Sensenbrenner backs Dem proposal
Registry would list police officers prone to brutality
MADISON - U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner wants to make it easier to identify police officers prone to brutality by creating a national registry of “bad cops” — siding with Democrats at a time of deep division over how to move forward from the suffocation death of George Floyd by a white police officer.
Sensenbrenner, a Republican who represents a deeply conservative district in southeast Wisconsin, told Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, during a Wednesday meeting of the House Judiciary
Committee the officer who killed his brother shouldn’t have been on the Minneapolis force.
“I have heard George Floyd’s assailant had 16 allegations of misconduct against him. Why was he still on the force?” Sensenbrenner said.
“That was just an invitation for more misconduct.”
At least 17 complaints in 19 years were filed against Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd said he couldn’t breathe and pleaded for his mother. At the time of
Floyd’s death, Chauvin worked as a training officer for new recruits.
Sensenbrenner, who is retiring this year after more than four decades in Congress, mostly took aim at police unions, however, blaming them for what he described as a slow and typically ineffective process to discipline or rid police departments of officers who are likely to harm more than help the public.
House and Senate Democrats have proposed sweeping legislation that seeks to make it easier to identify police misconduct and eliminate excessive use of force by police officers, among other goals. One idea is to require law enforcement agencies to report data on use of force to a national registry that seeks to track misconduct.
While Sensenbrenner supports the idea, he said the database itself won’t fire an officer that shouldn’t be in law enforcement.
“A lot of the police union activity that we have seen is to protect bad cops,” he said. “You guys on the other side of the aisle are going to have to be very proactive in telling police unions it’s in their interest and in the interest of the vast majority of their membership to get rid of the bad cops.”
Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, said the union supports the proposal of a national registry.
Palmer said Wisconsin already has a tracking system maintained by the state Department of Justice that records the employment status of law enforcement officers, including whether an officer was terminated, forced to resign or resigned before the completion of an internal investigation.
“No one wants a bad cop out of the profession more than a good one, and this system substantially impairs the ability of officers to float from one police agency to another while also shielding a troubled personnel record,” Palmer said.
Palmer also said Wisconsin officers don’t have contracts that “insulates officers from facing discipline” or prevents officers from cooperating with investigations into their conduct on the job.
“While some of the assertions raised by Congressman Sensenbrenner do appear to apply to other states and to other police unions throughout the country, I believe the landscape in Wisconsin is exceptional by comparison,” Palmer said.
In response to Sensenbrenner’s comments, Gov. Tony Evers’ spokeswoman Britt Cudaback suggested state GOP lawmakers should say whether they agree with the dean of their party.
“Even Jim Sensenbrenner wants police reform. Do Wisconsin legislative Republicans agree?” she tweeted.
Evers in a recent interview with The
Cap Times said he supports a public database showing whether an officer is under investigation, similar to one in place for teachers.
Evers said in a recent interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he did not support placing limits on police unions’ abilities to collectively bargain.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, RRochester, has said he is open to evaluating a legislative proposal aiming to overhaul how police do their jobs but signaled he didn’t see a need for sweeping changes.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, who is running to replace Sensenbrenner, has not weighed in on the issue of excessive force by police.
A spokeswoman did not immediately respond to whether Fitzgerald supported the idea of a registry. Aides to Democratic candidate Tom Palzewicz of Wauwatosa and GOP candidate Cliff DeTemple of Jackson also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.