Tag Archives: milwaukee

Whole Foods Treats Autistic Man Like Dog

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Wrong at any age

Whole Foods is a market that prides themselves on their environmental and social awareness.  However, one of their employees didn’t get the memo about the “social” awareness.  Emily Goldman and her autistic brother Michael were the victims of extreme insensitivity while shopping at a Whole Foods Market in Milwaukee, WI.  Michael (who has difficulty communicating) swiped some food while the two were shopping.  The security guard on duty saw Michael stealing food and confronted the two shoppers.  When Emily realized what had transpired she immediately apologized, explained her brother’s condition, and offered to pay for the food Michael had taken.  But the security guard responded with a hateful comment.  The security guard exclaimed that Emily and Michael were to leave the store immediately and that they were not allowed to return unless Michael was “on a leash”.  This mentality doesn’t seem very consistent with Whole Food’s core value of “delighting customers”.

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Police Misconduct Costs Beloit $265,000

Caution

Beloit, Wisconsin will have to pay $265,000 to a teenager who was illegally strip-searched in public by a police officer.  Conner Poff was sitting in his car with some friends when the police received an anonymous tip alleging “drug activity”.  Officer Kerry Daugherty approached the car, asked Poff to step out, and patted him down.  Up to this point, Daugherty followed standard and necessary procedure.  However, the policeman detected a bulge in the teenagers pants in the region of his crotch and, apparently not being too current with his studies of anatomy, asked the boy what that mysterious bulge could be.  Poff replied that it was in fact his genitals, at which point the incredulous officer told the teenager to “show him”.  When Poff complied, he was slammed against the car’s back windshield so hard that the windshield shattered and he suffered a mild concussion.  In the course of the scuffle, Daugherty “discovered” a small bag of marijuana in the boy’s underwear.  The police officer’s defense for his violent and unjustifiable strip search?  He wanted the 16-year-old to show him the marijuana, which was clearly too small to detect in plain sight, and “not his genitals”.  Well Mr. Daugherty, if you didn’t want to ogle the kid’s junk, you probably shouldn’t have asked to ogle the kid’s junk.

Poff filed suit shortly thereafter, alleging that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated.  Instead of going in front of a jury, which I can only assume would decide in Poff’s favor, the city agreed to a $265,000 settlement.  Daugherty was not disciplined.  So, the one disadvantage of the settlement system once again comes to light: the victims of injustice get some money, but the perpetrators are not punished and can say they’ve done nothing wrong.  However, Milwaukee County is undertaking an investigation in the strip search practices of its police departments thanks to some of Daugherty’s comments, which suggested that his actions were part of the department’s standard modus operandi.

The ultimate moral to take away from this story, then, is to remember to tighten your belt when dealing with police in Wisconsin.