Sharon Irwin has waited eleven years.
Her grandson, Tony Robinson, was 19 when Madison Police Officer Matthew Kenny shot and killed him in 2015. Kenny was never charged, and he still wears a Madison badge. Last week, for the first time, Ms. Irwin got a lawyer to bring her complaint before the Police and Fire Commission. Meeka Glass, Madison’s Interim Independent Police Monitor, made that happen.
Tonight the Common Council votes on whether to fire her.
On October 6, the Madison Police Department gave, in writing, a deadline of October 19 for handing Glass Matthew Kenny’s records. She had been asking for them since April. Kenny’s records never came.
On the same day, a different set of papers did arrive: a memo from the City Attorney to the Council accusing Glass of leaking privileged records.
So on October 19, Madison showed us two very different speeds of accountability. The Police Department couldn’t produce records it had promised its own monitor. The City Attorney produced another accusation against that monitor in time for the vote. Tonight the Council is being asked to treat the second as more urgent than the first.
The file that never came
In April, Glass asked MPD for Kenny’s personnel file, internal affairs investigations, use-of-force reports, complaints, and disciplinary records. When the department said records staff were stretched thin, she told them she would take everything they had and go through it herself. She followed up in May, July, and September. On October 6, an assistant chief wrote that the records “should be set for release on October 19th.” Later that same day, according to Madison365, the resolution to fire Glass was introduced.
October 19 came, and the file did not. Her follow-up email went unanswered. A reporter asked the assistant chief whether she knew about the firing resolution when she chose that date. That question still awaits an answer.
So what happens now? Is there a sanction for missing the deadline? A review? Does the chief have to explain the delay on the record? Who can compel the department to produce the file?
The public hasn’t been shown any response at all. The police get asked for an explanation. Glass gets a vote on her removal.
The work that’s on the line
Here is what this office looks like when it does its job.
On December 31, 2024, Richard Lee Johnson, a 32-year-old Black man, died one day after going into cardiac arrest during his arrest by Madison police. The official ruling was an accidental overdose, and the officers weren’t charged. His mother, Gloria Johnson, filed a complaint. Glass brought in an independent forensic pathologist, Dr. Victor Weedn. On June 15, her office published his conclusion: Johnson died from prone restraint and the neglect of officers who should have recognized he needed urgent medical attention.
Six days before that report came out, the Council had voted unanimously to keep her.
That report is what independent oversight exists to produce. It is a finding the official story left out, reached because one office refused to accept the first answer. It’s also why the emails at the center of tonight’s accusation exist at all.
She showed the record to the people judging her
The resolution suggests Glass wouldn’t cooperate with other agencies on the Johnson case. She had emails she believed challenged that accusation.
Here is what those emails show. The police chief asked her to arrange prone-restraint training, and she replied explaining that Dr. Weedn now works for the Dane County Medical Examiner and she had no authority to compel him to train officers. The emails also show that in May 2025, while the Johnson family was still waiting to learn whether anyone would be charged, a deputy city attorney was already preparing for the family’s expected lawsuit and telling police records staff to preserve the video.
According to Madison365, the agreement between MPD and her office allows police to show “red flag” records to the monitor, who may share them with no one. That includes the Council voting on her job.
Glass gave those emails to the Council’s vice president, Carmella Glenn, so that the body deciding her fate could see them. She didn’t go to a reporter, and she didn’t post files online. She acted openly, owned it, and told Madison365 she’s “not sorry.”
Alder Glenn posted the emails on October 14. She says she didn’t know they were restricted, and she has since taken them down. They were publicly visible for six days before the City Attorney’s memo arrived on the eve of the vote. That memo isn’t even the basis of the resolution, which cites only the August 31 and October 2 memos. It’s a new accusation, delivered less than a day before Alders vote.
Look at who sits in each seat. The police, who are the ones being investigated, decide what’s confidential. The City Attorney’s office, which also represents the police, interprets those rules. That same office wrote both memos the Council relies on, and now it has written the leak accusation too. Privilege protects a client’s legal interests, not government decisions from accountability, and the Common Council governs the city the City Attorney represents.
So here are the questions the City owes the public. Was there a lawful, independent way for Glass to present this evidence to the Council in her own defense? A confidential review? Independent legal guidance the City would honor? If any such path existed, show us that she was told about it and that it was adequate. If anyone believes a law was broken, name the law.
Until the City answers, the public has seen no lawful, independent avenue for an accused monitor to present evidence to the people judging her. A system without such an avenue doesn’t protect confidentiality. It’s protecting the accusation.
Read the rest of the resolution
The resolution doesn’t stop at firing Glass. It also provides that “the Common Council Chief of Staff shall supervise the staff of the Office of the Independent Monitor until such time as a permanent Independent Police Monitor is hired or until further order of the Common Council.”
More precisely, that language covers supervision of the office’s staff. It does not transfer every power the office holds. But the people who carry out investigations, records requests, and complaint work day to day would report to the Council’s own chief of staff, and that arrangement lasts as long as the Council chooses.
The ordinance gives the civilian oversight board, not the Council, the power to hire and supervise the monitor. It says nothing about the Council firing her.
So follow the authority. If Glass is removed, the police keep their records, and the City Attorney keeps interpreting the rules. The Council’s own staff takes charge of the people doing oversight work, and the civilian board’s practical role in the office shrinks.
Who answers to the families then? Who makes sure Sharon Irwin’s attorney gets the records? Who takes over the Kenny requests, the Johnson findings, and the open investigation into the death of Corey Ruiz? The Council should be able to answer every one of those questions before it votes.
How the machinery works
Nobody had to say anything hateful. The machinery just knew which deadline to keep.
That’s why reducing racism to someone saying a slur is so convenient. It lets institutions reproduce racial inequality through ordinary administrative decisions while everyone insists they meant well. When the police miss a deadline on the officer who killed Tony Robinson, it’s an inconvenience. When a Black woman shows her employer the record, it’s an emergency. Watch who gets patience, who gets a memo the night before a vote, and whose authority is still standing at the end.
I’m not claiming to know anyone’s private motives. I’m describing the City’s documented responses.
Notice, too, how quickly the story became about whether the monitor broke the rules rather than whether the rules let her monitor the police at all. Today’s headline led with the accusation against Glass. The news that MPD missed its deadline on Kenny’s records came further down. When the accusation against the investigator becomes the main event, the investigation fades from view.
To the Alders voting tonight
You’ve had months to review complaints about Meeka Glass. You’ve had six days to review the emails and one day to consider the City Attorney’s latest memo. You still don’t have the Kenny records the Police Department promised its own monitor.
If you believe in due process, refuse to act on an accusation no one has examined. If police accountability matters to you, demand the records. If you support civilian oversight, explain how this resolution leaves the board’s authority intact.
If you need a line for the microphone, here’s one: “I’m not voting on the memo that showed up. I’m waiting on the file that didn’t.”
And Madison, call your alder before 6:30 and fill that chamber.
The question that outlives tonight
Imagine the next monitor investigates another death, reaches findings the police dispute, and refuses to back down. Will Madison protect that monitor’s independence, or start the removal process all over again?
If the answer depends on whether the people being watched like the person watching them, then what Madison built is conditional oversight. And conditional oversight is not independence.
Sharon Irwin has waited eleven years. Matthew Kenny’s records remain outstanding. The City Attorney’s accusation arrived in time for the vote. And tonight, Madison’s Common Council must decide whether to remove the woman who has been demanding answers.
Vote no. Demand the records. Protect independent oversight.
Because if Madison can remove the investigator before the investigation gets the evidence, who is the oversight system really protecting?
