Tommy Washbush
The UW-Madison Police Department.
An internal investigation is underway at the UW-Madison Police Department.
A UW-Madison police officer is under investigation after a student journalist presented allegations the officer engaged in unsolicited text communications with students and offered to help students avoid underage drinking tickets.
Wisconsin Watch is not naming the officer because he hasn’t been formally disciplined or accused of a crime. The allegations in the following story are based on interviews with 11 students who all spoke on the condition of anonymity, partly for fear of retaliation, but also in order to discuss activities, such as underage drinking and possessing fake IDs, that could result in legal or disciplinary consequences.
At last October’s bustling homecoming football game at Camp Randall, a UW-Madison police officer approached a sophomore who recognized him from a recent safety presentation he had given at her sorority.
The officer struck up a conversation with the sophomore and her friends, eventually asking Kate — whose name is a pseudonym — for her phone number.
“I don’t know why he needed my number in the first place,” Kate said. “Every time he would walk by us, he’d stop and talk to us — you know how they patrol the bleachers? — he was just always hanging out around us there.”
Minutes later the officer began texting Kate to ask if she and her friends wanted food from the concession stands. The group agreed.
“Free food!” Kate recalled thinking.
He texted again: “Hot chocolate next game (eyes emoji). If you’re nice,” according to text messages Kate shared from the officer.
After supplying the stadium snacks, the officer asked Kate to get coffee with him later that week.
Kate dodged the question, hoping to laugh it off and watch the game. But after the game ended, another text popped up at 11:47 p.m. that night asking if she had chosen her coffee spot yet.
Kate texted her sorority chapter president and asked, “What should I do if (the officer) asked me to get coffee?”
The sorority president texted back, “Just don’t respond.”
“I literally just never responded to that,” Kate said. “It got to the point where he was trying to go on dates…because I was nice to him, he took it too far and wanted to make it more.”
Kate was not the only student to experience unprofessional interactions with the same officer.
Accounts from 11 students, all of whom are affiliated with UW-Madison Greek organizations, describe how the same officer instigated texting relationships, asked female sources on coffee dates, relayed confidential police information to assist students in underage drinking, and took students for rides in his squad car without first having them sign a liability waiver. Two male students interviewed for this story described their interactions with the officer positively, but female students viewed the contacts as inappropriate.
Based on the student accounts, the officer’s behavior has persisted for at least four years. But according to the UW-Madison Police Department he has never been the subject of a formal complaint. None of the students alleged the officer made any physical advances and none agreed to go on a date with him.
“The UW-Madison Police Department became aware of the officer misconduct allegations when asked by the author for a comment for this article,” Assistant Chief Kari Sasso said in a statement. “We will review and investigate these claims as appropriate. There have been no formal complaints from community members, students or others regarding this officer. We hold our officers to the highest standards and take all allegations of officer misconduct seriously. We are committed to transparency and accountability within legal and policy boundaries.”
A spokesperson for UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin confirmed that an internal investigation is underway at UWPD.
The officer didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Gaining trust at safety presentations
The UW-Madison police officer serves as a downtown liaison community officer for an area that includes Langdon Street, where many of the university’s sorority and fraternity houses are located.
Preliminary communication between the officer and students often began within the bounds of his job description. Student leaders reached out to set up semiannual safety presentations at their organizations, largely for students under the legal drinking age.
The presentations cover campus safety, medical amnesty and behavior-based policing and are discussions meant to help students feel informed and educated from a reputable police source.
While intended to detail the potential consequences of underage alcohol consumption — not encourage it — the officer’s presentations were peppered with advice for students on how to continue illegally drinking without getting caught, according to an audio recording of one presentation.
In that presentation the officer told students he would alert underage students ahead of time regarding pre-planned bar checks to help them avoid potential citations — a breach of confidential police information.
Bar checks, often called “raids” by students, serve to ensure bars aren’t serving students under the legal drinking age of 21. Police officers enter the premises while others block exits, requesting IDs from all patrons. Underage patrons in the bar face a fine of up to $1,250 for using a fake ID.
The student sources said over the last four years the officer shared confidential police information regarding bar checks with them over the phone, warning them in advance of the bars Madison police would be checking and the general timeline of the check.
One student in a leadership position also said the officer encouraged them to share the information with their personal contacts.
“It’s helpful to us, obviously — also kind of crazy that he goes behind the police station’s back,” Kate said.
In audio recorded as part of this investigation during one of the officer’s standard safety presentations this past school year, he told freshmen and sophomores, “I promise you I will always help you. If I’m ever involved in a bar check, it’s because I want to make sure that the city cops are actually treating you all with respect.
“And every now and then I might hold whatever door I’m manning open for the three or four of you to leave without any real consequences — but don’t tell my boss that. I say that because I’ve actually done it,” he continued. “I don’t like bar checks. I hate the fact that you all are in the safest place to be consuming alcohol, rather than a basement or a house party or an apartment, and we’re jamming you all up by giving you tickets.”
