Retired Air Force pilot Michael Bell discusses Wisconsin’s first-in-the-nation law requiring independent investigations of police killings; the police shooting that took his son’s life in 2004; the longstanding practice of cops being allowed to investigate and exonerate themselves; and how his activism got police unions, politicians and the public on board to get the law passed.
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Still, there has to be accountability and regulating themselves, each department regulating itself and their closest prosecutors.
It is just, it's proven to be problematic, I think.
Most people agree.
I don't think it's a partisan issue or anything.
I think people now, we're coming to a consensus about this and you are really just leading the way on what can be done, at least for a start here.
This is just humongous and so thank you on behalf of all freedom-loving people in America.
This is so important and thank you very much.
You're welcome and also it's just not me, it's a group in addition to myself.
Also we had to have some very bold legislators that were willing to take a try at this and we were able to navigate the system and we were able to get the bill passed.
And you were able to create a consensus among the interested political parties and associated groups and interests and so forth.
And you can see through the dash cam video of the officer's vehicle that my son drove perfectly straight and stopped at the stop sign and stopped in front of his house.
Within a very short time, my son's like, you don't know I did it, I didn't do that, you're accusing me of something I didn't do.
There was a scuffle, my son was, you can hear him say something like, hey why are you kicking me, quit kicking me.
My son has moved off camera and within a very short time he's tased and then he runs to the back of his own home directly to my son's head and fires a shot right into his temple and kills him on the spot.
Actually he didn't die on the spot, he died on the flight for life helicopter from our city to a central hospital in the middle of the state.
But I'm a retired Air Force officer and I was a pilot and I understood safety investigations and so I allowed this to work itself out so we could find the details.
Essentially the officers cleared themselves of wrongdoing within 48 hours before witness statements were taken, before the autopsy was complete, before crime lab reports came in.
These officers rallied around each other and said that they did a review and that the shooting was justified and the DA also said the shooting was justified.
We tried to make a claim, you know, we were like, hey there's a problem here, you know, these eyewitnesses and so forth are seeing something and these officers are saying one thing and they're completely disregarding any of the eyewitness statements.
So eventually we filed a lawsuit in federal court, settled for about $1.75 million.
I refused to accept a nondisclosure or confidentiality agreement because it was always my intent to be able to tell my son's story.
Typically in these cases, if there is some type of settlement, the documents are sealed forever and whatever went wrong remains hidden from the public.
So it wasn't long after that, from day one we questioned the review process because it was the polar opposite of my Air Force experience, but we ended up campaigning.
We took out major ads in New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, so forth.
We bought television ads, but what really turned out to be very successful is we ran 12 by 48 billboards along the major interstates in the state of Wisconsin and essentially it was a large smoking gun and it said the words, when police kill, should they judge themselves?
And it sent them to our son's website, michaelbell.info.
And at one point we had 43 of those billboards up in Milwaukee in protest of another shooting that was very questionable.
It actually wasn't even a shooting, it was a young man died in the backseat of a squad car as he was begging for assistance because he couldn't breathe and he was being mocked by the police officers that were on the scene.
He ended up suffocating and that whole thing could be seen in the dash cam video.
So our family kept working on this.
You have to understand that I am not against law enforcement, that I am a military officer.
I did have law enforcement on occasion under my command and we know that many times the law enforcement can be our heroes.
But I was appalled by a system that didn't have checks and balances and I kept thinking, if I have a blonde haired, blue eyed boy killed under a spotlight with five eyewitnesses and his hands handcuffed behind his back and a police officer kills him and we cannot get anybody to listen to us, what must it be like for the Asian family, the African American family, the Hispanic family or any of those groups out there that don't have the means or resources that we did.
So eventually I brought my case to a legislator, his name was Gary Bize, and he's actually a retired chief deputy sheriff in the state of Wisconsin.
And I showed him what occurred in our case and I showed him what occurred in a number of other cases, high profile cases in Wisconsin and we started crafting a bill and it was called AB 409.
We had the first public hearing of its type in the nation and it was an overflow crowd and essentially law enforcement came on board because the good officers recognized that there needed to be some checks and balances and some departments were causing a lot of negative publicity for other law enforcement departments in the state.
So that's how our story happened in a nutshell for you, Scott.
I see.
Well, you know, that very last thing you said there sounds like an important point.
Some of the police departments, the other departments felt were making them look bad.
We're costing them their credibility.
And so they were saying, we welcome accountability since we're not worried about it.
But we want that department two counties away from here cleaned up because they're screwing up our business here in our county.
Is that is that right?
And so that was part of how they got on board.
That's exactly right.
That's very important.
Strategically speaking, I mean, I don't know if that was just happenstance in this case, but that's very important because, of course, you know, what do these different county sheriff's departments or city police departments owe each other in terms of loyalty?
Not when, you know, if you're the Houston P.D. and the Dallas P.D.'s screw ups are are making you look bad all day, every day.
That ought to be a good a good thing for us to try to turn them against each other.
It ought to work pretty well.
Well, we provided the opening on the outside and a number of good officers on the inside that respect their profession and knew that there was an opportunity to clean it up, helped on the inside.
