Suppose you went to a high school girls basketball game and were told by security staff to take off your hat before entering the gym.
What would you do?
You might think the rule is a little silly, but you'd go ahead and take off the hat, right?
Here's what you wouldn't do: Get into a heated debate, invoke your status as a city official and watch the thing escalate until the cops were called in.
But you're not Ald. Willie Wade.
Wade's overreaction to a simple request has many in Milwaukee Public Schools scratching their heads.
"I'm a little confused by it," said Roseann St. Aubin, spokeswoman for the city School District. "Pardon me, but I think it's an easy thing to do - to remove a hat."
It proved anything but.
Wade is a frequent spectator at Milwaukee high school games. On Feb. 19, he brought two of his kids to Milwaukee Riverside to see his niece's team, Milwaukee Vincent.
By all accounts, the third-term alderman was stopped at the entryway and asked to remove his baseball hat.
He refused.
"I didn't want to take my hat off," Wade said last week.
It's that simple.
But St. Aubin said the district has a policy prohibiting people from wearing hats or covering their heads with hooded sweat shirts.
She said schools have had a problem with students using their hats to express gang affiliation. The rule applies not just to students but also to adults.
"We need the help in modeling behavior," she said.
Somebody forgot to tell Wade.
The request led to a heated argument between him and MPS security. Wade acknowledged that during the exchange, he emphasized that he was a city official. He said he was not invoking a new form of aldermanic privilege but was making the point that the district should do all it can to encourage more adults and city leaders to attend such events.
He must have made the point pretty forcefully.
It got so bad, St. Aubin said, that security eventually called for help from city police officers, who were already at the game. St. Aubin said the officers then escorted Wade from the building.
"This isn't an issue for others," she said. "We want to make certain that people are abiding by what our expectation is. I don't want to come off as hard or cold, as being somebody that says, 'Well, we have rules, and the rules must be enforced.' But these rules or expectations - whatever word you want to use - exist because they help keep kids safe."
But to Wade's mind, this is a case of zero tolerance run amok.
He said he understands the rule. But he said MPS officials need to use a little common sense.
"Obviously, I'm not a gang member," Wade said. "It's kind of like we have a rule that says you've got to be 21 to buy liquor. Well, if a guy comes in there who's 76 years old and he doesn't have his ID on him, you need to be able to interpret the rule."
Besides, the alderman said, he's been to plenty of games in which other adults and even MPS security staff members wore hats. He said he dons one at games about half the time.
In this case, he said he can't remember which logo he was sporting. "It didn't say Crips or Blood," he noted.
Wade has a point about the need to apply common sense when enforcing rules.
But why didn't he use a little of his own by taking off his hat?
He said he chose instead to follow the letter of the MPS law.
"If you don't want to take your hat off, your option is you can leave," Wade said, "which I did."
For all the commotion, Wade didn't end up missing much.
Vincent trounced Riverside, 72-35.
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/85788842.html
