Roy Exum: ‘Red Meat To A Mob’

  • Monday, May 4, 2015
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

The city of Milwaukee is among the Top 20 Most Violent in the United States. It ranks No. 4 in poverty for cities its size, and is home to the most “make sense” sheriff in the world. I spent most of my morning reading to find out more about Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke because his is a voice we should have been listening to some time ago.

He startled all of us on Friday when, appearing on “Your World With Neil Cavuto,” he called a Baltimore prosecutor’s charges against six police officers “a miscarriage of justice” and predicted Michelle Mosby will never prove her accusations beyond reasonable doubt. A transcript of Clarke’s remarks was insightful.

“This neophyte prosecutor stood up there and made a political statement, Neil, and I say that because she chanting or voicing some of the chants from this angry mob. Her job is to tune that out,” the veteran sheriff said. “She said, ‘I hear the voices.’ She is not supposed to hear anything as she reviews this case that is not consistent with the rule of law and our system of justice.

“Look, I’m an experienced and a veteran homicide detective. I’ve had — I’ve participated in charging conferences. There’s no way I have ever gotten a criminal charge within 24 hours after taking over all the reports and evidence to a prosecutor,” said Clark, who has 35 years’ experience as a cop.

“A prosecutor who is thorough needs several days to sift through hundreds of pages of reports, they usually want to interview some of the witnesses themselves in person, and they have to sift through all of the evidence, piece by piece, and they have to wait for some of the forensic evidence to come back.

“That’s why I say on a minimum, three to four days. She just got this case yesterday. This is political activism. She’ll never prove this beyond a reasonable doubt and I’m not going to silently stand by and watch my brother officers offered up as human sacrifices, thrown like red meat to an angry mob, just to appease this angry mob.”

Before you discount what Clarke claims, you better take a look at who he is. The son of an Army Ranger who overcame the taunts of segregation as a soldier, Clarke was a member of a state champion basketball team in high school before graduating summa cum laude with a degree in criminal justice management from Concordia University. In 2003, Concordia University named him Wisconsin Alumnus of the Year.

His postgraduate work includes graduating from the FBI National Academy and the National Executive Institute in Quantico, Virginia; completing the Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; Driving Government Performance: Leadership Strategies that Produce Results at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; and studying with Police Chief William Bratton and L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca.

In short, he’s got a pretty firm grip on what he believes and why.

“A politically active district attorney or state’s attorney, you can tell the emotion in her voice, she almost did this with glee,” the incredulous Clarke continued. “In addition, that’s why I believe, like they [the FOP] do…she needs to remove herself from the case. I hope the state’s attorney general gets involved in this, and sees the error of her ways. The smart thing for her to do is recuse herself and name a special prosecutor.”

Clarke continued by saying, “There may be, and probably are, some civil torts here, but what little I know, and I don’t know all the facts, but I’m listening to the emotion in their voice, and listening to those political statements that she made at the end of that news conference, that’s political activism, it’s wrong, it’s probably in violation of her code of ethics as a lawyer. And again, I’m going to take my time with this, but I’m not going to sit idly by, and I want to call out to every law enforcement officer in the country to pay attention to this.

“I see a pattern, at least demands from an angry mob, that we be offered up as human sacrifices. We don’t do that in our system of justice in the United States just to please an angry mob. And I sense from what I heard her say, Neil, that that’s what is going on here.”

Stay tuned…more of Clarke’s wisdom is on the way.

royexum@aol.com

 

 

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke says the DA in Baltimore will never win when six policemen are tried in court.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke says the DA in Baltimore will never win when six policemen are tried in court.
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