And eventually the bill had the support from the five major police unions in the state of Wisconsin.
Wow.
All five major police unions supported it.
That's correct.
Wow.
I mean, I hope somebody smarter and more plugged into me is taking notes during this interview like I am.
I mean, this is incredible to think that the police unions.
Well, I mean, I can see why, hey, they're trying to look clean, at least so good.
And before we were headed out to this break here, well, pretty soon.
So I don't have time for any more questions for this segment until we get back.
And I do have a lot of them.
But I just wanted to mention something that a very wise man that I know mentioned to me, which is that something that's changing in America is that the police are becoming more and more militarized and they're trained in more and more aggressive ways.
And to treat regular people, not even real suspected criminals, but just regular people, even suspected of drunk driving, treating them like they're all the most hardened criminals in the world, enemies and all of that.
At the very same time that everyone has a telephone with a camera in their pocket and at the very same time that everybody's connected on Facebook.
So every one of these stories on the local level becomes a national news story.
And so this is blowing up into a huge scandal, police abuse in America right now.
And, you know, I think they better get out ahead of the parade like you're talking about because there's some accountability on the grand scale coming here soon.
We'll be right back with Michael Bell, Sr., who's done this great work in Wisconsin, right after this.
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Sorry about that, y'all.
Two speech spots right in a row like that.
That's not supposed to do that.
A little fine tuning.
It'll be fine.
All right.
Listen, we're talking with Michael Bell, Sr.
And his website here.
I have it.
MichaelBell.info.
MichaelBell.info.
That's his name.
That also was his son's name.
And I'm sorry, sir, I asked you to give that lengthy description, so you told your whole story there.
And then at the end of it, I started at the end in something you said about getting the cops to support your bill and all of that.
But it's not where I meant to start.
I meant to start at saying I'm so sorry about what happened to your son.
I can't imagine that happening, how horrible it must have been, and especially, you know, to die that way and everything.
And I just – it's great that – and I don't think you put it this way, but I know from reading about your story that you took the entire settlement that you got from the lawsuit, and you put it all toward this campaign for accountability, required an unbiased police review process.
And that's just heroic, and it's great.
And you're writing American history here.
I mean, it's just huge.
I couldn't state how huge it is.
And it's just the beginning because they're not going to repeal this.
They can't.
And other states are sure to follow suit.
This is going to become a trend, I sure hope, and it could really change things in a major way.
And so – and it's still just – I guess it's asking other cops to look at it, but still at least they're other cops, not the very same agencies.
Could you please tell us about exactly what the law says, how this is supposed to work?
The state police investigate the locals, the locals the state, or what?
Well, originally the first version of the bill asked for three parts.
The first is that if an officer is involved in the loss of a civilian's life, that we make sure that that officer was in a clear frame of mind.
There are no requirements in the state of Wisconsin that if an officer takes your life that you can check to see if he was under the influence of alcohol or under the influence of a painkiller or something like that.
And when I talk to the good officers, they say, take my arm and take a blood sample because I have no problem with this whatsoever.
And I was appalled.
And here I am, an Air Force pilot, that I knew that the first thing that they would do if you were involved in some type of military aviation crash would be to take some type of blood sample.
And if you're a truck driver driving down the road, you're involved in a crash, they take a breathalyzer.
If you're involved in any type of factory accident, they do the same thing.
But if you're a police officer, you're not required to give any type of indication whether you were in a clear frame of mind or not.
So our first version of the bill asked for that.
The second part of the bill was if you're involved in a police-involved fatality that you, your department, cannot investigate yourselves.
What they were doing in the state of Wisconsin was called internal organizational review.
And our family was saying that this is inappropriate because you're all working under the same chief and he controls everything.
You're going to control the investigation and the review process and the decisions.
And we looked at, in 129 years since the police and fire commissions were founded in Wisconsin in 1885, that we could not find a police department that ever ruled any of its shootings unjustified.
In fact, we couldn't find a police and fire commission or inquest that ever found an officer unjustified in taking someone's life in 129 years.
And we felt that that was an impossible record of perfection.
And we did find, in 2005, there was a district attorney in Milwaukee that actually charged an officer in wrongdoing.
But that department had found itself unjustified and an inquest had also found that officer justified.
But it was citizens that brought additional information to that DA and that DA finally charged that officer.
So the second part of the bill is what's called external professional review.
That people from outside the department that don't have any close ties to anybody in that department come in there and conduct a professional review of what the incident occurred.
The third part of the bill that we looked for was an independent review of that, but just not by law enforcement because law enforcement has an institutional stake in the process.
And many times if you're, let's say, a lieutenant or a sergeant in a police force and you rule against somebody else, your career might be in jeopardy.
So we asked that a group of law professionals, just not law enforcement, come in and review that incident and hand their decision to the DA.
And that board has to be appointed by a high-ranking elected official.
And we were looking at law scholars, like a criminal justice professor or a criminal law professor.
We looked at a retired district attorney and we looked at retired police chiefs so that they had a voice on this board too.
