Ed Flynn and the Defaced Obama Poster

Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn vows to find the person responsible for defacing a poster of Barack Obama. That individual is Public Enemy #1.

MILWAUKEE -- Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn spoke publicly for the first time Wednesday on the internal investigation under way at the fifth district police station, vowing to find whoever defaced a poster of President-elect Barack Obama by drawing a bullet aimed at his head.

Investigators have spent more than 100 hours and interviewed more than two dozen people to figure out who defaced the poster and left it in the fifth district's assembly room.

“We're even going so far as to fume the poster and see if we can lift any prints from it. We're not fooling around,” Flynn said.

Flynn said this could be a tough case to crack. Hundreds use the assembly area each day and so far, no one is taking responsibility. The chief said he is also troubled by reports that some officers are making racially insensitive comments about Obama when responding to police calls.

“Help me. If any citizen has had an officer lip off like that, I want to know the where and when. We can find out who was at the call. I don't want to be defined by the jerks,” Flynn said.

Flynn said the Obama incident injures relations with the community and among officers themselves. The head of Milwaukee's Urban League, Ralph Hollmon, came to the fifth district station Wednesday afternoon to offer support for the chief's quick reaction.

“It opens up old wounds. It brings about perceptions that nothing has absolutely changed, when in fact I think a number of things have changed,” Hollmon said.

...Flynn said that he hasn’t found a law that defacing a poster violates. At the moment, it looks like the penalties against the offender would be disciplinary not criminal.

It's horrible that someone in law enforcement would deface a poster of Obama, drawing a bullet aimed at his head. That is not behavior befitting anyone in law enforcement.

It's terrible behavior from anyone, but it's especially troubling to think an officer may be responsible.

Flynn certainly is taking the matter seriously.

From last week Thursday:

Flynn directed the professional performance division to conduct an internal investigation and the U.S. Secret Service was notified, [Milwaukee Police Department spokesperson Anne] Schwartz said.

"I am committed to getting to the bottom of this troubling incident," Flynn said in a written statement to 12 News. "The department will do its best to identify those responsible as well as to determine whether there is a failure in the chain of command at District 5. This is no laughing matter. The perpetrators of this act have humiliated their police department. I ask the public not to judge their entire police department by the action of those few who have brought this upon us."

Flynn initiated an internal investigation and contacted the Secret Service.

More than 100 HOURS have been spent trying to identify the offender.

Flynn is certainly sending the message to the community that such behavior will not be tolerated.

That's a good thing. An officer entrusted to enforce the law shouldn't be leaving a drawing of the president-elect taking a bullet to the head on a table at the police station.

This case does bring to mind all those "artistic" depictions of President Bush being shot.

I can't help but think that if the defaced Obama poster were hanging in a gallery it would be considered art.

Yazmany Arboleda displayed his art, "The Assassination of Barack Obama" and "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton," in Midtown Manhattan. Although Secret Service shut the exhibit down, the images are available online here and here.

Some free speech advocates complained about Arboleda's work being censored. Some hypocrites on the Left cheered the move to close that exhibit while supporting President Bush "assassination art."

For instance, "Al Brandtner's work titled 'Patriot Act' depicting a sheet of mock 37-cent red, white and blue stamps showing a revolver pointed at Bush's head," was displayed at a college art gallery in Chicago.

Then there was the film, Death of a President, Gabriel Range's sick fantasy of the assassination of President George W. Bush. It was praised.

Obviously, artists and police officers have dramatically different roles in society. Their on-the-job actions are judged by different standards. There are different expectations in terms of their behavior and rightly so.

Note to the police department employee responsible for adding a bullet to the photo of Obama: Consider becoming an artist.