This morning the Green Bay Police Department held a press conference to inform the community about the findings of the investigation of an arrest of a which occurred on April 19, 2014 in the 100 block of South Washington Street. The incident was video-recorded on a cell phone and subsequently posted on social media. The video depicted Officer Derek Wicklund using force to affect an arrest of Joshua Wenzel. This morning, the media has been provided with copies of videos, the 80 page report of the investigation and the report from the Wisconsin Department of Justice Training and Standards Bureau. While some have already formed an opinion of the incident based on a 20 second video which had been posted on social media, we ask that you take the time to review all of the information before forming an opinion. We are posting a video of the full press conference which included an in-depth analysis of the incident that included video from other sources. Because of the length of the press conference and the amount of information presented, it is likely that the media will not be able to publish the entire press conference. Therefore, we are publishing the entire video of the press conference through our social media outlets. If you wish to obtain your own copy of the report you can make an open records request through our records division. Here is the transcript from Chief Tom Molitor’s statement to the media at this morning’s press conference; “The purpose of this press conference is to inform our community about the findings of our investigation into the incident that occurred in the early morning hours of April 19, 2014 in the 100 block of South Washington Street in Green Bay. The incident was video-recorded on a cell phone and subsequently posted on social media. The video depicted Officer Derek Wicklund using force to affect an arrest of Joshua Wenzel. In a letter that I had posted on Facebook on April 25, 2014, I made a promise to the community that the department would thoroughly investigate the incident. I promised that the findings of our investigation and analysis would be sent to Wisconsin Department of Justice, Training and Standards Bureau for review. I promised that when the review process was complete, we would share the results with our community. The findings of our investigation are that Officer Derek Wicklund’s use of force was justifiable and objectively reasonable. His actions and use of force were in compliance with our department policy and his training and experience. WI DOJ Training and Standards Bureau concluded that, “it didn’t appear that Officer Wicklund used force in excess of that taught in basic DAAT preparatory training. The techniques used were either trained techniques or dynamic applications of trained techniques.” Based on my review of the investigation, analysis and the WI DOJ Training and Standards Bureau review, I have determined that Officer Derek Wicklund is exonerated of the complaint of excessive force related to the arrest of Joshua Wenzel. I will now introduce our use of force subject matter experts who will walk you through the investigation and analysis: Captain James Runge, Captain Bill Galvin and Lieutenant Chad Ramos. At the end of the presentation, we will allow for a 10 minute Q and A session. The attending media will receive a DVD containing the various videos and reports from this investigation.” -Chief Thomas Molitor
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 16:58:12 +0000
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