But a respected review panel would look at this shooting or this loss of life and then give a valued opinion to the district attorney.
Because the district attorney relies so heavily on law enforcement that many times that they don't want to risk that relationship by charging an officer.
So those were the three we were looking for, but we only got number two.
And number two was this, is that if there's a law enforcement-involved fatality that investigators from outside that department have to come in and conduct the investigation, they have to lead the investigation, and then they're going to have to issue a report to the DA.
And if the DA finds that there were no criminal behaviors regarding the officers involved, then he must release that report to the public.
In addition to that, one of the things that was important to us is when my son got killed, we approached the governor, we approached the attorney general, we approached the FBI, the U.S. attorney, and nobody would give us the time of day.
The only way that we could even navigate the system was to get an attorney.
And if that's happening to an educated family, we can't imagine what would happen to other families that might be involved.
And so the current law, AB 409, states that a police department, if they're involved in a loss of life, they have to give kind of a blueprint of what that family can do to go ahead and seek guidance or seek recourse against the officers involved if they need to.
So that was the victory that we scored on AB 409 on April 23rd of this year.
Great.
Okay, now I just want to make sure I understood you right there.
Did you say that number two, the most important part of it, but did you say that was the only one that you actually got through, the rest was cut out, or I misunderstood?
Yes, that was the only part that we got through, and I'll tell you why.
The first part, even though every one of us agrees that if an officer is involved in a loss of life, that there probably should be some type of breathalyzer or blood sample taken just to make sure that there was no problem.
The law enforcement agencies said, well, you know, we are infringing upon our rights.
I can't remember the exact term that they used, but essentially that we were incriminating ourselves if we give a blood sample.
And we knew that the legislative session was short and that this whole bill could be bogged down with that, and we felt it was such an important item that if need be, we can come back and get that at a later date.
So that was removed from the original version of the bill.
Not much of an excuse on their behalf.
If it's part of the contract, if it's part of the deal for being a public servant, then it's part of the deal.
There's a lot of other things that they sign away the right to do as well as long as they're in that job, like going out and getting arrested on assault charges for a bar fight on Saturday night too, right?
I agree with you 100%, and I think that's something that we can come back and get at a later date.
Please, I'm sorry, we're short on time.
I hate to interrupt you, but when it comes to this independent investigation, it is the most important part, but who is this independent person?
He's not the Internal Affairs, he's somebody else, but he works for the mayor or he works for the county or he works for the state, and who's he answerable to?
What's really interesting about this is that you can actually have, for the first time, probably civilians reviewing law enforcement because the independent investigator could work for the medical examiner's office.
The independent investigator could work for the Police and Fire Commission or some type of civilian review board.
It doesn't have to be law enforcement.
Obviously, they'll have law enforcement experience, but that investigator can be determined by the department or departments in the county or in the state itself, and law enforcement is working that out now.
Are you worried that maybe you've given them too much leeway there and they're just going to find a way around this that way?
My belief is this, is that the experts in the system will always find a way to subvert it at some point in time, but it is a step forward.
Our family was not afforded this opportunity.
We wanted outside review.
We did not get it.
And like I said, eventually we won a $1.75 million settlement, and I think that in itself, even though the city says that that doesn't say that they did anything wrong, I think that just the dollar amount themselves against law enforcement shows that there was a problem.
Yeah, no, sorry, and don't get me wrong.
I don't mean to be overly critical about that.
I just want to make sure I understand the details, basically.
I think what you've done here is just absolutely huge, Michael.
I think it's it sets a great precedent for the future.
And after all, like you're saying, no matter what people think of cops, you can think the greatest of them.
But, hey, we still need checks and balances.
Even George Washington needed checks and balances.
That's the way it goes in America.
So, you know, my my greatest of luck to you.
My thanks to you and my my my best of luck to you in further reforms along these lines.
And thank you very much for your time on the show today, Michael.
Well, thank you very much.
And if people are interested in once again, Michael Bell done it for my son's stories there.
And also join us on Facebook at plea for a change.
Thank you.
Great.
Thank you very much.
And again, everybody, that's Michael Bell dot info.
We'll be right back.
Phone records, financial and location data, prism, tempura, X key score, boundless informant.
Hey, I'll Scott Warren here for off now dot org.
Now here's the deal.
Do the Snowden revelations.
We have a great opportunity for a short period of time to get some real rollback of the national surveillance state.
Now they're already trying to tire us by introducing fake reforms in the Congress and the courts.
They betrayed their sworn oaths to the Constitution and Bill of Rights again and again and can in no way be trusted to stop the abuses for us.
We've got to do it ourselves.
How we nullify it at the state level.
It's still not easy.
The off now project of the 10th Amendment Center has gotten off to a great start.
I mean it.
There's real reason to be optimistic here.
They've gotten their model legislation introduced all over the place in state after state.
I've lost count more than a dozen.
You're always wondering, yeah, but what can we do?
Here's something, something important, something that can work.
If we do the work, get started cutting off the NSA support in your state.
Go to off now dot org.
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Scott Wharton here for the Council for the National Interest at CouncilForTheNationalInterest.org.
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