One name that didn’t get enough media recognition during the primary elections on Tuesday, Aug. 14, was Terrill Thomas. If you don’t remember that name, here’s a refresher: Terrill Thomas was the man who died after having his no access to water for seven days while inside the Milwaukee County Jail, a jail overseen by then-Sheriff David Clarke. David Clarke resigned from his position as Milwaukee sheriff in disgrace. He couldn’t even get the Homeland Security position he continues to lick Donald Trump’s boots for—a feat that is hard to accomplish, considering the cast of characters that have come and gone since then. And so, while Clarke wanted people to believe he was resigning his position because he had bigger and better things to accomplish, the real reason was that his shell game on the people of Milwaukee was over. They knew he was a criminal scumbag and his whole law enforcement apparatus was corrupt.
Clarke’s replacement was Sheriff Richard Schmidt. But Schmidt was just a Clarke lackey and yesterday, Milwaukee said it was time to move on, voting challenger Earnell Lucas in over Schmidt.
Schmidt is a career officer in the sheriff’s department, rising through the ranks to become Clarke’s No. 2 in 2010; he became acting sheriff upon Clarke’s resignation. And it was Clarke that dragged him down in the race. All three candidates said they wanted to move beyond the Clarke era, but Schmidt was unable to effectively separate himself from his former boss.
As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, “In his campaign, Schmidt emphasized the dozen or more changes he made at the agency since Clarke’s departure, from balancing the budget and going after reckless drivers on freeways to reforming jail operations after several custody deaths during Clarke’s tenure.”
But Schmidt was one of the people (like Clarke) who was in charge of the jails that killed and tortured and dehumanized people like Terrill Thomas. Milwaukee citizens voted to tell Clarke and Schmidt to go fuck themselves. If there was real justice, both of them would be behind bars.
Disgraceful toy soldier Clarke has taken to making money on the alt-Reich circuit, providing a “best friend that is black” to all those economically anxious Trump supporters that feel like having one black person agree with them makes their racism not racism.