WISC Channel 3
In a WISC Channel 3 report, Officer Matt McElroy said building trust with the community was an important part of the job. He resigned earlier this year after being caught writing bogus tickets.
Officials in Sun Prairie quietly handled a case in which an officer was caught writing traffic tickets for violations that did not occur. Patrol officer Matt McElroy was forced to resign, but the department made no public disclosure of his transgressions, beyond vague notices to affected motorists informing them that their citations were dismissed.
Police officials, including support services Lt. Brian Teasdale and spokesperson Jon Lothe, declined to provide any information on the matter, other than that McElroy was employed as an officer from July 9, 2012, until his resignation on Feb. 1, 2017. The department is still processing a request from Isthmus for relevant records.
Sun Prairie City Attorney Mark Leonard says his ability to discuss the case is limited by a “confidentiality agreement.” He did confirm that a number of citations were dismissed following an investigation prompted by a comment made to police “questioning a ticket.”
Further details are provided in a Jan. 26 letter from Sun Prairie Chief of Police Patrick Anhalt to Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, obtained by Isthmus through another channel. It says officer McElroy was found to have written 25 citations to people for not wearing seatbelts over the course of four days in 2016, even though “the motorists were in fact wearing their seatbelts.”
According to the letter, McElroy admitted that he turned in bogus seatbelt citations. He was found to be in violation of police department and city policies. Wrote Anhalt, “I determined that Officer McElroy was untruthful while conducting his official police duties.”
The letter says McElroy issued these citations while “working a traffic grant” on April 26, July 7, Aug. 27 and Aug. 31 of last year. Wisconsin’ seatbelt law imposes a $10 fine for violations, with the money going to the municipality that issues the citations.
Ozanne, in an interview, provides information that is not in Anhalt’s letter. He says that, as he understands it, the officer had issued seatbelt citations “in cases where there had been other traffic violations,” such as running a stop sign. Ozanne says these were situations in which the officer “would have been within his authority to write a warning, but he chose to write the seatbelt violation.”
Tom Hebl, a former Democratic state lawmaker who serves as Sun Prairie’s one-morning-a-week municipal judge, signed a letter to affected motorists. The letter was sent in February to “a total of 24 defendants,” according to Cindy Piper, the city’s municipal court clerk.
The letter, which Isthmus obtained through an open records request, said “A review of court records has revealed that your seatbelt citation was issued in error. As a result the Sun Prairie Police Department has requested that the judgment on your citation be set aside.” Those who had already paid the $10 fine received a refund.
The letter does not reveal that the “error” was determined to be officer misconduct.
In fact, there is no indication that Sun Prairie officials ever intended to make any information on the matter public, prior to the inquiries and records requests from Isthmus.
McElroy’s conduct, though hidden from public view, has had repercussions beyond the dismissal of the seatbelt citations. Leonard says he ended up dismissing several other citations written by the officer because “I felt I could not trust the honesty and integrity of the individual who would be my witness.” The tickets were for minor offenses like retail theft. “It was an integrity issue for me,” Leonard says.
Similarly, in mid-March Ozanne’s office dismissed a criminal charge due to concern about McElroy’s reliability. The case involved a 27-year-old Sun Prairie woman charged last August with third-offense DWI. At a court appearance in mid-March, Assistant District Attorney William Brown moved to dismiss the charges on grounds that “I find [McElroy]’s testimony to be totally not credible,” according to a court transcript.
Brown, in an interview, says this was the only serious charge involving this officer that he dismissed, although “there may have been a few traffic tickets I dismissed as well.” Ozanne says others in the office were apprised of the findings involving the officer but doesn’t know if it led to additional dismissals.
The criminal complaint against the Sun Prairie woman, whom Isthmus is not naming because the charges were dismissed, said McElroy executed a traffic stop because the vehicle’s brake lights were not working and noticed a strong odor of marijuana and alcohol. A passenger in the vehicle admitted that marijuana had been consumed.
But the woman told her attorney, Charles Kyle Kenyon, that the brake light was working and no alcohol was involved. He obtained video of the arrest, which confirmed there was no brake light problem. Kenyon believes the officer had no valid reason to stop his client and may have made up the reference to alcohol. He filed a motion to suppress evidence due to an “illegal stop.”
Kenyon, besides logging more than a quarter century as a state public defender and local criminal defense attorney, was for several years the elected district attorney of Kewaunee County. He says police officers are “human beings” with a tough job.
“Sometimes they lie,” Kenyon says. “Much more often, in my experience, they make mistakes.” The lies, he believes, merit special attention. “I hope that [McElroy] would not work in law enforcement again,” he says. “It compromises the whole system.”
Dane County Circuit Court Judge William Hanrahan, who presided over the dismissed case, is also bothered by the officer’s conduct. “We rely on people in the court system, especially someone sworn to uphold the Constitution, to be on the up-and-up,” he says in an interview. “[There is] a sacred trust that we place in these individuals. When that trust is shattered, I would expect an immediate response.”
Hanrahan, after hearing that the video evidence contradicted the officer’s claim about a nonfunctioning brake light, told ADA Brown in court: “I’m sure you’re going to turn that over to the powers that are potentially investigating.” Brown replied: “Yes.”
Brown, who calls the video evidence regarding the brake light “not clear,” says he did mention this additional possible indication of the officer’s duplicity to “management here.” The DA’s office decided not to pursue criminal charges.
Efforts to locate McElroy through public directories, property databases and social media were not successful. He was honored last June by the Madison Police Department for his help on a youth soccer tournament, according to a Facebook post, and last October at a luncheon for Hispanic officers, according to an article in the Sun Prairie Star.
He was also profiled for a report last July on the challenges of policing that aired on WISC Channel 3.
“Every day, dealing with different types of people and different types of calls is fascinating to me, and it’s very rewarding,” he said. “I feel like there is no better time to become a police officer.” According to the print version of the story, “McElroy said he and other officers in the department work daily to build trust with the community.”
