Police Incompetence

The killer of a college student is still at large one month after the murder. Madison's police have already made a number of publicly known mistakes... given their penchant for secrecy, there's probably more bungling taking place.

First, they waited eight days before deciding that it was in the public interest to warn people that the student's home showed signs of forced entry. This should have been made public right away. There's no excuse for sitting on that for so long, especially when the murder took place in the middle of the day in a highly populated student neighbourhood. If people aren't safe in their own homes, they need to know that right away.

Now someone has leaked more damning information about police handling of the case. It turns out that the victim called 9-11, but the 9-11 dispatcher hung up on her, and neither returned the call (as required by their own policies), nor sent police to investigate.

Just as infuriating as the incompetence is the sense that the police had been hoping to sweep this under the carpet. For a liberal town, the MPD is awfully secretive and unresponsive to community concerns.