Madison is known across the country as a safe, friendly place to live and raise a family. However, at its heart, Madison is still a city, not some sort of idyllic paradise, and being a city comes a whole host of problems brought on by so many people living in such a small space.
Like all cities, Madison has a nontrivial amount of violent crime, which can at times necessitate forceful action by police. While this is unfortunate, there’s nothing inherently wrong with police taking violent action in order to protect the public.
However, it’s crucial to ensure police are held responsible for their actions — after all, how credible can law enforcement be if they aren’t held to the same standard of the law? This is exactly the problem the City of Madison is facing. In the past year, there have been three fatal shootings by Madison Police Department officers. While MPD generally has a sterling reputation, this doesn’t mean they should be exempt from external review.
There is currently a bill, sponsored by Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay, and Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, moving through the state Legislature that would set a new state-wide standard requiring an outside investigation of police-related fatalities. Specifically, the bill would require that at least two members of the team investigating the incident be from an independent agency, and that only one member of the team be from within the group being investigated.
Not surprisingly, the bill has garnered some criticism from law enforcement officials. Specifically, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, opposes the bill, calling it “unnecessary” in a press release issued last week.
Van Hollen’s opposition to the bill isn’t necessarily unfounded — it will make life more difficult for police departments, and it will add red tape and bureaucracy. However, this is a small price to pay for ensuring that all police-related fatalities receive a fair, independent and unbiased review.
There are some obvious concerns with police departments having an overwhelming voice in investigations of their own department. Even if the investigators don’t think they’re biased, it’s entirely possible that they are. To begin with, people tend to like people that they know. Most people would be very reluctant to discipline someone they work with every day. Also, law enforcement officers will likely feel more empathy for their fellow officers than would an impartial observer — it’s not crazy to think that police officers might look out for their own.
It’s possible that the police officers investigating a shooting could act in a completely neutral manner. However, even if the investigators are able to approach the situation without any bias, the simple fact that the investigators could be perceived as being biased ultimately undermines the investigation in and of itself. If the general public perceives a source of bias, the investigation immediately loses credibility.
Having an independent investigation of police killings simply makes sense. If a private company were involved in an incident that resulted in someone’s death, we would surely require an independent investigation. We certainly wouldn’t be content with an investigation conducted in large part by employees of the company itself. Why, then, should police investigations be any different? It’s simply good policy to require an independent investigation.
None of this is meant as any sort of slight against police in the state of Wisconsin. I have no doubt that MPD is acting with the best interests of the general public in mind. However, there’s no way to guarantee that this will always be the case, in Madison or throughout the rest of the state. Hopefully lawmakers will see the common sense in this situation and pass this bill.
Joe Timmerman ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in math and economics.
