Madison police chief wants to know why governor considered using agents provocateur

Madison, WI police chief Noble Wray has asked Governor Scott Walker to explain his statement to a phone prankster impersonating billionaire arch-conservative David Koch, in which Walker stated that he'd considered using provocateurs to create problems amongst the demonstrators in order to discredit the public service unions and their supporters. The chief wants to know why Walker would consider sowing public disorder for political gain:

"I spent a good deal of time overnight thinking about Governor Walker's response, during his news conference (Wednesday), to the suggestion that his administration 'thought about' planting troublemakers among those who are peacefully protesting his bill. I would like to hear more of an explanation from Governor Walker as to what exactly was being considered, and to what degree it was discussed by his cabinet members. I find it very unsettling and troubling that anyone would consider creating safety risks for our citizens and law enforcement officers. Our department works hard dialoging with those who are exercising their First Amendment right, those from both sides of the issue, to make sure we are doing everything we can to ensure they can demonstrate safely. I am concerned that anyone would try to undermine these relationships. I have a responsibility to the community, and to the men and women of this department -- who are working long hours protecting and serving this community -- to find out more about what was being considered by state leaders," Wray said in the statement.

Madison Police Chief Angered Over Governor's Comments (Thanks, Eileen, via Submitterator!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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cinemajay

Walker is treading closer to being WI’s wannabe super villain than chief executive.
Neural Kernel

Anyone seen video of the “Black Bloc” smashing and burning the cop cars during the Toronto G20? A whole crowd just stood there watching or even joined in… one of the most horribly obvious provocateur actions I’ve ever seen (not proven, I’m willing to accept it was just a thug if the evidence says so… but come on…) and people did nothing. So… you show up, make some noise and wave some flags… but you don’t have the ‘nads to step up and try to stop a guy in a ski mask starting fires?!?!?!
- Nadreck
  
  At least one of the two cop* cars that were torched during the Toronto G20 fiasco were torched after a 20 minute debate. A lot of people argued that vandalising them would just give the government a chance to circulate pictures of burning cop cars in endless rotation. That’s pretty much what happened: all of the witless apologists for the cops go on and on and on about their two precious cruisers as if that’s the only thing that happened the whole weekend.
  
  But in the end how exactly are you going to spot some Bevis and Butthead moron from going “Heh, heh: fire! Fire!” and tossing a Molotov cocktail into the back seat? I don’t think that the provocateur part of this was the eventual torching of the cars but the fact that they were just left there: parked in the middle of the street with the windows open. The cops who left them there had no legitimate reason for doing so and were not in danger at any time. It was part of the cops plan to totally withdraw all law enforcement services from the whole downtown (miles from the G20 site) so that stuff would happen to justify their obscene $1,000,000,000 security budget. If you dialed 911 on Saturday you were basically told that the police didn’t have time to help you with the neighbourhood thugs looting your store. They were busy with Very Important People down at the convention centre. Which means that the cops were sitting on chairs there doing basically nothing.
  
  *As opposed to the 16 cop cars that were torched during the last hockey riots in Montreal. This resulted in 16 convictions; as opposed to the over 1,000 arrests (of completely random people on the day after any violence happened) and zero convictions.
mdh

I’m fairly certain this was not the provocation he was looking for.
MattB

Why? Because Foreigner rules and “I Want to Know What Love Is” is the greatest fscking song ever.
Tdawwg

How dare these public-dole welfare queens use taxpayer money to launch a political investigation into free speech and free-market activities? I would rather die on the ground choking on my own blood, than live choking on my own self-righteous bile after having been helped by one of these public-service leeches. Live ammo’s too good for ‘em!
- shannigans
  
  Haters gonna hate.
- mdh
  
  Bless you for setting that at Eleven. Too many literalists with no appreciation for good sarcasm around here lately.
  - Tdawwg
    
    Another welfare-queenâ€“lover heard from. Despicable.
    
    ;P
- Anonymous
  
  That is fine with me, however you choke and die is your own choice. A little history lesson, though, Hitler’s first act as Chancellor of Germany in 1933 was busting the unions…You probably miss the correlation here, but the others on this thread don’t…
  - Tdawwg
    
    I differ with the Chancellor on so many issues, but busting those Socialist-Communist Trade Unions was one of the best things he ever did, right up there with burning that empty symbol of effete democracy, the Reichstag. . . . hell of an administrative vision, that Reichskanzler! If only the Roosevelt-led pro-union forces hadn’t landed at Normandy, Europe’s unions would still be where they belong, ON THEIR KNEES!
    
