April 22, 2009

Thanks for clarifying

Like I said:
Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm said Van Hollen's memorandum changes very little for prosecutors.
And that's being generous, assuming it changed anything at all.

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said the memo was confusing and both he and Milwaukee Chief of Police Edward Flynn warned that open carriers of firearms should expect to find themselves subject to a forceful takedown, the "cowboys" be damned.

As Sheriff Clarke noted yesterday, when cops get a "man with a gun" call, an officer on a bicycle doesn't appear bearing a copy of the annotated Wisconsin constitution and prepared for scholarly discussion. Rather, you get surrounded by a dozen squads.

The Kenosha County Sheriff's response was only slightly more nuanced, but given Van Hollen's hypothetical of the displaced hunter "quietly tracking game" along a crowded city street with a loaded shotgun, "We’re going to order him down," said David Beth.*

The barking comes later.

* And resisting an officer is a Class A misdemeanor, DC a Class B.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can name that tune in...five words, Chet.

Display Name said...

I suppose if we want to interpret the text literally, there's a way to do that.