A Strange Silence

Paul Skidmore was a long-time Madison alder from the west side. At an online City Council meeting in September, 2020 somebody mutttered an ugly word directed at a Black woman who was speaking before the Council. It was so muted and subtle that nobody even noticed it in the moment, but it came to light after the meeting.

Liberal members of the Council were quick to blame Skidmore, who had had some previous policy disagreements with the speaker. He adamantly denied it, but that didn’t stop them from declaring him guilty and calling for him to apologize.

When Skidmore refused to admit his guilt, the Council even commissioned a forensic examination of the recording of the meeting at a cost to taxpayers of several thousand dollars. And after all that, the examination proved inconclusive — except for one key finding. Whoever uttered the remark was likely wearing headphones, which Skidmore was not. In other words, the accusations against him were almost certainly false. To my knowledge, nobody who accused him ever apologized to Skidmore.

So, in Skidmore’s case there was thin evidence that he might have mumbled one awful word, but that didn’t stop his fellow alders and others from loudly rushing to judgement.

I recall that story now because it contrasts so starkly with what’s going on — or not going on — in the case of Maia Pearson. Pearson also holds an important city position — she’s chair of the city’s Police Civilian Oversight Board. She’s also a member of the Madison School Board.

And here’s what Pearson is alleged to have done according to a criminal complaint as part of formal charges brought against her last week. She and a friend, Brandi Grayson, were out together just before Christmas. At about 11 PM they parked in a loading zone behind a theatre. When a security guard asked them to move they refused and verbally abused the guard. Grayson, who was driving, moved the car toward the guard in a way that he felt was threatening.

The theatre manager came out and again asked them to move the vehicle. They refused and in fact drove over some cones placed to mark off the no parking area. At one point Grayson called the manager a “Karen” and a “fat, white (expletive).”

It’s important to pause here and point out that back in 2020 during the incident Skidmore was apparently falsely accused of, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway issued a statement saying in part, “No words of gender-based violence should ever be uttered by anyone, period, No profanity should be used towards members of the body and no such language, verbally or otherwise, should be used against anyone in our community.” And yet, the Mayor has had nothing to say about the incident involving Grayson.

Now, back to what happened in December. Finally, the police were called, but Pearson and Grayson still refused the orders of officers to get out of the vehicle. They had to be physically removed. According to the complaint, when an officer reached into the car to shut it off, Pearson tried to turn it back on. It took three or four officers to “stabilize Pearson as she was handcuffed due to her constant screaming and pulling her arms.” Once in the back of a squad car, Pearson extended her legs in attempt to keep officers from closing the door.

The initial police log noted that, “An odor of intoxicants was present. The driver refused to cooperate with field sobriety testing.” There was apparently a subsequent blood draw on Grayson, but no OWI charges were filed, leading one to believe that alcohol may have been a factor, though not to the point of a criminal charge.

The district attorney has now charged Pearson and Grayson with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. In contrast to the allegations against Skidmore, this incident is the subject of formal charges supported by witnesses and sworn statements of Madison police officers. And yet nobody on the Council has called for Pearson to so much as apologize much less resign her post overseeing the very police officers she is alleged to have resisted.

Same goes for the school district. In fact, the district’s only response was to issue a bland statement saying that whatever Pearson did was not done in her capacity as a school board member. No mention was made of how this kind of behavior serves as a role model for over 20,000 school kids.

As for Grayson, she leads a nonprofit that receives over a million dollars a year from Dane County and the City of Madison — in other words, from taxpayers. And this is not her first run in with the law. Earlier last year she was charged with disorderly conduct for trying to break down a boyfriend’s door. And yet her nonprofit board has not, to my knowledge, done anything to hold her to account for how her actions reflect on the organization. And, of course, neither the city nor the county have demanded any accountability for the leader of an organization that spends so many taxpayer dollars.

In fact, the community silence around this incident has been deafening. In a city so quick to be outraged and to demand apologies and resignations for less obnoxious behavior, nobody is saying anything at all.

Here’s a question: Why?