At the Wisconsin State Journal, there’s a story about the Wisconsin Innocence Project’s work on behalf of an innocent man. Entitled, DNA project finally clears name of wrongly imprisoned man, the story shows the excellent work of Wisconsin’s Innocence Project: The state’s effort to collect thousands of missing DNA profiles has paid off for a…
Police
Law, Police
Live Program on Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture, 11 AM Central
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Cato Institute will hold a policy forum today, Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at noon Eastern, 11 a.m. Central on the Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture. The program will feature Scott Bullock, Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice; and Marian R. Williams, Department of Government and Justice Studies, Appalachian State University; with comments by Scott Burns,…
Law, Libertarians, Police
Institute for Justice Case on Civil Asset Forfeiture
by JOHN ADAMS •
I posted yesterday on the risk to communities of burdening law enforcement with a profit motive. Here’s an example, from Texas, of how distorted and unfair civil asset forfeiture can become. A news video describes the situation of a client of the Institute for Justice, Zaher El-Ali, whose Chevy Silverado was seized, even though he…
Law, Police
The Institute for Justice on “Policing for Profit.”
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve posted before on the work of the Institute for Justice, and readers can find their website on my blogroll, on the left side of this website. They’re a libertarian public interest law firm, and they sometimes produced videos describing cases and issues in their work. They have two that they’ve recently recorded, and I’ll…
City, Police
Whitewater City Manager on Police Chief on Community Outreach
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s a paragraph from the Whitewater city manager’s Weekly Report for March 5, 2010 that reveals all one needs to know about how these two gentlemen view community outreach. Here’s the paragraph: City and UWW Police Departments Hold Community Forum On Tuesday of this week, Officer Saul Valadez and Chief Jim Coan participated in a…
City, Police
Chief Coan Remains
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One sees that Whitewater’s police chief, Jim Coan, wasn’t hired for the public safety director’s job in Mankato, Minnesota. Coan faced an uncertain field, and even then, he wasn’t hired. One candidate dropped out, one candidate wasn’t even currently working, and the third rival Coan faced wasn’t even a police officer. Coan sought a position…
City, Police
Mankato Free Press: Miller Chosen as New Public Safety Director
by JOHN ADAMS •
From the Mankato Free Press story: MANKATO — Todd Miller, an experienced police chief who most recently served in Texas, will be Mankato’s next director of public safety…. Miller will be replacing Jerry Huettl, who is retiring after more than 28 years with the city. Mankato City Manager Pat Hentges, who chose the new director,…
City, Police
Whitewater, Wisconsin’s Tiny Chameleon
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Whitewater’s police chief, Jim Coan, is a candidate for the director of public safety position in Mankato, Minnesota. I’ve written about his candidacy before, in a post entitled, Whitewater Chief Coan’s Interview with the Mankato Free Press: Dodgy! after reading his answers to questions from the Mankato Free Press. (Readers who’ve emailed remarking that Coan’s…
City, Police, Press
Whitewater Chief Coan and Mankato, MN Candidacy Update
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There are a few updates on the search for a Public Safety Director in Mankato, MN, a search for which Whitewater Police Chief Jim Coan is a candidate. First, there’s a story in the Mankato Free Press, entitled, “Public Safety Candidates Go Public,” about the search for the next public safety director for Mankato. The…
City, Police
Whitewater Chief Coan’s Interview with the Mankato Free Press: Dodgy!
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Whitewater Police Chief Jim Coan has treated Whitewater, WI (and Mankato, MN) to one of the greatest examples of dodgy answers in their respective histories. Whitewater Police Chief Jim Coan is a candidate for the public safety director’s post in Mankato, Minnesota. I’ve written about his candidacy there before, in Signs of a Broken Police…
City, Police, Press
Whitewater Chief Coan Interviews with Mankato [MN] Free Press
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater Police Chief Jim Coan is a candidate for the public safety director’s post in Mankato, Minnesota. I’ve written about his candidacy before, in Whitewater’s Police Chief and the Job in Mankato, MN. The Mankato Free Press has published interviews with all four candidates for the job. The paper posed the same five questions to…
City, Police
“Ultimately” Responsible
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
I live and blog in a small rural town, of about fourteen thousand people, and one often imagines that such places are preserves of plain-speaking officials and straight-talking politicians. I suppose that many rural American towns are like that. We’re not one of them. Governance — official action first and foremost through law and legal…
City, Police, Press
Whitewater’s Police Chief and the Job in Mankato, MN
by JOHN ADAMS •
Update, 6:21 PM: Fixed link for “What Happens in Vegas…” appearing below. Link now leads correctly to that post. Longtime readers of FREE WHITEWATER know that I have been a critic of Whitewater’s long-tenured (too long, really) police chief, Jim Coan. A search of this site offers ample analysis of Coan’s disappointing tenure in Whitewater,…
City, Police
Department of Embarrassing Coincidence, Whitewater, Wisconsin Branch Office
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Before a holiday now connected in popular culture with a film, Groundhog Day, in which someone seems destined to live the same day over and over again, could there be any greater irony than publicizing that Whitewater’s police chief is again looking for another job? Here, gone, here, gone, here again. We have lived through…