911 audio call re open carriers at Culver's restaurant on 18 Sept., 2010 Credit: Wisconsin Oppen Records Act
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Comments
It's taken many years to regain our 2nd Amendment Rights, after they were arbitrarily taken by many local governments. But now that we have these Rights again, the Madison police should have left these men alone.
I hope these men sue & extract HUGE settlements from the city of Madison. That's the only thing that will stop these illegal jack booted thug police tactics.
I live in Madison, read the local article and listened to the recording. I nothing wrong with the 911 call. Someone please tell me why someone can not call the police because they think something looks wrong? Never did the dispatcher imply these individuals were participating in a criminal act. In fact, she explained the law and that it was legal to carry. The woman never accused them of wrong doing, but simply stated it wasn't normal. No reason to post this audio, nothing wrong or newsworthy.
The incident of charging two with obstruction for failure to show ID is another issue, which needs to be decided on by the supreme court.
I have a sudden urge to go Open Carry in Madison.
Wow, talk about Police misconduct. This tape makes a pretty clear case that Madison PD had every intent of creating an incident where there was none.
I hope this results in Criminal Civil Rights charges against Madison PD.
911 operator should have known better. Should have been, "Are they doing anything? No? Well, m'am, they are doing nothing illegal. Thank you, have a nice day."
JBTs.
Incredibly tacky to have posted this with the caller's name and phone number as part of the audio.
Decidedly NOT tacky. This 911 call is part of the public record. This woman made the phone call and involved herself in these men's lives. I'm sure I could open the phone book or do a simple 411.com search and find these guys' addresses and phone numbers.
Public record? Sure.
Made publicly available for free from anywhere, anonymously? No.
This website could easily make their point without exposing this person's private information - but they were too lazy to do so.
We don't want potential 911 callers to hesitate before calling because their information could be posted to the web.
Yes, they could have bleeped out the woman's name, cell #, home #, license plate #, and the fact that she and her husband drive a silver Honda Accord. I don't know if their reasoning was simply to release the recording in it's raw form or if someone decided that "turnabout is fair play". These men were likely the lead local story on the 9:00 broadcast of the 4 network affiliates in Madison Saturday night. I'm sure they were above the fold in the Sunday editions of the Capital Times and the Wisconsin State Journal. The cops screwed up badly. They first charged two of the five men with obstruction of justice for refusing to present physical I.D. (D.L.), which is NOT required under Wisconsin law unless you happen to be behind the wheel. Realizing that the OC charges wouldn't stick on the two who declined to present the D.L.'s, they dropped those charges and charged all 5 with disorderly conduct as a CYA. The city will likely settle out of court for big $$$ instead of go to court and get egg all over their face.
Civil rights violations can really come back to haunt over-aggressive, ignorant law enforcement agents. If ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it for John Q. public, the same goes for Officer Jones.
I'm sure the phone numbers will be changed, and people should not harass the caller. She was concerned, and when it was explained that the guys were doing nothing wrong, she understood and said no problem. Madison PD took it upon themselves to 'disturb the peace'.
Second amendment supporters ARE NOT the kind of character that will abuse any names or phone numbers posted.
I too would like to see her personal info deleted from the tape. I would hate for some clueless people to harass this woman. The content of the call is priceless though. It is now crystal clear Madison PD trumped up everything so they could violate the Madison 5s constitutional rights. Madison liberals just doing their thing.
The caller did nothing wrong, and hopefully, nobody disturbs here. There is nothing to be gained by doing so.
The Madison Police Department, on the other hand, overreacted to the call, and improperly created an incident by demanding to see ID when there was no basis for doing so.
I think they should delete this ladies info as well. why put this person in danger for looking out for the city. Bad job on this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TAKE THE INFO OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Are they threatening?"
"No, they're extremely relaxed"
"If you're concerned, that becomes a problem?"
This is what's wrong, people snooping around. Someone breaks into my flat, noone rings the police.
"I live in Madison, read the local article and listened to the recording. I nothing wrong with the 911 call. Someone please tell me why someone can not call the police because they think something looks wrong? Never did the dispatcher imply these individuals were participating in a criminal act. In fact, she explained the law and that it was legal to carry. The woman never accused them of wrong doing, but simply stated it wasn't normal. No reason to post this audio, nothing wrong or newsworthy."
First of all you can't be bothered to write properly or check what you have written. "I nothing wrong with the 911 call" ? Can not is one word 'cannot'.
"The caller did nothing wrong, and hopefully, nobody disturbs here." Can you people not string a sentence together properly?
Madison should have taken a lesson from Racine. The RPD did something close to this to Frank and it the cost the city $10,000 for their screw up. Get out your check book Madison it's going cost ya...
I have no problem with releasing the 911 call in the raw, with all detail about the caller exposed. She did nothing wrong, but now there is a permenant public record of that, just like the five mem who were harrased by the police. They also did nothing wrong, but now the world knows who they are too. If one side has no claim to privacy, neither should the other.