The officer also examined the students’ fake IDs, checking if they are realistic enough to allow access at local bars. Kate was one of the students who offered her ID for inspection.
“That’s how it started,” Kate said. “He was basically like, ‘I owe you a coffee for volunteering.’”
Seth Stoughton, a University of South Carolina law professor and a nationally recognized policing expert, reviewed portions of the audio and said the UW-Madison officer’s presentation is not a standard police presentation on underage drinking.
“What those talks usually look like are how students can avoid breaking the law, how students can avoid trouble — not how students can break the law and not get in trouble for it,” Stoughton said.
Texting relationships with students
The officer only contacted students about bar check alerts over a phone call, multiple sources said.
“This would be the type of evidence that we use to establish knowledge of guilt; when he’s telling folks, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to put any of that in writing, I don’t want there to be a record of it,’” Stoughton said. “Well, that’s because you are aware that the record could be used against you in some way. So that seems problematic.”
After obtaining students’ cell phone numbers, the officer began reaching out to them outside of professional protocols: regularly checking in, calling and asking them to meet up.
For the nine female students interviewed for this story, his frequent check-ins quickly caused discomfort.
“When you’re in it, you think all these things are to help you, and then the further down in the year it got, when I was working with him specifically, I felt like I was putting myself in danger more than being protected,” said a former sorority executive member. “I didn’t want to work with him ever, and I also warned other people, like do not involve yourself. He’s not doing anything for us.”
Caroline, a pseudonym for a recently graduated senior at UW-Madison, felt similarly.
“I remember us being like, ‘Oh my god, he’s texting you now?’ He went through people, he was always texting different people,” Caroline said.
While females in leadership positions said he straddled the line between a professional and personal relationship, others who didn’t serve on executive boards or in organizational leadership, including Kate, are less certain about why he was texting them in the first place — saying there was no professional justification for his outreach.
“All of our texts are very playful and joke-y in what he was saying — it wasn’t like he was professional,” Kate said.
Offering rides without waivers
Some students and former students claimed that the officer offered them rides in his squad car.
One source took him up on that offer.
Allen, a recently graduated UW-Madison student also identified with a pseudonym, claimed he went for a drive with the officer in January 2023 when he was a sophomore.
“He picked me up in his car and we drove around for like 20 minutes. He asked me about myself. He really made an effort to establish a friendship and a relationship with me, which I really appreciated,” Allen said. “He was just a real beacon of guidance.”
Records of ride-along waivers signed between Jan. 1, 2022, and Jan. 1, 2025, show only two people signed liability waivers for UW-Madison police ride-alongs over the past three years.
Allen’s name did not appear in any of the signed waivers. He also doesn’t recall signing a waiver.
“I feel like I would remember if I had to sign something,” he said.
Stoughton said it’s a liability issue should a police officer choose to disregard mandatory waivers. Typically officers will alert dispatchers of a pickup and dropoff to ensure nothing inappropriate happens.
“There are procedures that are in place to help protect everyone’s interest: the police agencies, the individual officers and the community members,” Stoughton continued. “(It) sounds like he is just completely ignoring those standard protocols.”
Male students appreciative, female students uncomfortable
Three of the UW students, both males and one female, expressed gratitude for the officer’s help in keeping them out of police trouble, especially those who are under 21.
“I do think there is a very deep appreciation for him making himself as available as possible to everyone, in a plethora of different events and situations,” one fraternity leader said.
Allen felt similarly. “I was very blown away by his willingness to not just be an administrator, but to be a friend. Not a parental figure — an adviser, but more than that, much more friendly than that,” he said. “We developed a personal friendship.”
But the female students mostly interpreted the officer’s behavior differently.
“His actions blurred the line between authority and familiarity, leaving students unsure of his true intentions,” the sorority leader said. “What I would’ve changed was his approach. Instead of trying to be our ‘friend’ and making us feel like we had an inside connection with campus law enforcement, he should have taken a more traditional and professional role.”
University policy W-5048 covers relationships between those in unequal levels of power, stating that a relationship between an employee and student is “not appropriate when they occur between an employee of the university and a student over whom the employee has or potentially will have supervisory, advisory, evaluative, or other authority or influence.”
Stoughton said there’s a line in policing, with making yourself available on one side, but affirmatively seeking out individuals in a non-organizational capacity on the other.
“It doesn’t surprise me that the female students have a slightly different perspective than male students, because male students may be — for several complicated reasons — just less cognizant of that power dynamic,” Stoughton said. “Female students may be much more aware of that power dynamic. It’s the officer’s job, though, to also be aware of it.”
This is an ongoing story. If you or someone you know has had similar encounters with a UWPD officer, please let us know at tips@wisconsinwatch.org.
This story was produced in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Investigative Journalism class taught in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative newsroom.
If you have a complaint about the conduct of a UW-Madison Police Department officer, you can file a complaint online or call the department and speak with a supervisor, according to UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas. The department typically requires a person’s name and doesn’t accept anonymous complaints.
