"A woman reported receiving several texts with sexual content from an unknown person. She sent the person a text asking him to stop..."

"... but the person did not immediately stop, only ceasing later in the day. It was determined that the suspect was a friend of the woman’s friend. The suspect reported he thought he was texting his friend and agreed not to continue texting the woman."

That happened, in Montana. Also: "A man was caught urinating in a First Avenue East parking lot."

"Ethan was developmentally disabled, not a criminal."

"He was entranced by police and police departments and liked communicating with them to the extent that, if there was ever a complaint, it was that he’d call so they could come to the house so he could talk to them."

"A woman in a Third Avenue West apartment was reported trying to catch bugs that weren’t there...."

Time to get back to the old Inter Lake police blotter news:

An Appleway Drive boy reported his mother was drunk and trying to kick him out. She told officers she was kicking him out due to his drinking and drug activity....

An officer assisted a man crawling in the middle of East First Street....

The Columbia Falls Police Department received a report from a confused First Avenue West North resident who said a man tried to come into the house and give the resident a $1,000 ticket, but didn’t say what kind. The resident told the man “I’m not interested” and shut the door.

"How the police handled this — they were the judge, the jury and the executioner."

"As an American citizen, you have the right to a trial and due process by law."

"I feel like the taser and the camera are the two most effective tools that I have. Do what you're supposed to do or you get what's coming to you."

Mall cop becomes YouTube sensation.

7-year-old Wilson Reyes "deserved to be cuffed," said his purported victim....

... Seth Acevedo. “He acts like an animal.... People are trying to say, poor Wilson, but he’s nothing but a big bully.”

Yikes. Quite aside from the way the police handled this case, why is the press naming and showing photographs of these 2 young boys? Acevedo is pictured — in the NY Daily News — with tears running down his chubby cheeks and his mother caressing and comforting him.

“I would have handcuffed him, too,” snapped the boy’s mother, Janet Ramos.

Reyes's mother is shown wearing bright pink pants with the words "kiss" and "flirt" written all over them.

Meanwhile, lawyer for Reyes is talking about suing the city and the police department for $250 million.

CORRECTION: To put the right woman in the kiss pants.

ADDED: The original NY Post piece has the headline, "Cops handcuff and interrogate boy, 7, for hours over missing $5: family." Key word: family. The police side of it is: “We responded to a 911 call of a robbery and assault . . . Eventually, [Wilson] was taken back to the precinct and placed in the juvenile room.... He was charged with robbery. The allegation was that he punched the kid and took his money. He took the money forcibly. The kid came into the precinct a little bit after 3 p.m., and he was out by 7:45 p.m. . . . That’s standard for a juvenile arrest."

"Your safety. It's no longer a spectator sport. I need you in the game. But are you ready?"

"With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option. You could beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. But are you prepared? Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there. You have a duty to protect yourself and your family. We're partners now. Can I depend on you?"

Says Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. in a new radio ad (which you can play here).

Predictable pushback. From the office of Tom Barrett (the Mayor of Milwaukee who challenged Gov. Scott Walker in the recall election and lost):

"Apparently, Sheriff David Clarke is auditioning for the next Dirty Harry movie."

And from Jeri Bonavia, executive director of Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort:

"What (Clarke's) talking about is this amped up version of vigilantism.... I don't know what his motivations are for doing this. But I do know what he's calling for is dangerous and irresponsible and he should be out there saying this is a mistake."

"[S]he noticed there were more bills, lots of bills, in the snow near the sidewalk, and she figured she had better call police...."

If you would call the police in this situation, would it be because that's the sort of honest, upright person you are or would it be because it was broad daylight and the bills weren't in a neat little bundle but spread out on the snow, in which case the activity of picking them up risks: 1. making you look suspicious (and somebody might call the cops on you), and 2. other people showing up and competing with you in the pickup (in which case, you might need police protection and you want to be the one to get your name on the found-money claim)?

"We know that all kinds of bad things can happen to somebody that gets to that level of intoxication."

"It’s almost a matter of dumb luck as to which bad thing’s going to happen. You’re going to get hit by a car, you’re going to pass out and choke on your own vomit, you’re going to stumble into somebody’s house, you’re going to pass out in the bushes. These things happen in Madison, and they happen with a good deal of regularity. And this case just ended up in probably the worst possible outcome one could imagine."

"By now, you have likely listened several times to the muffled 911 call placed by the Catholic priest who enjoyed..."

"... slipping into a bondage mask and handcuffs inside a church rectory in Springfield, Illinois.... this time he put the handcuffs on with the keyhole up instead of down...."

