Eugene Kane: Comparing Milwaukee and Iraq

Eugene Kane is complaining again and playing the blame game. He really struggles this time to make a case against the police and Milwaukee residents outside the inner city.

In response to the Fourth of July shootings, he uses the war in Iraq to illustrate what he deems to be the shortcomings of the MPD, Police Chief Ed Flynn, and those many, many uncaring, bigoted Milwaukeeans.

Kane writes:

Perhaps it’s time to start thinking about central-city violence the same way we look at the situation in Iraq.

For five years now, many Americans have become accustomed to hearing regular reports about bombings and shootings in the city called Baghdad. Depending on your viewpoint, you either support the war in Iraq or you don’t, but few let that influence how they feel about everyday, hardworking, honest Iraqi citizens.

If only we gave our own U.S. citizens the same benefit of the doubt.

...After the shootings in the 2500 block of N. 28th St., many residents were judged harshly by the rest of the city for an apparent failure to cooperate with authorities. This hesitancy was tied to a widely known “no snitching” movement that reportedly encourages residents in high-crime areas to refuse to help cops solve crimes.

I believe the so-called issue has been badly mischaracterized in the mainstream press. When “no snitching” first became widely known, it was considered a code between criminals; it was never intended to include ordinary people simply afraid to speak openly with the police because eyes were always watching.

Years ago, a reader in the central city called to complain about rampant drug dealing in her neighborhood. She said she was frustrated with the activity and angry about the inability of local law enforcement to do anything. I asked her why she didn’t call the police.

“When I call the police, they want to send a car out to talk to me and park right outside my front door. Then, all the bad guys know I called them,” she said.

That’s bad police work; I know that because Flynn himself told me when I relayed the story during a talk we had months after he came to town. He said he understood why the woman was afraid, and he vowed to change things.

What does Kane want? Like many on the Left regarding Iraq, does he want an immediate troop withdrawl? Bring them home?

We have no business fighting a civil war in Iraq, right? Do police have no business waging battles on city streets in Milwaukee? Should we set a timetable, specific dates and deadlines to have all police out of the inner city? Does their presence actually create more urban terrorists?

End the war. Withdraw the police. Good idea?

When Kane talks about the mischaracterization of the Stop Snitchin' movement, he's echoing the words of disgraced, convicted former Ald. Michael McGee, Jr.

Like Kane, McGee tried to paint the movement positively, as really being about criminals trying to avoid being held responsible for their own crimes.

That was just an excuse to be against snitching, and a very poor one.

McGee was really promoting the practice of blocking police efforts to keep the community safe. He was telling people not to trust police.

In the end, being anti-snitching is being anti-justice.

A failure to come forward with information to get the bad guys by any other name is still a failure.

I understand the intense fear felt by the good people, but it's possible to remain anonymous when informing police.

Community leaders gathered at City Hall yesterday afternoon to implore citizens to cooperate with authorities to take back the streets from the thugs.

While officials acknowledged that people might remain silent for fear of retaliation, they provided an office phone number and an anonymous tip line and asked that residents use their relationships with their elected representatives to get information to Milwaukee police.

"I think it's incumbent on us to understand that (fear) but recognize that we will work to ease their fears if they know anything," said Common Council President Ald. Willie Hines...

Anyone with information can use the anonymous tip line at (800) 78-CRIME.

County Board Chairman Lee Holloway also put his county board office number out - (414) 278-4261 - for anyone who might want to speak with a representative rather than the police directly.

That's a positive effort to protect the good people from thugs' retaliation while encouraging them to fight back.

Kane, on the other hand, provides excuses for citizens with information NOT to come forward.

Blame the police.

Kane does acknowledge that Flynn vows to change things, but Kane still has plenty of criticism for the chief.

Flynn has thrown down a gauntlet against gang members he believes responsible for the July 4 shooting. He’s calling them out by name, which is a policy I don’t support. Why give these guys the publicity? It seems to me calling them a “north side gang” should suffice. It’s not a bestselling rap group; it’s a bunch of thugs.

Kane thinks it's wrong to give the gang members publicity? Calling them out by name is akin to an advertisement or endorsement?

That's ridiculous.

Was it wrong to call Jeffrey Dahmer out by name? Wouldn't referring to him as a murderer and a cannibal have sufficed? Why assist in making him a monster who will live in infamy?

(Here’s a suggestion: Just like in Iraq, why don’t we just call them “insurgents”?)

Cute.

Here's a suggestion: Instead of insurgents, why don't we just call them "the enemy," "enemies of freedom and peace"?

Flynn recently held an open roll call in a neighborhood just blocks from where the four people were killed July 4. Flooding the area with cops that evening certainly made things safer for a while. But I imagine most folks would have preferred having cops on the streets after 1 a.m. when the shooting spree started.

Hey, Eugene! Cops were on the streets!

From an interview with anti-gang squad Sergeant Lisa Ordonez, aired on TMJ4:

Charles Benson asked, "So that night [of the Fourth of July murders] you were looking for [Murda Mobb leader Akilah Crittenden]?"

Ordonez said, "We were looking for him and his associates. A squad car was a block away when the shooting happened. They could hear the shots being fired."

Kane really should get his facts straight before he lashes out with criticism.

Kane concludes:

The main reason the U.S. is still in Iraq is because our politicians insist the Iraqi people still depend on us to keep them safe. That’s why I think it’s time to start thinking about the crisis in the inner city the same way.

Good people trapped in bad Milwaukee neighborhoods need to know the rest of the city cares about them at least as much as we care about brave foreigners overseas.

I am so sick of Kane saying that Milwaukeeans don't care about the good people caught in areas of the city terrorized by thugs. It's profoundly insulting and unjustified.

The tax dollars of those allegedly uncaring Milwaukeeans are being poured into patrols to defeat the gangs and liberate the good people.

To suggest that Milwaukeeans care more about the Iraqis, "brave foreigners overseas," is terribly unfair.

It's just another baseless, and as always, racially-tinged attack by Kane.

I really think he harbors an incredible amount of hostility toward so many of Milwaukee's residents. If only Kane would muster up the decency to give his fellow Milwaukeeans the benefit of the doubt and see them as hardworking, honest, concerned people. Perhaps it’s time for Kane to start thinking about them the same way he thinks about the people in Iraq.

Thankfully, Kane's irresponsible comments and accusations are dismissed by most Milwaukeeans, the majority of whom are interested in defeating the enemy-- gang members and their friends, their sympathizers and their apologists.