I’d like you to meet my Dad, Bob Hamele. He was, first and foremost, a cop. He ended his career in law enforcement by creating and serving as first Chief of the Wisconsin State Capitol Police.
The op-ed reproduced below will give you an idea what kind of cop he was. [There is no link; the piece was published in 1976. The writer, Frank Ryan, was UPI bureau chief in Madison, WI for many years.]
Hamele's Capitol forces defuse potential riots
CAPITOL COMMENTARY
By FRANK RYAN
MADISON, Wis. (UPI) - This town is used to protest demonstrations, violent or otherwise.
During the turbulent Sixties and early Seventies, people were almost getting hooked on tear gas. But most pursued business and pleasure despite the rocket's red glare.
There were, of course, abuses by protesters and law enforcement officers.
l can ’t help but think of the night a chubby sheriff's deputy bopped [former] UPI photographer Dennis Connor in the mouth with a club, freeing a couple of Connor's pretty, white incisors.
Connor's problem was that his hair was a bit long and he was dressed casually. He looked a little like some of nasties who spent lots of time stoning police and calling them "pigs."
I also can’t forget the night some rubber-armed demonstrator nearly clobbered me with a brick, prompting me to don an ill-fitting riot helmet for the first time.
At any rate, there was another demonstration last week - in the state Capitol. Up to 200 persons, mostly white students from the University of Wisconsin, staged two nights of sit-ins in the Capitol Rotunda demanding the ouster of Menominee County Sheriff Kenneth Fish.
Fish killed two Menominee Indians Feb. 3, which was ruled justifiable.
Capitol Police, who are not connected with the city police department, did an excellent job handling the protest.
Chief Robert Hamele kept communications open with protest leaders. When he asked the demonstrators to vacate the building because it was supposed to close officially at 8 p.m., they decided to go limp, not resist arrest - but stay.
(Hamele, who lives in Portage, is a former detective captain with .the Columbia County Sheriff's Department.)
So Hamele directed his officers to remove the group on stretchers and wheelchairs. That was done gently, so gently, in fact, that several officers tried to calm frightened babies who were to be taken out with their Indian mothers.
An officer lost his temper and grabbed a protester by the chin. Hamele saw it and rushed to the officer, leading him t away from the protesters for the rest of the night. That defused what could have turned into an ugly confrontation.
The demonstrators were taken outside the building and freed. The only arrests came the second night when two Indians decided they didn't want to be removed.
It was fine work by the officers. And without going into the merits of the reasons for the protest, the demonstrators were well-disciplined. They were willing to be arrested, but were not ready to resist arrest. They just weren't hopping onto the wheelchairs and stretchers. They opted to be carried outside instead.
Some of the protest leaders actually hung around when the police moved in, even though they probably thought they were going to be arrested. In the old days, the people who used to whip the crowd into a frenzy were afflicted with the "general's syndrome" and disappeared when the police got ready to do battle.
Hamele realized the potential for violence, so he ordered tight security for the Capitol the third night. No one was allowed in the building who didn't have business there. A handful of protesters was given permission to hold an all-night vigil in the Rotunda.
Capitol police and the protesters co-operated. And violence was avoided.
Now, please meet Frank Ryan [the audio sux on this, sorry]:
I figure they had to re-tamp the old man’s grave daily while that shit was going on.
Please, have a great Father’s Day. Anyway.