    (In case my ironic show of support for Uncle Adolf goes over your head, as my oh-so-subtle irony did above, I’M JOKING, you big silly, you. Breathe, take a walk, and fiddle a bit with your irony meter. Tdawwg out . . . for now!) :P
Deadmeat

Here’s a good resource that explains my previous point: Wisconsin Budget 101: The Numbers and the Stakes in the Public Employee Bill
travtastic

Just set up an entrance gate and inspect everyone’s shoes before you let them in.
alllie

We have a lawless government, at least some elements in it. Anyone who has read about Operation Northwoods knows this kind of thing, and worse, has been going on a while. They are not satisfied with telling the American people the facts and trying to persuade us to support them. They tell lies, manufacture events, so they can manipulate many of us into supporting actions that are against our best interests. They are using the methods developed by Nazi propagandists. What once was considered a war crime is now Standard Operating Procedure.

US prosecuted Nazi propagandists as war criminals
grimc

Provacateur, Shmovacateur–let’s just agree to call them assholes and be done with it.
Anonymous

The police chief should be governor instead of the current occupant.
danfan

Guaranteed the teabaggers will use Wray’s race as a way to discredit his comments.
- millrick
  
  “Guaranteed the teabaggers will use Wray’s race as a way to discredit his comments.”
  
  sorry dude, but you were first to mention his race in this forum
  – let’s criticize the Tea Party for what they really do, not for what you think they might do
  - mdh
    
    alternately, yeah, let’s keep an eye out for that, because it’s actually totally reasonable to point out that past performance may be related to future results.
bobthecitizen

This guy is awwesome! I saw a pretty good youtube vid a wjile back in which a small town sheriff promissed to arrest any provocateur and their DA had a whole list of charges they would use if it was a LEO (who they typically are).

BTW, I prefer the spelling “ajent provokature”, it’s cooler.
cinemajay

I’m no legal expert, so I gotta ask–would Walker’s admission about provocateurs constitute any kind of criminal conspiracy charges? Seems like there’s something more than just ethically wrong there…
- billstewart
  
  Cinemajay, since he says he thought about doing it, not that he actually decided to do it, there was no criminal conspiracy here. Now, if he’d suggested to his aides that they should consider doing it, and they actually did, it might be a different case.
  - cinemajay
    
    @billstewart, from the transcript on The Beast
    
    Koch: Weâ€™ll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.
    
    Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that â€”because we thought about that.
    
    Emphasis mine. I gotta say “we” smells an awful lot like conspiracy to me. I’m no lawyer, but that comes off as pretty Nixonian.
querent

great reason to check yourself before knee-jerking into, “cops are pigs.” not that I don’t have plenty of reason to believe that statement, but as we see here there are counter examples.

“off the pigs,” still works though, and walker is a pig.
Thac0

There are so many cops out there that give their brothers and sisters behind the badge such a bad rap but this guy is a shining role model for all those who may have lost their way… Bravo sir!
rtresco

He’s kissing feet here, not actaully confessing some nefarious scheme.

There’s the possibility that Gov Walker is only guilty of his own inability to firmly disagree with a more powerful person. The fake-Koch proposes a bad idea, and from the transcript it reads like Walker knows it’s a bad idea, begins to tell fake-Koch it’s a bad idea, but then decides to soften the blow by candy coating that it’s not entirely a bad idea, they had considered it, but…

It’s all about reading between the lines – what’s being said by not being said. I would wager that Gov Walker is lying to fake-Koch. In fact, they DIDN’T consider it, but since it’s a moot point, there’s no harm telling the ga-zillionaire it’s not entirely a bad idea – even though it’s entirely a bad idea.
- TEKNA2007
  
  There’s the possibility that Gov Walker is only guilty of his own inability to firmly disagree with a more powerful person.
  
  That’s how I read it, too. Koch is a big wheel and Walker didn’t want to directly contradict him, so he demurred by pointing out practicalities rather than just calling him an idiot.
  
  Even if he really had discussed it, for all we know it was a staffer who raised the topic, and because it came from a staffer, Walker didn’t hold back in telling him what a stupid idea it was.
  
  Throughout the rest of the transcript, you can see how fake-Koch keeps dangling these big ridiculous red-meat bait chunks (“piece of ass”) in front of Walker, trying to get him to agree with something controversial for the recording.
  - travtastic
    
    He had to be careful, or he might have accidentally agreed with something ridiculous, like union-breaking.
- cinemajay
  
  True enough, but I bet the Feds are watching this closely. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least an inquiry is made.
Anonymous

“The police chief should be governor instead of the current occupant.”

Indeed.

I propose that a new political party, to be called the Rational party, be instituted. It would be comprised of individuals such as the police chief, as well as other reasonable, rational candidates. Rather than the extreme left vs extreme right dichotomy, the party would be centrist, and have the peoples’ interests as its mission.

