DA CANDIDATE QUESTIONS NEW RULE BY BOSS

District Attorney E[dward] Michael McCann yesterday issued a new policy for his office to follow in the event of apparent excessive use of force by police officers during or following an arrest. Rather than have complaints investigated days or weeks later, the DA's ruling calls for his employees to interview arrestees within hours of the incident.
The new rule was prompted by the acquittal of some rogue officers in the Frank Jude, Jr. beating case.
As sensible as the rule might seem at first glance, the new measure does have a detractor in John Chisholm, the Milwaukee County prosecutor who hopes to succeed the retiring McCann.
"That's Mike for you," Chisholm said with a hint of exasperation Wednesday April 19th at a fundraiser held on his behalf. He credited McCann with an earnest, well-meaning idea, adding, "but look at it this way. People who have been arrested have the right to counsel. Do you want an assistant district attorney to interview them before their own attorney does?"
Chisholm says he agrees with McCann that such investigations should be made promptly, and says he is in contact with state officials to see if the Department of Justice might handle these incidents, should they occur.
The fundraiser, held at Club Havana, 789 N. Jefferson St., was sponsored by John Budzinski and John Piette and was organized by Det. Mark Harms of the Milwaukee Police Department.
Among the attendees were Sheriff candidate Vince Bobot (on his way to the Bell Ambulance Party); Jeffrey B. Norman, the Milwaukee detective who wants to be a Municipal Court Judge; Andrew Zeiger, who is an attorney; Matt Robbins, Esq., Ald. Bob Bauman, plotting his next move in the Connector debate ("what debate?" Bauman asked. "They haven't released any information to debate!"); and others too numerous to mention including Barb Candy, minding the till; and Molly Christofferson, who is managing Chisholm's campaign.
[Update: April 9th 2007 -- Molly Christofferson's political career is now kaput, since she was busted for stealing money from a law firm to pay off a drug debt and to buy crack. She's under a $3,000 bond, and an absolute sobriety order. Also, the website of Common Council President Willie Hines still lists Christofferson as his legislative assistant. -- Ed.]

(Molly's dad Bill Christofferson, who handled David Clarke in the past, extracted from Chisholm a promise not to "pull a Clarke," but to support democratic candidates if he wanted Christofferson's help running as a democrat for a partisan office such as district attorney. Chisholm asented.)
Although district attorney candidates usually run on a law and order theme, Chisholm is focusing on revamping the office, which McCann has held since 1967. Specifically, he mentioned removing non-violent offenders from the system at the front end -- right at the station house, in fact, where they could be assessed and referred to treatment programs. A pilot project is already in place for misdemeanor offenses, he said. Chisholm says he has received support from community groups like the Benedict Center and others for this proposal.
He cited Det. Harms as "the type of police officer who represents the best in this county. He is a county prosecutor because he is working with people in the county solving problems at the lowest level -- at the street level."
Chisholm said Harms and many other members of his department and the District Attorney's office had been committed to community policing "long before anybody heard about Frank Jude."
But, he cautioned, "in order to hold ourselves accountable we will have to modernize this office."
Just in case he didn't sound quite enough like a politician, Chisholm ended with these words which removed all doubt: "I love this job, I love this city. I want to make this city a better place to live."
[Note to candidate: next time, substitute "county" for "city."]
--Michael Horne