Controversy Over Dahmer Walking Tour

[mariab]

They were suspended for a while, but subsequently reinstated, Jordan. The elder of the two (Balcerzak) was elected president of the Milwaukee Police Association in 2005, which resulted in racial tensions inside of the Police Department. He was not re-elected in 2006.

The 2 officers didn't realize what was going on, since Dahmer claimed that 14 year old Sinthasomphone was his 19 year old BF and they were having a row. Sinthasomphone was too subdued by drugs to give a coherent statement. What the officers failed to do was run a routine background check on Dahmer, who was registered as a convicted sex offender on probation. The exact same scenario happened a year later with an older, white guy, Edwards, who beat up Dahmer, escaped, and waved a police car. Edwards was not drugged, and he insisted for a police search in Dahmer's apartment. This time the officers noticed pictures of mangled bodies on Dahmer's walls and searched the place, which ensued in finding a human head in his fridge.

This is a clear case of police neglect, with the victim being Asian and gay. There's been racial tensions in Milwaukee for years after the Dahmer case. The majority of Dahmer's Milwaukee victims were Asian and black. Not unrelated to Dahmer getting murdered by Scarver in a Wisconsin prison in 1994. Scarver was black.

[Lord-z]

The strange smell, it should be noted, was a previous victim decomposing in the bedroom. For all officers Mutt and Jeff noticed, he might as well have been sitting in the sofa.

[mariab]

Dahmer was murdering approximately a person per week for the 2 months between the night the 2 officers dropped the ball with Sinthasomphone and the night when Edwards managed to get Dahmer arrested. In 1996 a lawyer representing the victims families and a civic group, the Milwaukee Civic Pride, raised the funds to purchase Dahmer's possessions, reportedly auctioning about half a million $ (including donations).

[ChainzCooper]

Reinstated? Are you f'in kidding me? Those guys are still police and not someone's boyfriend in the slammer-pathetic
Jordan

[Barnaby]

To defend the officers somewhat, hindsight is 20/20. They clearly were biased due to homophobia and perhaps racism; in fact, they were making light of the situation on the police radio. But I don't believe for a second that they knew the victim was in danger of his life. And so, they were completely incompetent and deserved to be fired. Why they were allowed to keep their jobs is appalling to me. But I do not think they engaged in criminal behavior.

[mariab]

Most clearly it was neglect. Any conscentious, even slightly nosy cop would have run a background check. Dahmer was registered as a repeated sex offender, with multiple convinctions and on probation, with a criminal record showing him attacking young boys of precisely Sinthasomphone's age, who was 14. The Dahmer case has changed perceptions in the police force by now.

The 2 police officers were suspended without pay for a while, but conducted a campain within he MPD to be reinstated. The victims' families could have easily attempted litigation against the City of Milwaukee, with about a dozen people murdered by Dahmer between the 2 cops' failure to investigate him and the date he got arrested. But this is the Midwest, not California, and tiny Milwaukee at that.

[Cogidubnus]

But this is the Midwest, not California, and tiny Milwaukee at that.

Snipped from Wikipedia:
Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the City of Milwaukee has a population of 594,833. Milwaukee is the main cultural and economic center of the Milwaukee–Racine–Waukesha Metropolitan Area with a population of 1,751,316 as of 2010.Milwaukee is also the regional center of the seven county Greater Milwaukee Area, with an estimated population of 2,014,032 as of 2008

Are we talking the same tiny place?

[mariab]

Compare Milwaukee to Chicago.

My California reference was about the trendy habit of lawsuits.

[Cogidubnus]

I'd guessed a left pond definition of tiny might differ from a right pond one, but that's BIG!

[mariab]

Half a mil of population for the biggest city in a state isn't so big (for the US). The 2 million refers to the entire region.

Milwaukee has a feeling kinda like Düsseldorf in Germany. Small but urban, and the center of an industrial area. Like most cities in the US (including Chicago), it features a couple blocks downtown with a tight concentration of skyscrapers, with the rest of the city looking like a no man's land.

In Chicago, downtown consists of maybe 12 blocks of impressive, lower Manhattan look-alike skyscrapers, with the main diff that, unlike in N.Y., if you're looking for a place to grab a bite or a drink after 21.30 p.m., you're outta luck! The rest of Chicago is suburban to rural. In my neighborhood of Hyde Park, 95% of the private residences, including the 2 local primary schools, are huts made of wood. College profs and judges living in houses made of wood, which feels real weird for European sensibilities. Sometimes I get the feeling, one lights up a box of matches, the whole district goes up in flames. (As it happened with the great Chicago fire in 1871.) Lol.

[ChainzCooper]

To defend the officers somewhat, hindsight is 20/20. They clearly were biased due to homophobia and perhaps racism; in fact, they were making light of the situation on the police radio. But I don't believe for a second that they knew the victim was in danger of his life. And so, they were completely incompetent and deserved to be fired. Why they were allowed to keep their jobs is appalling to me. But I do not think they engaged in criminal behavior.

Sorry but thats one of the first things a Cop does when conducting an investigation. 'Do you have any warrants?' Then they go and look it up, its very simple. Instead they made crude jokes about it over the radio that alone should get you fired, you're right. But they also acted in a negligent manner which lead to the young man's death. So I think they should have also been charged criminally
Jordan

[Errata]

Half a mil of population for the biggest city in a state isn't so big (for the US). The 2 million refers to the entire region.

I live in the "Biggest Small Town" in the US, capitol of Tennessee, 1.5 million people, and people freak out because I'm 6 miles from downtown and completely surrounded by trees. Not the token New York fenced tree, but solid woodlands.

I used to have Irish neighbors who were a hoot, and I went over there one day while they were planning a daytrip to Disney World. Took me an hour to convince them that it was a solid 15 hour drive to Disney World, at which they were appalled, and then I suggested they make a long weekend of it, and they wouldn't do it because "that's like driving to Hungary for the weekend". Like they say, 100 years is a long time to an American, and 100 miles is a long way to Brit.

[mariab]

And another thing, Europeans talk about how many rooms there are in their house, while Americans count how many bedrooms. But then again, Yankees cook with gas vs. electricity. It totally cracks me up that the judge who lives behind my apartment window, well, his property looks like a 2 story version of Uncle Tom's cabin. I've naively mentioned something like this to my boss a couple years ago, when he was driving me to my house on my arrival in Chicago ("How cute! It's all made of wood, like in the South, Uncle Tom's cabin"), and boy, did he get offended! He keeps referring to Chicago Hyde Park as "urban", which it's most definitely not.

[Errata]

And another thing, Europeans talk about how many rooms there are in their house, while Americans count how many bedrooms.

Well, yeah, but presumably if I say I have a 2 bedroom 2 1/2 bath house, there are logically going to be only one of the other types of rooms.

Isn't there an Uncle Tom's Cabin train stop in Berlin?

[mariab]

Well, yeah, but presumably if I say I have a 2 bedroom 2 1/2 bath house

What's a 2 1/2 bath? Like, an additional WC?

Isn't there an Uncle Tom's Cabin train stop in Berlin?

Yep, a subway stop. Onkel Toms Hütte. Next to the US Embassy and just one station down from the FU Berlin campus. In South Berlin, the district controlled by the Americans post WWII. And still looking like it, looks more than the suburbs in some US city than the rest of Berlin (tiny houses, mowed lawns, baskeball courts).