Otherwise, the current corporate driven clown-school political parties shall tip this country right into the abyss.
Anonymous

Sadly, use of agents provocateurs to allow police intervention in otherwise peaceful protests is nothing new.

Here’s a good video raising the question of agent provocateurs in Canada (mostly related to the G20):
http://vimeo.com/13097041
BB

Not to worry. When they (Republicans) finish with the master plan of privatizing the entire school system (hence dumping the union bargaining, so they can fire people, maybe rehire them for less at charters), where the charter owners will be reaping cash, next they will move on to tackle other government services, including law enforcement. Think Blackwater in your neighborhood.

This policeman probably has more to fear than he realizes.
abulafia

Oh Puuuullllease!! Americans speaking French. Deport ‘em to Canada or Europe or somethin’. :)

As a UK outsider, and also not a lawyer, it really does seem to me that Mr Walker was prepared/had consider using http://tinyurl.com/Agents-provocateur, and that’s really a bad thing……
Ipo

A.C.A.B.? Not quite, not all and not all the time.
Anonymous

Walker backed off on his idea of planting people within the crowds based on the simple logic that his next plan could have endangered those he would have planted. Walker has held discussions with the Wisconsin National Guard; his strategy was to have been using the National Guard to use tactics similar to those presently being exercised in Libya, and as had been used at Kent State in the 60′s. By having the troops “accidentally” firing repeatedly into the crowd,.it was hoped that such actions would dampen the crowds enthusiasm. If he had proceeded in planting usurpers in the crowd there would have been the danger they could be injured when the Guard mowed down the crowd via heavy machine gun fire. It was for their safety that the plan was cancelled.
desiredusername

The irony is that the fake Koch is a provocateur as well..after the ACORN and Planned Parenthood provocateur attacks set this whole new political strategy into legitimacy. Something tells me that Anonymous, and Anonymous-like bodies, are going to be far better at this.
Dlynn

What i find most distressing is The man conspired to start a riot and is not being arrested. The only thing that kept him doing so was his own neck, he didn’t give a rip about what not only happened to both side of the protesters, and the police, but that he doesn’t give a rip about the first amendment.

If he wasn’t white, rich and male, people would call his methods those of a terrorist and traitor.

Its obvious that millionares that don’t live in the state are involved, and they should be investigated.

The fact that this is one more example that politicians do not want to fix anything is not surprising, their job is to keep their status quo and polarize all of us to keep thinking its us vs us.

They should start a recall.

DeAnna Rice
- Deadmeat
  
  Its obvious that millionares that don’t live in the state are involved, and they should be investigated.
  
  The fact that this is one more example that politicians do not want to fix anything is not surprising, their job is to keep their status quo and polarize all of us to keep thinking its us vs us.
  
  They should start a recall.
  
  Billionaires with a B. A single one of the Koch brothers made more than the entire $3.6 billion WI state deficit last year. They were both individually worth $16 billion last year, and according to Forbes they are now each worth $21.5 billion each. But it’s the middle class and poor that are keeping us down. Right.
  
  And I wish they could start a recall, but Walker needs to be in office for a year. They could impeach him, but this Republican legislature would need some extreme reason to do so, and even then I’m skeptical. However, we could start recall proceedings on at least 8 of the Republican State Senators.
  
  Not disagreeing with you, just helping out.
  
  This is one extremely frustrated Madisonian with a mom who’s a teacher who works her @$$ off and is by no means overpaid, even considering benefits. This unfounded attack on the non-rich and the last bastion of Democrat’s political funding is sickening, even more so because of the people defending it.
RedSun

I live in Milwaukee, and I actually voted for Walker. Because I’m an idiot. I do not work for the state, I am not part of a union. I do feel incredibly betrayed by this entire process.

I agreed with the initial portion of the bill which would require state employees to chip in a small portion of their benefits. The unions agreed to that, too, and after a while, so did many of the employees. But he refused to compromise. This is all despite his campaign promise of lowering the deficit by reducing state spending on benefits without touching the rights of the workers and the union. (And thanks for the backup of your campaign promise, President Obama. Oh wait…)

It just reeks of corruption on Walker’s part. I don’t blame the democrats for running away to stall the vote. They weren’t given a real choice in the matter.

What scares me is that nothing will come of this, and it will continue on like nothing happened.

I can’t read the news and continue living in this country. It’s bound to be one or the other. It sickens me to the point where I get, literally, physically ill.
- travtastic
  
  I have to ask, why would you vote for him in the first place?
  - RedSun
    
    Because he wanted to set the budget right. I had no faith in the others in the running to do so, and things are tight enough in the state as it is.
    
