‘Farewell MPD’: A Madison Police Officer’s Epic Letter to Colleagues

Jim Piwowarczyk & Jessica McBride

I have deep concerns for the future of this department and its ability to retain the most valuable resource it doesn’t know it has: the experienced and proficient officers and immediate supervisors who serve the community every day by responding to calls for service. You know who you are, you are the ones who do more than just show up.

I know that you do these things while balancing the standards that you hold for yourselves with the expectations placed on you by the department and the community. You are tasked with providing a high quality of service to the community with respect, dignity and proficiency; core values of this department.

However, more often than not, those same tenets are not afforded to you. The nature of this job is that you are asked to lay your lives on the line and take significant risks that involve the assertion of lawful authority in the scope of what we have been trained and sworn to do. In the event that we must take those risks, regardless of the outcome of our mission, the potential to be put under review or offered discipline is so great that it often overshadows the risk in the first place.