AN EMBARRASSED POLICE DEPARTMENT

The comedy of errors involving the Madison Police Department, Ald.
Mike Verveer and the supposed smell of marijuana would have been just
that -- a comedy of errors -- if it did not remind us of the need for
the Police Department to get focused on its actual mission.

Let's get a few things clear:

1. There is no evidence that Verveer did anything wrong. And there
never was. Any attempt to suggest that there is a cloud over the
downtown alder -- and any attempt to alter his role with the city's
Alcohol License Review Committee -- would be pure politics of the worst kind.

2. There is no evidence that marijuana was being used by anyone at the
State Street lounge, where Madison police officer Carrie Hemming saw
Verveer and thought she smelled something. Hemming acknowledges that
she saw no illegal activity, saw no drug-related paraphernalia, and
did not conduct an investigation. If she did, indeed, smell marijuana,
the odor could have come from the coat of a passing customer.

3. There is no reason to be particularly concerned about the smell of
marijuana or the presence of marijuana in Madison. This city has, for
the better part of four decades, adopted the view that possession and
use of the substance should be decriminalized. And if a poll were
conducted, we are quite certain that most Madisonians would prefer
that -- in instances where everyone who might be involved is an adult
- -- police officers always walk away when they smell marijuana.

So there is no problem with Verveer.

And there is not much problem with Officer Hemming, although she
received a reprimand for not following department procedures.

But there is a problem with a police department that seems so
frequently to struggle when it has serious matters to deal with --
like murders and patterns of downtown assaults -- but seems to have
plenty of time and energy to produce and circulate after-the-fact
reports about incidents that were not investigated and did not matter.

The Madison Police Department has embarrassed itself,
badly.

Chief Noble Wray and his team should take a deep breath, review this
incident and figure out how to make sure that the focus is on serious
crime fighting rather than petty gossip.