    I feel like I’m telling you that I’m surprised a politician turned out to be bottom-feeding scum. I’m more than a little ashamed of myself.
    - chgoliz
      
      +1 for your honesty, especially considering the fact that you could have easily kept quiet, and +1 for learning from your mistake.
Anonymous

The police unions are against the governor, so they’re against planting troublemakers. I’m sure they’d say otherwise if they were uninvolved. This cop might be right, right now. But he’s still a cop. Or maybe he’s a really exceptional cop, but police agents in disguise, starting trouble, are hardly an unknown phenomenon.
mdh

Politics at it’s finest. Go ahead. Spit on your public servants. They know the first rule of fight club.
Jake0748

This is the first time I’ve ever been in love with a police chief.

Bravo sir.
Snowtred

Great to see this kind of response to this issue.

From a broader standpoint, and not to fault Chief Wray or BB, but it saddens me a bit to see that something like this is a news story, when really it should be the normal reaction from any law enforcement.
- Anonymous
  
  “From a broader standpoint, and not to fault Chief Wray or BB, but it saddens me a bit to see that something like this is a news story, when really it should be the normal reaction from any law enforcement.”
  
  I don’t follow your “should be normal” (one assumes you’re positing it’s not normal) conclusion there. Just because this law enforcement official’s response made the news has zero to do with
  
  a) whether any/all other similar responses by law enforcement make (or should /should not make) the news
  
  b) whether or not law enforcement officals react this way to these situations (or not) when they *don’t* make the news.
Neon Tooth

Very glad to see this. Me and many others were wondering how little attention would be paid to the fact that they were discussing putting the public (and law enforcement) in danger like that. Should be fun to see how the MSM ignores it.
Lula

Me: “How cool is it that there’s a person in this world named Noble Wray?”

Friend: “That’s incredible. Is he a superhero? Because he could be missing a huge opportunity here.”

Me: “He’s the police chief of Madison and he’s calling out Gov. Walker. Hell yes he’s a superhero.”
- chgoliz
  
  Word.
  
  Creperie: arcs-en-ciel
Anonymous

conspiring to cause a riot and injury to the public and police officers. Wouldn’t these comments be considered contemplation of a terrorist act based on the current definition of terrorist?
Creperie

I’m pretty sure the plural is “agents provocateurs”.

But good try: I understand this is an infamous corner of French grammar. Quick, what’s the plural of “arc-en-ciel”?
Enormo

I give my wife my blessing to marry this man if I die.
RobertBigelow

Major, MAJOR bust on the self-titled conservatives. These are not what I’d call “conservative.” They are a rabble of deluded and delusional sociopath, self-centered extremists.
amycamus

Not to nitpick, especially given the seriousness of the subject, but it’s “provocateur.” “Provocatuer,” however, is a terrific neologism, given that “tuer” is the French verb for “to kill.”
Anonymous

This is what democracy looks like.

That man restores my usually quite shaky trust in law enforcement. I think he deserves letters from all of us who appreciate such, ahem, noble responses.
JackThompson

Thanks for adding “Agents provocateur” to the list of phrases I get to be a grammatical stickler about, up there with “courts martial” and “surgeons general”. “Provocateur” was misspelled, even, but I’m too pleased at the new knowledge to actually care much. Call it a wash.
- Brett Myers
  
  Thanks for adding “Agents provocateur” to the list of phrases I get to be a grammatical stickler about, up there with “courts martial” and “surgeons general”.
  
  Also: sons of bitches.
  
  I’ve had nothing but good experiences with the fine men and women of the MPD. #wiunion
Szos

I could consider this to be at (or at least near) the level of a terrorists action.
… purposefully inciting disorder/violence/hate.

As big of a deal as this is, I am not surprised that I haven’t heard anything about this part of the story of the corporate media outlets. God forbid they do some real reporting.

Hell, they aren’t even reporting on how this governor purposefully tanked this budget by giving out tax breaks to the rich to the tune of ~$150M, just so he could then turn around and say that his state was in the red for (wait for it…) ~$150M and use that as an excuse to do some good old-fashioned Republican Union-busting.
- Deadmeat
  
  Hell, they aren’t even reporting on how this governor purposefully tanked this budget by giving out tax breaks to the rich to the tune of ~$150M, just so he could then turn around and say that his state was in the red for (wait for it…) ~$150M and use that as an excuse to do some good old-fashioned Republican Union-busting.
  
  To be accurate, that ~$140 million is for the 2011-2013 budget, not the $137 million shortfall on the 2009-2011 fiscal cycle that Walker is trying to “repair”. So technically he’s potentially putting WI in the red in the future.
  
  (and totally not defending any of this in case you were wondering, just trying to keep the facts straight)
Locobot

At this point if there aren’t FBI wiretaps on the governor’s every phone they aren’t worth their salt. Blago was ousted for less, of course he had made too many enemies on both sides of the aisle first…
astrochimp

It would seem that the misspelling of provocateur has been provocative.