Although I find this bloggable, I don't want to listen to the recording. Hmmm. I guess don't enjoy hearing suffering, but I want this to be a lesson to you. Stop wasting the police's time with your handcuff incompetence.

"A Madison police officer will face no criminal charges after fatally shooting a man who had mistakenly entered the wrong residence..."

"... struggled with the homeowner, then charged at the officer and reached toward his gun, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said Thursday."

Attorney Jeff Scott Olson, who is representing [Paul] Heenan's family, said "I believe it was unjustified".... He maintains Heimsness could have used other tactics against Heenan, 30, a local musician who "weighed 150 pounds and never hurt a fly in his life," after the two were separated by about 5 to 6 feet after the physical confrontation.

"A well-known Capitol protester was charged Wednesday with receiving stolen property for allegedly keeping a State Capitol police officer's jacket..."

We've reached a very late stage in the Wisconsin protests, which begin in February 2011:

The jacket belonged to Officer Tammy Torstenson, who said she had taken off her jacket during protests at the Capitol and put it behind her work station but later found that it was missing, according to the complaint.

The mother of Jeremy J. "Segway" Ryan, 24, of Madison, found the jacket in October while she was cleaning out Ryan's apartment....

Ryan said he never wore the jacket outside his apartment but would put it on as a joke when friends were over, "because being a Capitol Police officer is a joke to him and his friends"....

The Capitol Police were a joke to them? Here's something I wrote in September 2011:

In observing the protests nearly every day through the entire period of the protests, Meade and I often tried to figure out what the police were doing, including the Capitol police. There seemed to be a policy of facilitating the protesters, perhaps because it actually was the best strategy for maintaining order when the police were vastly outnumbered. I have video of protesters assuring me that "The police are on our side."

"There's no way. There's no way he could have gone for a gun. He hated guns. He was afraid of guns. He was scared of guns."

"I'm sure he was drunk... A lot of people get drunk in Madison."

I was a UW student. I saw how people can drink downtown and stumble home. And people will stumble around and be confused and stupid and drunk but they don't get shot. They don't get shot by police officers, but they could. It could have been anybody....

"I hope the community will never forget this.... And I hope that they will remember this every time that they have to call the police."

Understanding social media: the cop's "Cough."

In response to the Reddit query: "Where/how could an aspiring pot smoker such as myself buy weed on campus/near campus? I want to try it but have no idea how to get started at UVic, despite its apparent widespread use. Thanks!"

Via Metafilter (where the commenters seem to have a little trouble understanding what the cop was doing).

Madison police chief apologizes to the homeless for the removal of their belongings left on the public sidewalks.

"Madison Police Chief Noble Wray was contrite Tuesday when he met with a group of homeless people..."

The official report  on the incident released by the Madison Police Department on Oct. 11 describes the confiscated property as not only bed rolls and suitcases, but cardboard boxes, grocery bags, trash bags, and containers of alcohol. “Many items were wet and appeared to have been left for several days,” the report says. Wray is quoted as saying it is a “tough job” to manage public spaces, particularly in the area of the Capitol Square, where, the report says “property – with no identification – is often abandoned, or left unattended or long periods of time.”

While I don't think what the police did was wrong and there's no need to be "contrite," there are many good aspects to the sympathetic communication with the troubled citizens we see in this video:

Homeless protest in Madison.

"It’s constant harassment all the time from people walking around the streets looking at us funny to other people stealing our stuff, and now on top of it, even the city people, the police … are throwing our stuff away."

The "stuff" was left unattended on the public sidewalk near the Capitol Square, and the police stored the removed material and even tried to track down the owners.

Tenant Resource Center Executive Director Brenda Konkel said the city’s procedure for removing abandoned property is... "a violation of homeless people’s rights...."

3 Scenes from the Obama Rally in Madison.

Meade did all the filming and editing on this one. (All I did was the text.)

You can video the police videoing you videoing them videoing you...

... okay, now, finally, at last, everyone can video everybody...

It's like a Quentin Tarantino "Mexican standoff."

"The Wisconsin Capitol rotunda echoed with the voices of Solidarity Sing-Along participants on Friday."

"They gathered there to defy a new round of arrests by Capitol Police the previous two days, over which a dozen demonstrators were arrested and cited for holding signs inside the rotunda, charged with violating state administrative code."

It's a complex encounter between protesters and police, once the protesters decline to disperse when the police say they must. I'm not saying who's right and wrong here, but I'm somehow inexorably drawn to the giant origami crane.

Mendocino cops helicopter in to a backcountry marijuana farm.

"We have old hippies in our county growing marijuana and they are not our problem... These are people who are trying to get rich quick.... Mendocino County was basically being taken over by thugs."