Daniel Bice

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. has been largely silent in public about the deaths of four people at the Milwaukee County Jail since April, even though his office oversees the jail.

But, boy, has Clarke been doing some yelling behind the scenes.

Brian Peterson, Milwaukee County chief medical examiner, said Thursday that the sheriff called him on Oct. 28 and "verbally pummeled" and "threatened" him over information that Peterson's office made public regarding the deaths of two inmates at the jail earlier this year. Peterson said his office followed appropriate protocol in the cases cited by the sheriff.

Even so, Clarke said he would be contacting the state Medical Examining Board to have Peterson sanctioned or his license revoked.

"I haven't been talked to like that since I was probably 5," Peterson said in an interview.

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Peterson documented the hostile 20-minute conversation a day later in a lengthy email to Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, Abele's chief of staff and Clarke. The county exec appoints the medical examiner with the consent of the Milwaukee County Board.

Raisa Koltun, Abele's chief of staff, responded to Peterson by saying her office would "obviously have your back" if Clarke followed through with his threat to go to the state medical board. "Unfortunately, our office is no stranger to his bullying behavior," Koltun said of Clarke.

One of Clarke's top aides, Inspector Richard Schmidt, contacted Koltun later the same day to say he was familiar with the "alleged threats" issued by the sheriff against Peterson.

"The sheriff recorded the conversation with Dr. Peterson, and the sheriff looks forward to any additional comments of any alleged threats that Dr. Peterson claims were made," Schmidt wrote.

But when Koltun asked for a copy of the tape so she could get to the bottom of the situation, Schmidt declined. "There is nothing to 'get to the bottom of,' " Schmidt wrote on Oct. 31. He also didn't respond to a request for Clarke's complaint to the state medical board.

Clarke, who is under consideration for a high-level post in President-elect Donald Trump's administration, declined to comment on his conversation with Peterson or to make available a copy of his recording of the conversation.

"No, thanks," Clarke said via email.

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This is not the first time that Clarke has lost his temper on the job. He once berated a 911 dispatcher for not being professional, threatened to arrest the new House of Correction chief and called a sergeant a "terrorist" and "cancer" in a two-hour, expletive-filled rant on the day after the deadly accident at O'Donnell Park's parking garage.

Peterson said the sheriff raised three issues with him in their 20-minute talk, which Peterson said "was more of a monologue."

"Sheriff Clarke’s attitude was hostile, his mood was angry, and my attempts to mollify him were rudely rebuffed," Peterson wrote in his 1,231-word email to his bosses.

The first issue that raised Clarke's ire was the decision by Peterson's agency to make public on Twitter that the office was investigating the death of an inmate at the County Jail on Oct. 27. The tweet did not name the inmate, who was later identified as Michael J. Madden, 29, of Franklin.

Peterson said Clarke was "furious" that the medical examiner had released information on a "non-disclosure" case, accusing Peterson of "political activism." But Peterson said his office said little more than that a death had occurred and that his office was investigating, something he said he believed was consistent with the state open records law. He said Twitter is an efficient way to get news out quickly.

"I am baffled that such an appropriate information release could be termed 'political activism,' " Peterson wrote. The Sheriff's Office didn't release information or confirm the death.

In the email, Peterson said Clarke "excoriated" him for failing to give the Sheriff's Office a heads up before Peterson released autopsy results in September on the death of another county inmate, Terrill Thomas, 38. Thomas was found unresponsive in his cell on April 24, nine days after being arrested for shooting a man in the chest and later firing two shots in the Potawatomi casino.

Peterson's office ruled Thomas' death a homicide, finding that he died of dehydration and other factors. Inmates in cells near Thomas' have reported that Thomas' water faucet was shut off for days by corrections officials.

Peterson said officials in his office notified the Milwaukee Police Department, the investigating agency in the case, and Thomas' next of kin before releasing the details of the medical examiner's report, as is standard practice. It was up to officers at MPD to contact the Sheriff's Office, Peterson said, because it was overseeing the probe.

"For us to do (so) would have been inappropriate and would surely have produced an appearance of impropriety, if not impropriety itself," Peterson said. "We were absolutely not trying to keep Sheriff Clarke or his department ignorant, we were simply following appropriate investigative protocol."

Finally, Peterson wrote, Clarke was upset about the death of an 89-year-old man in a bathroom at General Mitchell International Airport in early October.

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The sheriff was upset that the funeral home was allowed to transport the body to the medical examiner's office, which conducted an external examination and toxicology study. Peterson said the man had extensive medical issues and was under a "do not resuscitate" order.

"After explaining (loudly) that he did not want to tell me how to do my job, Sheriff Clarke told me how to do my job," Peterson wrote. "He expressed his extreme dissatisfaction that my staff did not respond to the crime scene (an airport restroom) to rule out issues (that he listed) including decapitation and incineration, and poisoning."

For the record, the man's head was intact, and no one had attempted to torch him. Investigators concluded his death was "natural."

Peterson concluded by saying he had to endure 20 minutes of "yelling and threats against my licensure for, ultimately, no good reason — or even a bad one." He said Clarke made him explain three or four times where he got his medical license so the sheriff could take his complaints there.

The entire situation could have been handled in a much more civil way, Peterson said.

"If he had just called over here and asked some questions — if he'd just been collegial — we'd have been happy to talk to him, for heaven's sake," Peterson concluded. "But, nope, he wanted to yell."

Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 224-2135 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @ DanielBice or on Facebook at fb.me/daniel.bice.