Shon Barnes, left, and Ramon Batista, right.
A local activist group is criticizing Madison’s Police and Fire Commission for ignoring public support for one of the candidates for the city’s new police chief.
The commission chose Shon Barnes, a former deputy chief in Salisbury, North Carolina, to serve as the new Madison police chief in a 3-2 vote Friday.
Ramon Batista, a former police chief in Mesa, Arizona, was the candidate the commission’s dissenting members voted for, and he also had support from many local police-reform activists, including the Community Response Team, and others who spoke out during the search for the new chief.
The Community Response Team, a group that has advocated for police reform for years, said in a statement Saturday it is “gravely disappointed” the commission “has chosen to entirely ignore the express wishes of Madison residents.”
“In ignoring all this public input, the Police and Fire Commission has once again shown itself to be a profoundly undemocratic institution and wholly uninterested in there being a safe and working relationship between the public and the police chief,” the group said.
If Barnes accepts the chief position and passes a pre-employment background check, he will become the city’s third Black police chief.
Madison police chiefs through the years
Madison police chiefs over the years
The city of Madison has had 29 police chiefs, from Fred Mohr, who served from 1856 to 1857, to Mike Koval, who was sworn in on April 30, 2014, and resigned on Sept. 30, 2019. Here are some of those former chiefs for whom we could locate photos.
16. John E. "Big Jack" Adamson, 1887-1894
John E. "Big Jack" Adamson, front row second from left, served as Madison police chief from 1887 to 1894.
John Adamson was probably the most efficient chief of police the city ever had, according to "Madison, Past and Present," a history of Madison covering the years 1852 until 1902. He was known far and near as "Big Jack" Adamson, being over six feet tall and weighing about 240 pounds. He was a shrewd, sharp detective, and was probably known by more crooks and thieves than any other man in police circles.
Front row from the left: Frank Currier, John Adamson, Jake Togsland, and John Scherer.
Back row from the left: Tom Shaughnessy (who would serve as police chief from 1907 to 1925), Jake Behrend, Arne K. and Alex O'Neill.
Photo taken in 1895.
19. Henry C. Baker, 1897-1907
Henry Chapman Baker served as Madison's police chief from 1897-1907.
21. Frank L. Trostle, 1925-1930
Frank Trostle served as Madison police chief from 1925-1930.
23. William H. McCormick, 1931-1948
William McCormick served as Madison police chief from 1931-1948. McCormick was a lawman for 41 years, starting in December 1908 as the 13th patrolman of a 19-man force and working his way through the ranks to become chief. He was also a Dane County sheriff and undersheriff from 1919 to 1925.
24. Bruce Weatherly, 1949-1959
Bruce Weatherly served as Madison police chief from 1949 to 1959.
Weatherly hailed from San Antonio, Texas, and his appointment was vehemently opposed by the police officers' union and others in the city because of his outsider status. He made a number of unpopular changes to the department, including new disciplinary rules and instituting its first officer training program (previously new police officers were given a badge and a gun and paired with a more senior officer for a couple weeks).
His tenure was rocky and ended dramatically in 1959 when he was fired by the city after he crashed into a tanker truck while drunk. The incident and the actions of the mayor and City Council gripped the city.
After he was removed from office, technicians found a series of microphones hidden in the police headquarters, installed by Weatherly for making secret recordings, something long-suspected by members of the department.
25. Wilbur H. Emery, 1959-1972
Wilbur Emery served as Madison police chief from 1959 to 1972. A lifelong Madison resident, on his first day of work for the police department in August 1946 he was sent out to settle a short-change complaint. When he returned, he was issued his badge, billy club and gun.
He oversaw the police department during the tumultuous anti-war protests of the late 1960s, during which escalating violence and vandalism were met with increasing police force. Emery's department was accused of brutality in its response to the riots. "We were met with brute force that equalled — and at times excelled — what we could use," he later recalled.
Friends said the difficulty of shepherding the department through such a trying time contributed to the heart condition Emery later developed and ultimately died from in 1983 at the age of 61.
26. David C. Couper, 1973-1993
David Couper, right, served as Madison police chief from 1973 to 1993. He had the longest tenure of any Madison police chief — 20 years.
27. Richard Williams, 1993-2004
Richard Williams served as Madison police chief from 1993 to 2004. He was Madison's first African-American police chief.
28. Noble Wray, 2004-2013
Noble Wray served as Madison police chief from 2004 to 2013.
29. Mike Koval, 2014-2019
Mike Koval served as police chief from April 30, 2014, to Sept. 30, 2019.
Shanzeh Ahmad | Wisconsin State Journal
Shanzeh Ahmad is a general assignment reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal. She joined the paper in 2019 after getting a master's degree in journalism and public affairs from American University in Washington, D.C.
