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Star Packaging — One Year On

I checked my email this afternoon, and found a press release from a group called Voces de la Frontera. I am not affiliated with the group, know none of its members, and have no idea what their event will be like tomorrow, with the exception of the news that’s contained in a press release that…

Parsing Jim Coan’s interview with The Week on the Star Packaging Raid

Over at The Week, Mike Heine has an interview with Jim Coan, Whitewater Police Chief, about the Star Packaging Raid, and the plea of Star Packaging’s owner, Alan Petrie. I’ll leave Coan’s comments, and Heine’s text, in black, and my replies in blue, for easy distinction. Pending a sentencing hearing, a dark chapter in Whitewater’s…

Coan on Star Packaging from the WPD Newsletter, Volume 48

The Star Packaging raid offers insight into how Whitewater Police Chief Jim Coan presents his police force to the community, and as a consequence, the message he sends to his team. No action of Coan’s force has been as justly controversial as the Star Packaging raid, and at each stage his statements underlie an unwillingness…

Journal Sentinel on Star Packaging Raid

On May 1st, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a thoughtful, informative story on the Star Packaging raid. Georgia Pabst wrote the story, running on page B1, of the paper. Here are some nuggets from that story, that may not have been printed in local papers, with my comments following: 1. From City Councilman Maxwell Taylor,…

The Week on Star Packaging Raid

Mike Heine of The Week has a good summary of developments in the Star Packaging raid, where the Whitewater police and other agencies, acted against Mexican workers, and the American owner of the business, leading to criminal charges against both. Here’s Heine’s summary of the raid: Whitewater businessman Allen L. Petrie, owner of Star Packaging,…

But We Never Went Away…

Writing at NiemanLab, Joanne McNeil offers a prediction for 2020 in A return to blogs (finally? sort of?): One reason we might see a resurgence of blogs is the novelty. Tell someone you’re starting a new newsletter and they might complain about how many newsletters (or podcasts) they already subscribe to. But tell them you’re…

Common Council: Crime Prevention

Property crimes, although not as reprehensible as crimes of violence, are yet significant wrongs. Theft injures its victims, and undermines civil society. One has no reason to be sympathetic to thieves. Individuals and society benefit from strong private property rights. Whitewater, perhaps more than other towns nearby, has a problem with property crimes, including car…

The Meyer Lawsuit: Pending Questions

Well, we in Whitewater, Wisconsin are not given to introspection. We lead by cheerleading. That’s not my view; I am happy in dissent from, and against, cheerleading. I would be ashamed to be so callow. The federal constitutional lawsuit against former investigator Meyer and the Whitewater Police Department is now settled. The world did not…

The Meyer Lawsuit: The Intervening Event.

The constitutional lawsuit against Larry Meyer and the police department he served in our small town was filed in May 2005. It was settled, and the case closed, in September 2008. One might imagine that, during the pendency of the suit, investigator Meyer (now retired from the force), might have had a different profile. Not…

The Force We Need

I have been — for sound, inescapable reasons — a critic of the state in which Jim Coan has left our lovely, but troubled, city. He, and those who have supported him, have made life worse for others. I have watched, day after day, as he has taken this city and its police force down…

Police and Fire Commission: Citizen Complaints

One measures the strength and honesty of an organization not merely by what it asserts, but by its willingness to allow others to test its assertions, so that it might be open to better practices. It is in this way that the lack of an authentic, accountable citizen complaint process illustrates so much of what…

Questions on the Settlement in the Larry Meyer Case

Larry Meyer, now retired, was a controversial member of the Whitewater Police Department, and is the defendant in a federal civil suit. Meyer’s counsel filed a motion for summary judgment in March, but the Fourth Amendment federal constitutional claims of the Plaintiff, Steve Cvicker, survived that motion. Previously, I have published posts about the damage…