When people wonder aloud what can be done about police misconduct and the general bullying tactics of many law enforcement personnel around the country, one suggestion is to start by getting rid of the higher-ups who exhibit the same bad behaviors. Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, best known for his attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement and his general awfulness, has a new complaint filed against him—for being kind of a coward and a bully.
That's the message that Dan Black, a 24-year-old Riverwest resident, found out over the weekend.
Black filed a complaint with the county on Tuesday alleging that he was harassed by Clarke. Black claimed he was confronted, interviewed and then escorted out of Mitchell International Airport by a group of deputies after a brief exchange with Clarke on a flight from Dallas on Sunday.
Black, a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin, was walking through the first class section of a Milwaukee to Dallas flight when he passed a man that looked like Sheriff Clarke. It was hard to tell because Clarke was wearing a lot of Dallas Cowboy gear.
As I passed him, I asked if he was Sheriff Clarke, and he responded in the affirmative. I shook my head as I was moving on to my seat near the back of the plane.
From behind, he asked if I had a problem. I shook my head “no” again and continued to my seat. I was surprised that he was wearing Dallas Cowboys gear, as I hadn’t seen the media stories about his Dallas fandom (I have since seen them). I intentionally did not say anything more to him because I did not want to make a scene or get in trouble as a Milwaukee man did in September when confronting Clarke on an airplane. I just moved on and took my seat.
When I exited the flight at Mitchell International, there were six uniformed deputies and two bomb/drug dogs standing there with Sheriff Clarke waiting for me to exit. As soon as Sheriff Clarke gestured towards me, he and some of the officers left us. I was very publicly escorted in front of everyone down the hall to a waiting area, and then questioned by two of the Sheriff’s Department deputies. They told me Sheriff Clarke said I had made some remarks to him upon entering the plane. When I asked for clarification, the deputies said they couldn’t tell me, and when I asked if they even knew the context of my “remarks,” they responded “no.”
Black says he was detained for about 15 minutes, surrounded by law enforcement and clearly meant to feel like a criminal. This harassment is an “abuse of power,” and if Black is telling the truth, he is one hundred percent right.