× Expand Dylan Brogan A dumpster is filled with debris from a drug house after a foreclosure in Midvale Heights. In August, a neighbor called police suspecting a drug deal near the residence. But in the car was the family of Shelia Stubbs, who was campaigning on the block.

It made national news after first reported by The Capital Times under the headline “constituent called 911, suspecting drug deal.” According to news reports, a resident called police on Dane County Supv. Shelia Stubbs while she was knocking on doors in the Midvale Heights neighborhood as she campaigned for state Assembly — an encounter that Stubbs says made her feel “humiliated, embarrassed and degraded.”

But new information — including audio from the police call, interviews with neighbors and an anonymous letter from a person claiming to be the caller — suggests that Stubbs, herself, was not the target of the caller's concern. The concern was over drug activity at a nearby house, which has since been foreclosed on.

“Please, you need to know, to understand, that I never called the police ON YOU,” reads the anonymous letter sent to Stubbs, Isthmus and other media. “I did call … to report a car that had been sitting in the same spot for a while with people in it. A lot of people in this city do that, and we are encouraged to [call the police]. I never called the police on you, on a woman of color in the neighborhood. I never saw you before the call.... If I had, I would not have made the call.”

The writer says they’re too afraid for their safety to contact Stubbs or sign their name.

“The story I see every minute now is that some racist called 911 on a black [woman] in a mostly white neighborhood. People say they are sickened by this. I am sickened by it, and I did not even do it,” the person writes. “I can’t reveal myself as there is so much hate directed at the person who called 911 on you, which, I hope you understand now, never happened.”

The letter ends: “You seem pretty awesome and I am not the jerk the nation thinks I am.”

Stubbs, who won a four-way Democratic primary on Aug. 14, a week after the incident, to replace outgoing Rep. Terese Berceau, is not buying it. Stubbs is running unopposed in November and will be the first black legislator elected in Dane County.

Stubbs calls the letter “cowardly.”

“All of us make mistakes. But own up to it. Maybe they didn’t intend for this to happen but it did. And they caused it,” Stubbs tells Isthmus. “Talking to me face to face can easily be arranged. This letter to me is not apologetic. Where is their courage to face me and my family? I won’t say this letter is from the caller until they tell me face to face.”

Isthmus obtained audio of the police call with the identity of the caller redacted. Information from the anonymous letter matches up with details from the three-minute phone call with a police dispatcher. On the tape, the caller describes a vehicle with “a bunch of people in it” that had been parked near their home for about 30 minutes. The male caller suspected the occupants might be waiting for “drug dealers to come home,” but there’s no mention of Stubbs or anyone else knocking on doors.

“Up the street, five houses from me, there’s a drug house. Apparently, the police know about this. Now there are people actually camping in the backyard and sleeping in the front half the time. So it’s more of a drug house compound,” the man tells the dispatcher. “It’s active all night long and when the drug dealers aren’t home, cars just park up and down the street waiting for them to get home. It’s pretty active.”

When asked for the make and model of the vehicle the caller provides general details but says “I’m trying not to look because they keep staring at me.” The caller explains to the dispatcher that crime has “gotten bad in his neighborhood.”

“I can’t walk my dog in the neighborhood with my kids because of this house up the street,” says the caller. “[The house has] been an issue for quite some time.”

The dispatcher tells the caller that an officer is headed to the scene and would “hopefully get them moving along here as soon as possible.”

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease so keep calling whenever you see stuff like that,” the dispatcher tells the caller.

Police would not disclose the address of the house and Stubbs didn’t want to make it public. But Isthmus was able to determine the location and has spoken with residents on the block. The drug house described by the caller was no secret, according to one man who was walking his dog.

“The police have been called on that house many, many, many times. It was a crack house,” says the dog walker, who would not give his name. “Nobody should have to deal with that and we all did.”

A resident who lives across the street from the drug house says the property was foreclosed on at the end of August and the residents have moved out. The house has been gutted and a dumpster full of personal items and debris is still in the driveway.

“Yeah. We are glad they are out of there. There were always people out in the street. Always people coming real quick and then leaving. There was a lot of drug stuff going on,” says the neighbor, who adds there haven’t been any problems on the block since the house was vacated. “Everybody within two blocks knows about this house.”

Madison Police Captain Jay Lengfeld, who heads the city’s Midtown Precinct, confirms that the drug house was on the department’s radar and that the residents left on Aug. 31.

“When these type of houses pop up, it’s pretty clear,” says Lengfeld. “On a quiet street like this, neighbors are usually very attuned to what’s going on.”

Even if there was legitimate concern about a drug house, Stubbs questions why the caller thought her vehicle was suspicious. Stubbs’ mother, Linda Hoskins, and her daughter were waiting in a 2014 sedan while she was knocking on doors on the block.

“My [car] windows aren’t tinted. Do my 71-year-old mother and 8-year-old daughter look like drug dealers? What does a drug dealer’s car look like? Things just don’t add up,” says Stubbs. “Instead of just making an assumption, they should have thought about the people on the receiving end of that police call. Racism is an issue. It’s an issue in Madison. Racial profiling is not okay.”

Stubbs gets upset thinking about how the incident could have escalated.

“What if my mother had a tone the officer didn’t like and was charged with disorderly conduct? What if my daughter in the backseat would have jumped out of the car suddenly? What would the officer have done? My child could have been killed. Things could have turned out very differently,” says Stubbs. “The caller put me in a very uncomfortable position. It goes beyond whatever drug house they were talking about. They didn’t think about the person on the receiving end of that police call.”

The supervisor is also critical of the Madison police officer who responded to the call.

“Why didn’t the police go to the drug house? Why did they come up to my 71-year-old mother in the car when I was knocking on doors? Why didn’t it end right there?” asks Stubbs. “We had to prove who were and why we were there multiple times. The officer said the caller thought I was a drug dealer. The whole experience made me feel ashamed. Humiliated. Embarrassed and degraded. This was very upsetting to me and my family. I went home crying. It’s not okay when you do this to people.”

Public Information Officer Joel Despain says before the incident was made public, Stubbs spoke to Madison Police Chief Mike Koval at length. Despain says Stubbs indicted “she was quite happy with the police response although she was very displeased that the officer was sent in the first place.”

“She is saying something different now,” says Despain.

In a statement, Koval says according to the report from the officer, Katherine Bland, she talked to Stubbs’ mother and then “thanked [her] for the information and apologized for having had to interrupt her evening as a result of this call for service.” Bland also spoke with Stubbs.

“[The officer] treated Shelia Stubbs and her family with the respect and dignity they deserve,” Koval adds.

The author of the anonymous letter tells Stubbs she is welcome to present it to “the nation.”

“I am not sure where to go from here,” writes the person. “They have your side, you are free to give them mine.”

But Stubbs is left feeling that the letter dismisses racism and racial profiling.

“What’s wrong with this person meeting with me, cameras off, and we can have a conversation? I’m a very cordial, kind person. To me, that’s restorative justice that gets to us facing a true issue. This letter does not do that,” says Stubbs. “My daughter has to see that her mommy is making a better world for her. In order to do that, we have to address inequities. That’s what I told the people in the 77th district I will do and I will do it.”