We are calling for city of Madison alders to vote "NO" on the resolution to fire the Madison WI Independent Police Monitor, Aeiramique Glass. She is the first person in the history of Madison, charged with police oversight, to ever find a police officer in the wrong for an in-custody death. It was the Richard Johnson case in which MPD officers used prone restraint on Richard and ignored his desperate pleas for help.  Monitor Glass is the FIRST to tell the truth about an officer being in the wrong... in over 150 years. Now the police department and city leadership are trying to fire her!  

14 years ago, my dear friend and housemate, Paulie Heenan, was killed by a Madison Police Officer Steve Heimsness. Paulie was unarmed with his hands out front and he needed help. Officer Heimsness ignored his back up officer who had a taser. Despite many among Madison police officers thinking Officer Heimsness should be fired, he was quickly cleared by the D.A. and chief of any wrongdoing just like every other Madison officer in over 150 years.  I, like most family and friends of those killed by police, know how important it is to have an investigation of the incident that is truly independent from the influence of local politicians, city attorneys, police officers and their unions. I have been doing this advocacy work of police oversight in Madison, WI for 15 years and can convey with confidence that Madison city leadership supports independent oversight on paper but now that it is truly working, some are trying to kill it by firing the first person in our city who has had the courage to tell the whole truth about local political corruption and an officer-involved death. 

Since Monitor Glass arrived, a few alders, the council president, the mayor and city attorney have engaged in a coordinated effort to create a hostile and untrustworthy work environment through a targeted blitz of bullying, alienation, mobbing, psychological manipulation, misinformation, gaslighting and retaliation through the media. They have wanted to fire Monitor Glass since she called out workplace coercion and refused to fire her employee just because they asked her to. She refused to alienate community advocates. These city leaders were offering a quid pro quo without naming it: if she didn't take their unethical advice, they'd try to get rid of her. 

The alders behind this attack have been manipulating and entangling others in effort to share the risk and blame. This is forced complicity. It is institutional corruption. It is what corrupt leadership does to undermine an employee in effort to alienate them and push them out. This mayor, these staff leaders and select council members will do the same thing to any monitor who is effective and refuses to follow unethical orders.

We cannot forsake all who need the Office of the Independent Monitor to be truly independent, functional and strong. We must stop this political lynching. Please vote "NO" to firing Monitor Aeiramique Glass!