Madison NORML

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Pubdate: Aug. 11, 2007
Author: Daniel Bice
Column name: No Quarter click here

COLUMN: More deputies skitter under microscope

How many deputies did it take to screw up a huge drug bust by the county?

Two? Three? Even more?

There's no final tally, but the number known to be under investigation is growing.

Last month, No Quarter told you about the Milwaukee County sheriff's deputies who turned up 44 1/2 pounds of marijuana - with a street value of $30,000 - in the trunk of an Oldsmobile Aurora that had been pulled over on I-94.

The two guys in the car were arrested, and Sheriff David Clarke Jr. put out a press release in April highlighting the effort.

Now, four months later, the release remains the most prominent news item on the sheriff's Web site: "Milwaukee County Sheriff's Detectives Discover 44 1/2 lbs of Marijuana."

Except the case was snuffed out long ago.

The two men in the Oldsmobile were sprung. County prosecutors say two deputies involved in the case are not to be trusted on the witness stand again, effectively ending their careers as street cops.

And Clarke has confirmed that the same two deputies, whom he would not ID, were under internal investigation. He said the pair entered a South Milwaukee residence - home to one of the guys in the Oldsmobile - without first obtaining a warrant, a big-time no-no.

But that's only part of the story.

It turns out that six deputies, not just two, were at the residence when the illegal search occurred on April 13, according to a confidential police report. The report does not say how many of them entered the house.

But all six are now under the microscope. The Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs' Association, which is representing the officers, declined comment on the matter Friday.

"Everyone involved is part of the internal investigation," confirmed Kim Brooks, Clarke's spokeswoman.

Asked why the sheriff made mention of only two deputies, Brooks turned the focus away from her boss. "That's your misunderstanding. The sheriff asked me why you didn't obtain and read the reports that you now have before rushing to write your initial story."

Testy, testy.

In truth, the department won't release copies of the incident reports, written separately by Detectives William Theep and Luke Chang, both of whom were at the scene that night.

"I am denying you the requested material at this time, in their entirety," wrote Deputy Inspector Edward Bailey last week regarding Theep's report. Bailey said he will turn over the records only when the internal probe is finished.

But a copy of Chang's seven-page report, obtained on the Q.T., provides a detailed description of the arrests, with a little more general discussion of the subsequent visit to the South Milwaukee house.

The report says Chang and Theep were joined at the residence at 6:37 p.m. April 13 by Deputies Alex Martinez and JoAnn Donner and Detectives Outhith Latavong and Joel Streicher. Chang's report makes no mention of any deputies entering the house without permission or a warrant, as Clarke said happened.

The sheriff has said the deputies invited themselves in because, they claim, they were concerned that someone might be injured inside. He called that "a convenient excuse for circumventing the Fourth Amendment" and the reason the case went up in smoke.

But don't look for any mention of this in Chang's report. Not a word - nada.

Instead, his report skips ahead to when the girlfriend of one of the arrested men showed up at the house, which she also lived in, and belatedly granted permission for the deputies to enter.

"After Detective Theep explained our reason for being there, (she) signed a 'Consent to Search' form allowing us to search the residence," Chang wrote.

Makes it sounds like it was strictly by the book.

Once inside, the detectives found a "green plant-like substance" in the clothes dryer, a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol, a 20-gauge shotgun and packaging materials and paperwork suggesting drug trafficking, the report said.

Yes, that's quite the haul.

Too bad they didn't get a warrant first.

[snip]