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Madison Police Department Chief John Patterson has launched a support group for officers previously-assigned to conduct bar raids, following the announcement that MPD will no longer conduct semi-weekly raids on campus-area bars.
It is estimated that over a third of MPD’s officers made a living off bar raids. Patterson’s support group aims to help former bar raid cops who are struggling mentally after being reassigned or losing their jobs all together.
“When they shut down this program, they took everything from me. They took my livelihood, my sense of purpose. How can I act like my life is fine when I can’t spend my weekends giving 20 year-old college students $500 fines for using fake IDs at Whiskey Jacks?” one MPD officer said.
Another officer questioned if he should still come into work after his reassignment.
“I only joined the force to catch freshmen UW students underage drinking at The Nitty Gritty. Now that I’ve been reassigned to some boring-ass ‘anti-drug task force,’ I don’t even see a point in coming to work anymore,” he told The Daily Cardinal.
In his announcement, Patterson emphasized the importance of the support group and brought up possible alternatives to bar raids.
“Hopefully this group will bring peace of mind to the brave men and women who dedicated their lives to stopping one of this city's greatest threats, " Patterson said. “We’re also looking at creating a new task force aimed at rehiring many of the officers we lost after the bar raids were stopped, maybe raiding house parties to arrest students who vape. Vaping’s illegal right?”
Dominic Violante is The Beet editor for The Daily Cardinal.
