Police tactics leave residents upset and confused  

It all started with a call to the police to investigate a party in an Oshkosh neighborhood, where there was allegedly some underage drinking taking place. By the end of the night, residents were waiting impatiently near a local school, wondering when they would be allowed back to their homes.

Officer Nate Gallagher, one of the respondents to the call, was standing outside his patrol car on the evening of July 17 when he was shot in the right arm by an unknown person. Police immediately closed off the surrounding area and gathered their forces, including K-9 units and the SWAT team. They then went door-to-door searching for the perpetrator.

Several residents had firearms removed from their homes without their knowledge during the course of the search, and later questioned law enforcement's need and authority to do so. According to an article in the Oshkosk Northwestern, Captain Jay Puestol of the Oshkosh police said that "nothing illegal was done by removing the firearms and that investigators needed to examine them. He declined to say on what grounds officers had the right to remove the firearms, though." In the same article, Martin Gruberg, president of the local ACLU chapter, said, “Search warrants are specific, and include information on why police are there and what they’re looking for. If you give police consent to search, does that give them the right to come in, rummage around and take things? I’m not sure.” He also stated that residents may have "felt compelled to offer consent whether or not they were comfortable with a search because they didn’t want to give the appearance that they had something to hide." One home where permission to search was refused has now, according to one neighbor, become the focus of an intensive investigation. Another neighborhood man interviewed on a local television station said that he came home from his night job to find his home looking as though it had been burglarized, and that his gun safe had been emptied.

By July 29, Captain Puestol was offering an apology on behalf of the Oshkosh police to one neighborhood resident, but there is no word on whether any firearms have been returned to their rightful owners.

Sources: Wisconsin Gun Owners Inc., Oshkosh Northwestern


 

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