Controversial Former Milwaukee Sheriff May Forfeit Naval Degree

By Debbie Gregory.

Former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke has found himself in the middle of more than one controversy. One of the most divisive political figures in Wisconsin politics, Clarke recently resigned.

In addition to the fact that he may lose his master’s degree from the Naval Postgraduate School, the 61-year-old Clarke reportedly sent a famous F-bomb laden sentence to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Daniel Bice.

Bice emailed Mr. Clarke a series of questions asking how he felt about losing his round-the-clock, taxpayer-funded security detail, which reportedly cost more than $220,000 since January.

Clark’s emailed response to Bice was “F— you and the horse you rode in on. I’m David Clarke and I approve this message.”

CNN reported that Clarke’s master’s thesis, entitled “Making U.S. Security and Privacy Rights Compatible,” was found to have substantial portions of the submission that were plagiarized. In response to the report, Clarke called journalist Andrew Kaczynski, who broke the story, a “sleaze bag” and denied that he had plagiarized.

But on 47 occasions throughout the paper, Clarke credited sources with a footnote, but did not indicate with quotation marks that he is taking the words verbatim.

Per Naval Postgraduate School guidelines, “If a passage is quoted verbatim, it must be set off with quotation marks (or, if it is a longer passage, presented as indented text), and followed by a properly formulated citation.”

In Clarke’s book, Cop Under Fire: Moving Beyond Hashtags of Race, Crime and Politics for a Better America, he advocates for rounding up Americans who are perceived as threats, suspending their rights, holding them indefinitely, and trying their cases with military tribunals rather than in the court system.

Clarke issued a “retirement statement” to local media hours after his resignation was announced. “After almost forty years serving the great people of Milwaukee County, I have chosen to retire to pursue other opportunities,” Clarke wrote.

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