain that Krause was wearing a sidearm. Krause is a law-abiding and inoffensive person, but the mere sight of a private citizen carrying a gun made his neighbor suspicious.
So the cops arrived, Krause was disarmed, and — there being no law in Wisconsin against the open carrying of a handgun — Krauss was charged with “disorderly conduct.” That spurious charge was eventually dismissed. But the police, who didn’t provide Krause with a receipt for his gun, refused to return it to him.
On April 20, Wisconsin state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen issued a memorandum intended to clarify whether “a person has the right to openly carry a firearm” without being subject to a charge of disorderly conduct.
While Wisconsin state law forbids citizens to exercise their right to carry concealed weapons, there is no statute banning them from carrying them openly, a fact grudgingly admitted in Van Hollen’s memorandum: “The Department believes that mere open carry of a firearm, absent additional facts and circumstances, should not result in a disorderly conduct charge.”
That ruling prompted a remarkably arrogant response from Milwaukee police Chief Edward Flynn: “My message to my troops is if you see anybody carrying a gun on the streets of Milwaukee, we’ll put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide whether you have a right to carry it.” (Emphasis added.)
Note well how Flynn referred to his police personnel as “my troops,” an ironically appropriate designation in light of the fact that he clearly considers himself to be the dictator of a military occupation force, rather than the director of a civilian police agency.
Flynn invokes the fact that Milwaukee has witnessed nearly 200 homicides over the past two years as justification for the defiant orders given to “his troops.”
That fact underscores the need for citizens to retain the ability to defend themselves against lawless assaults immediately, rather than waiting for the police to arrive — by which time they have little left to do other than draw chalk outlines and string up crime scene tape.
Chief Flynn, it should be noted, has mingled with the elite. Before being tapped to head the scandal-plagued Milwaukee PD in January 2008, he had been police commissioner in Springfield, Massachusetts and served stints as Chief of Police in Braintree and Chelsea, as well as Arlington, Virginia. He also served as Mitt Romney’s Homeland Security adviser.
Flynn is a graduate of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, the National Executive Institute, and a former fellow at the Harvard School of Government. He sits on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Board of Directors of the Council of State Governments Justice Center.
Clearly, Flynn is no marginal figure, a fact that makes his perspective on civilian disarmament and militarization of law enforcement a matter of national concern.
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“From an officer’s safety point of view and a public point of view,” he said, “we’re not going to start with the assumption that someone displaying a handgun is doing it lawfully.”
–Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn (Evil Penguin) member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police
Posted Apr 21, 2009; 7:38 PM
Milwaukee chief to officers: Ignore gun memo
http://www.wisinfo.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200990421173
By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Milwaukee’s police chief said Tuesday he’ll go on telling his officers to take down anyone with a firearm despite Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s finding that people can carry guns openly if they do it peacefully.
Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn said he’ll continue to tell officers they can’t assume people are carrying guns legally in a city that has seen nearly 200 homicides in the past two years.
“My message to my troops is if you see anybody carrying a gun on the streets of Milwaukee, we’ll put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide whether you have a right to carry it,” Flynn said. “Maybe I’ll end up with a protest of cowboys. In the meantime, I’ve got serious offenders with access to handguns. It’s irresponsible to send a message to them that if they just carry it openly no one can bother them.”
State Justice Department spokesman Kevin St. John declined to comment.
Wisconsin is one of 29 states that allow people to openly carry a firearm without a permit. It’s one of two states that ban concealed weapons.
Flynn’s comments came as gun control advocates and state lawmakers derided Van Hollen’s ruling.
“The idea of people … openly carrying guns strikes me as somewhere between bonkers and totally ridiculous and stupid,” said state Rep. Josh Zepnick, D-Milwaukee.
Van Hollen, a Republican, issued a memo Monday explaining how disorderly conduct overlaps with the constitutional right to bear arms. Van Hollen concluded citizens have a constitutional right to openly carry firearms, and disorderly conduct charges depend on the circumstances.
OpenCarry.org, a gun advocacy Web site, issued a statement saying the finding was “spot on.” The Wisconsin Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs Association said the memo clearly finds people can bear arms in an orderly manner.
But Oregon, Wis., Police Chief Doug Pettit said the memo doesn’t provide much direction for police, who already know open carry is legal in Wisconsin and disorderly conduct is a case-by-case judgment call.
“I don’t know if the memo clarifies anything, other than it’s not an automatic disorderly conduct charge,” Pettit said. “Clearly, I think law enforcement, like anything else, will have to use their discretion.”
Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard said open carry cases have rarely come up, but he’d want to know why someone has chosen to carry a gun before making a charging decision.
“Police will be quick to ask you, ‘Why do you have a gun with you? Is somebody stalking you?’ Those are going to be fair inquiries,” he said. “We’d be particularly concerned if someone was openly possessing a gun in the context of an ongoing dispute or feud.”
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said the memo just muddies things. Police still aren’t clear on what might constitute disorderly conduct, he said.
“How we approach a person with a gun, I can tell you right now, isn’t going to change. As far as a law enforcement person is concerned, you just don’t walk up to a person with a gun and say ‘excuse me, sir,”‘ Clarke said. “On the ground, give up. Get that gun under control and then we’ll figure out what we got here.”
Gov. Jim Doyle, a former attorney general, believes local communities should be allowed to create their own gun ordinances, spokesman Lee Sensenbrenner said.
A 1995 law bars municipalities from enacting stiffer ordinances than state statutes, but carrying a rifle during hunting season is different from walking around Milwaukee with a gun on your hip, Sensenbrenner said.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said Van Hollen’s memo underscores the nation’s weak gun laws. The Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, a statewide organization dedicated to ending gun violence, estimates guns kill about 450 people in the state each year.
“A lot of people who get guns and carry guns don’t always understand the responsibility and risk that goes with gun ownership,” Helmke said. “People get drunk, people get angry, people make mistakes. More guns generally mean more violence.”
State Rep. Leon Young, D-Milwaukee, a former police officer, said he was shocked by Van Hollen’s memo. He said he planned to look into drafting legislation to ban open carry.
“It’s just a bad idea. We’ve just had too many incidents of gun violence,” Young said.
Flynn, Milwaukee’s police chief, said the opinion was clearly drafted in the safety of the Justice Department’s offices, not on Milwaukee’s streets.
“From an officer’s safety point of view and a public point of view,” he said, “we’re not going to start with the assumption that someone displaying a handgun is doing it lawfully.”
Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms had this to say about Flynn;
NEWS RELEASE
Citizens Committee for the
Right to Keep and Bear Arms
12500 N.E. Tenth Place
Bellevue, WA 98005
http://www.ccrkba.org/pub/rkba/press-releases/wisconsin.police.htm
CCRKBA CALLS MILWAUKEE WI POLICE CHIEF’S REMARKS ‘OUTRAGEOUS’
For Immediate Release: April 22, 2009
BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today criticized Milwaukee, WI Police Chief Ed Flynn for his open defiance of the State Attorney General’s office in a controversy over open carry of firearms.
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has stated that it is legal in Wisconsin for citizens to carry guns openly in a peaceful manner. However, Chief Flynn is ordering his officers to “take down” citizens, “put them on the ground” and disarm them, and “then decide whether you have a right to carry it.”
The situation should alarm all Wisconsin citizens, whether they own guns or not, said CCRKBA Legislative Director Joe Waldron, because it places police officers and private citizens in a deliberately confrontational position. Also, he added, Flynn’s approach raises serious constitutional questions because of the state’s clearly defined “right to keep and bear arms for security, defense, hunting, recreation or any other lawful purpose” under Article I, Section 25 of the state constitution.
“Because Wisconsin does not allow concealed carry,” Waldron said, “the only way for citizens to exercise their constitutional right to keep and bear arms is to carry handguns openly. Chief Flynn should not assume he or his officers have the authority to decide who can and cannot exercise that right. His attitude is outrageous.
“Attorney General Van Hollen was correct in his statements about the legality of open carry,” Waldron continued, “and what does it say about a police chief when he publicly announces that he’ll do things his way and to hell with what the attorney general says?”
Waldron also said a plan, announced by State Rep. Leon Young, a Milwaukee Democrat, to draft legislation that bans open carry, “is inviting court challenge.”
“If you cannot carry openly, and you cannot carry concealed,” Waldron wondered, “how can law-abiding Wisconsin citizens exercise their state constitutional right to keep and bear arms? We encourage Rep. Young to address that issue to the state Supreme Court before he pushes ahead with that scheme.”
With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.
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In the US, documents have been released showing that a former federal prosecutor who is running for governor of New Jersey on a Republican ticket approved the surveillance of American citizens via their mobile phones without bothering to go through all that tiresome business of having to get warrants to permit various agencies to conduct the spying, writes Martyn Warwick. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has published papers confirming that during his time in charge of the US Attorney General’s Office for the state of New Jersey, Christopher Christie convinced and cajoled judges to approve and permit the surveillance of private American citizens by federal authorities without producing the necessary evidence of a crime taking place, as is required by US law.
