Dear Governor Evers,

Thank you for your long service as a public-school teacher, superintendent, and governor of Wisconsin. As a teacher, parent and grandparent of children who attend and attended our public schools, thank you.

I am writing to ask you to take immediate action to reduce officer-involved shootings as we recently saw in Madison, a story that gained international attention. To make immediate and concrete action, I ask you call a Legislative Special Session under Wisconsin State Constitution Article IV, Section 11 to invest some of the $2.3 billion General Fund surplus to save lives and protect lives to:

1.       Increase investment in the WI Department of Justice and County District Attorneys to ensure they have the resources to thoroughly and quickly investigate officer-involved shootings, gather evidence, prepare a report, and decide whether additional legal action in warranted;

2.       Fund Body Cameras for all public safety officers in all municipalities, counties and states and require them to use them in the field. Provide funding for communities that have already invested in body cameras;

3.       Require less violent grappling training such as Jiu-Jitsu and other martial arts for all law enforcement officers to reduce risk to citizens and officers, as worked in Marietta, Georgia and other communities across the country, according to Police Magazine;

4.       To reduce crime, increase job and housing investment; and

5.       Increase mental health, drug and alcohol treatment investment to help people live healthier.

If Wisconsin takes these common sense steps, we can build a better Wisconsin and protect “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” promised in the Declaration of Independence.

Thank you again for all you have done for Wisconsin and America.

Forward Wisconsin,

Brett Hulsey

Carpenter, Contractor, Former Legislator, Democratic Write-in Candidate for Governor