I can only hope for the day when people will no longer be "shocked" by the lawful exercise of a consitutionally protected right. There is this collective meme that gun are somehow equated to crime. If guns are seen its because bad guys are using them to wreak havoc, or good guys are using them to stop it. Thank Hollywood for that one. The thought that someone could just have a gun, and not be involved in either the commission of a crime, or the stopping of a crime, is completely foreign to far more people than most of us care to admit. That's something I'd love to see changed.
Typical, a topic that impacts everyones constitutional rights gets twisted and nitpicked about rather the raw 911 call should have been edited or not. Even money says that if it had been edited, you would have just many aimless people debating if it is still accurate or not because after all, it was edited. Hard telling what else they removed...
If you want to debate the pros can cons of full disclosure there are plenty of sites to do it on but that really is not the point here.
The point of the tape is document the fact the people involved were not causing a disturbance even to the person that called 911. Not editing the tape leaves no doubt that the tape has not been doctored. The point of the tape is to call into question the Madison PD response to what was simply a group of people stopping for something to eat and maybe making a political statement while they were at it.
Editing it would lead to endless debate? You're talking about the internet here - the debate will happen with or without disclosing this person's personal information. They could have beeped it out and still skewered the MPD - but they chose not to.
Weak.
As for the stop itself - I have no issues with the police stopping to speak to a group of armed people in a public place. Open carry zealots may think that their right to carry weapons means they cannot be questioned - but there's no way to know if a group of armed men are about to start trouble. Getting their IDs can demonstrate to the police that these persons are not people with histories of gun crime.
Picture the police department who gets this call and doesn't look into it - then somebody gets shot. Picture THAT lawsuit for a while. Any money they'll pay to open carry advocates is nothing compared to the cost of paying out to the relatives of a gun victim where the police could have intervened but never bothered to.
As for the ID request - The Supreme court has ruled as recently as 2004 that laws requiring people to produce ID for law enforcement ARE constitutional.
Wisconsin law does have such a law on the books, but AG opinions are telling the cops not to use it - which looks to be the reason MPD dropped those charges and went for Disorderly.
MPD is going to take it in the chops as a result.
In my state the guys’ actions would have to *warrant*concern and that term has been very closely scrutinized. The dispatcher would be very wrong in saying “If you’re concerned…” Not sure how that works in Wisconsin.
Its simple. Can you legally carry??? Yes.... If people are concerned and call the police, they can do that... These men did nothing wrong, except bs about there rights.... Just show them your damn ID.... I have already carried and I was once asked for ID and I did with no problem (this was before this incident)....
"The Supreme court has ruled as recently as 2004 that laws requiring people to produce ID for law enforcement ARE constitutional"
Wrong. Police can ASK to see someone's ID, or for the person to state their name & city of residence, but unless they have what's called "reasonable articulable suspicion" of a crime, they cannot DEMAND or FORCE as they did in this incident.
"The incident of charging two with obstruction for failure to show ID is another issue, which needs to be decided on by the supreme court."
The Wisconsin Supreme Court says it's not obstruction:
"No law allows officers to arrest for obstruction on a person’s refusal to give his or her name. Mere silence is insufficient to constitute obstruction." Henes v. Morrissey, 194 Wis. 2d 339, 533 N.W.2d 802 (1995).
And thanks to the first page of this Madison PD memo:
http://www.cityofmadison.com/police/documents/Summer2004.pdf
the police knew about that ruling, and others, saying that what they did was ILLEGAL.
"Open carry zealots may think that their right to carry weapons means they cannot be questioned"
My right to be free from unreasonable searches has nothing to do with my right to carry a pistol for protection. They co-exist, they're not dependant upon one another.
One part of the state & federal Constitutions say that I have the right to keep & bear arms. (BTW, the WI Constitution was amended in 1998 by approval of 79% of voters to affirm that right.)
Laws & court rulings say that, absent reasonable articulable suspicion (RAS) of a crime, I cannot be COMPELLED (as these men were) to produce ID, or even say my name & place of residence. Exercising a right is NOT and can never be RAS.
"Bruce Wayne" says:
"These men did nothing wrong, except bs about there [sic] rights"
These men were doing nothing wrong, and did nothing wrong during the whole encounter.
It was the POLICE who committed CRIMES, and will be paying for them.
Your chosing to give up your rights is your choice, but makes things harder on those of us who stand up for ourselves. Police, as these 8, come to expect that their subjects will willingly roll over.
When they meet up with citizens who not only know but stand on their rights, and expect the police to behave within the law, the police get mad. Luckily, this interaction was recorded, so the judge will clearly hear that the officers were behavilg illegally.
No law says that we must carry ID, unless we are operating a motor vehicle.
So to demand ID is nonsensical, as well as illegal.
clearing up some things - no the s. ct. did NOT rule that police can demand ID - see Hiibel (state statute requiring one to state name OK if RAS applies); see also Kolender (states cannot mandate that people have/show ID to police).
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