Post-Crescent Editorial Board

We've watched the shocking video dozens of times. The images are gut-churning.

But what we can't get over is the fact that the Neenah Police Department issued information that proved to be false about the shooting of Michael L. Funk, and went months without correcting it.

We were told police officers ordered Funk to drop his weapon when he desperately ran out of a hostage situation at Eagle Nation Cycles on Dec. 5. In a police dash cam video, you hear no warnings before shots are fired by police.

Neenah Police Chief Kevin Wilkinson told us Thursday, after we released the video, that his statements in December don’t match what’s shown in the footage.

"The video does not give any indication that there was a verbal command given directly to Michael Funk before he was shot," he said.

Wilkinson has known that for months. Neenah deserves an explanation why he let bad information fester.

We were told that, “Gold Cross Ambulance was able to provide medical care and transport that party to Theda Clark hospital. That subject later died as a result of his injuries.” In the video, we can see Funk was lying in the alley for at least 25 minutes before anyone even approached him. By then, it was far too late to administer medical care.

We can understand there was confusion in the moments and even days after Funk was shot by police officers behind the motorcycle shop. It was a chaotic hostage scene with bullets flying. Understandably, it would take hours or days for officers and witnesses to detail what happened, and it would take hours or days to analyze all the video footage.

We know the Neenah Police Department wanted to get it right in telling the public what happened.

But in the months since the shooting, it appears that police got it very, very wrong.

Whether you think the shooting was justified — and we'll reserve judgment because this is just one video of presumably others yet to be released — misleading the public by omission is never justified.

The police department, the city and specifically Wilkinson, who said he relied on witness statements when releasing the initial information, had months to correct misinformation they released in the wake of the shooting. We have talked to them regularly since the shooting and have published stories about the criminal charges against Brian Flatoff, a man who police say fired his weapon inside Eagle Nation Cycles that morning, and about a $3.5 million claim filed by Funk's widow.

The department had plenty of opportunities to correct the record. Instead, it looks like the video does it for them.

Why did they knowingly mislead the people who pay their salaries and the family of a dead man?

And when, if ever, will they explain what actually happened?