USADaily -
Newly-released text messages show Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke directing six sheriff deputies to stop and harass an American Airlines passenger for having had a verbal altercation with Clarke on board a flight.
Clarke recently claimed he has been chosen for a senior position at Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.
In the text, Clarke tells his deputies to conduct “just a field interview, no arrest unless he becomes an @sshole with your guys. Question for him is why he said anything to me. Why didn’t he just keep his mouth shut? Follow him to baggage and out the door. You can escort me to carousel after I point him out.” [I doctored the profane word for our ad filters.]
What’s particularly astounding is that Clarke ordered his deputies to stop the man simply because “he said anything to me.” Since when is it a crime to “say something” to a sheriff? Especially a high-profile opinionated one like Clarke?
What’s more, responding to the incident this past January, Clarke mocked the man and threatened physical violence against anyone who publicly questioned him. More from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
The post included a meme taunting Dan Black, a 24-year-old resident who alleged that he was harassed by Clarke. Black claimed he was confronted, interviewed and then escorted out of Mitchell International Airport by a group of deputies after a brief exchange with Clarke on a flight from Dallas on Sunday.
“Cheer up, Snowflake,” said the meme, which has a photo of Black. “If Sheriff Clarke were to really harass you, you wouldn’t be around to whine about it.”
Earlier this week, Clarke issued a statement saying Black and others like him may be “knocked out” if they hassle him on a plane: “The sheriff said he does not have to wait for some goof to assault him. He reserves the reasonable right to pre-empt a possible assault.”
This is the man who Donald Trump has allegedly chosen to play not simply a senior role at Homeland Security, but a role that in public affairs, working with the public. (Trump has yet to announce Clarke’s appointment, but Clarke says it’s a done deal.)
Last night the GOP elected Greg Gianforte the new congressman from Montana, not 24 hours after Gianforte violently assaulted a reporter. And now a top Trump law enforcement official used law enforcement to settle a personal vendetta against a man who dared to question this public official in public.
Imagine what Clarke will do when he has the power of Homeland Security at his fingertips.
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