In 1517, Martin Luther, a Catholic monk, posted 95 theses on a church door. This led to the Protestant Reformation. Re-formations are never easy, nor are they without a struggle.
As a pundit[1] for the past two decades, I find myself finally realizing what I had hoped for when I began writing Arrested Development. My hope is that the craft of policing would finally come into the arena of public scrutiny after having been left in the woods for too many years.
The first indication that something was changing was the reaction as to how police responded to the Occupy Wall Street Movement in the fall of 2011. There was conversation throughout the country on how police should respond to public protest; that is, without excessive force and, at the same time, enabling this Constitutional right. That went on for a while and then there was Ferguson…
I served over 20 years as the chief of police in Madison (WI), four years as chief of the Burnsville (MN) Police Department, and before that as a police officer in Edina (MN) and the City of Minneapolis. I hold graduate degrees from the University of Minnesota and Edgewood College in Madison. I have written many articles over my years as a police leader calling for police improvement (for example, How To Rate Your Local Police, and with my wife, Sabine, Quality Policing: The Madison Experience). After retiring from the police department, I answered a call to ministry, attended seminary, and was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church. After 25 years leading two Episcopal Churches in Portage and North Lake, Wisconsin, I now serve as Associate Pastor in a growing, dynamic, and Spirit-filled Lutheran congregation in nearby Black Earth. After losing Sabine, my wife of 40 years to cancer, I met Christine, a retired nurse and widow. We were blessed to find love again and married in 2021.
View all posts by David Couper
In 1517, Martin Luther, a Catholic monk, posted 95 theses on a church door. This led to the Protestant Reformation. Re-formations are never easy, nor are they without a struggle. 
Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 