Bice: Sheriff Clarke vies to be bully in chief
David A. Clarke Jr. may have all but abandoned his job as Milwaukee County sheriff.
But he is earning himself a new title: Bully in chief.
Just listen to Clarke's remarks on bipartisanship at Thursday night's DeploraBall, a gathering of President Donald Trump supporters at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The celebratory ball had garnered media attention and protesters because some political extremists were expected to attend the event, which was jokingly named after Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" statement.
"When Donald Trump actually takes that oath and is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, the real fighting starts," Clarke said in a video posted by the Daily Caller. "I'll tell you what — you may know me, you may not — I'm one of those bare-knuckle fighters.
"When I hear people say that we need to reach across the aisle and work with people, with the Democrats, you know what I say? The only reason I'll be reaching across the aisle is to grab one of them by the throat," Clarke said to raucous cheers and fist-pumping. "And remind them that the American people, you, have spoken, and you said you wanted Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States."
Clarke runs as a Democrat, even though he supports Republicans, speaks at Republican events and raises money for Republicans.
His latest remarks come at the end of a week of incendiary rhetoric over an incident with a 24-year-old Riverwest resident last weekend.
Dan Black, a recent University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee graduate, filed a complaint with the county on Tuesday alleging that he was harassed by Clarke. Black claimed he was confronted, interviewed and then escorted out of Mitchell International Airport by a group of deputies after a brief exchange with Clarke on a flight from Dallas on Sunday.
Black has now hired an attorney, William Sulton, who said he is preparing to sue the sheriff and the county. Clarke has posted many of his most extreme remarks on the website and Facebook pages for the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office.
Sulton said in a statement that Clarke's remarks are "coldly calculated" to try to intimidate Black by threatening him for "engaging in constitutionally protected activity."
"Mr. Black will preemptively stop Sheriff Clarke's attacks with the full force of the legal system," Sulton said. "In addition to protecting Mr. Black’s rights, we will work to ensure that Mr. Black is safe from the dangers caused by Sheriff Clarke’s promotion of violence."
Asked if this means that Black intends to file a lawsuit against Clarke and the county, Sulton responded, "Yes."
Earlier this week, Clarke had responded to Black's complaint by posting a statement that said if Black or others hassled him on a plane in the future they may be "knocked out." His statement continued: "The sheriff said he does not have to wait for some goof to assault him. He reserves the reasonable right to pre-empt a possible assault."
On Thursday, the Sheriff's Office posted a Facebook meme with a picture of Black: "Cheer up, Snowflake. If Sheriff Clarke were to really harass you, you wouldn't be around to whine about it."
In between all of this, Clarke got into a spat with Marc Lamont Hall, a black commentator on CNN, using a racially offensive term in one of his tweets criticizing Hall: "I am tired of this jigaboo telling black people who they should be, what they should do. He's a lackey for Democrats."
More than 19,000 people indicated that they had liked Clarke's tweet, and another 9,000 had reposted it.
Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 224-2135 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @ DanielBice or on Facebook at fb.me/daniel.bice.