MBC patrons formally charged with disorderly conduct

Six Oneida County residents who were arrested with Minocqua Brewing Company owner Kirk Bangstad on June 27 have now been formally charged with disorderly conduct for engaging in what a police officer on the scene at the Minocqua Brewing Company described as a “dangerous” situation.

In the incident, as recounted during a recent court hearing, Minocqua police officer Jarrett Radmer described a scene in which Bangstad and others at his establishment allegedly hurled profanities and “flipped” off Lakeland Times publisher Gregg Walker as Walker left the newspaper for the day. 

The newspaper sits in close proximity across the street from the Minocqua Brewing Company. Walker did not respond.

The six arrested with Bangstad — Matthew Haugen, Daniel Boggs, Douglas Nelson, Matthew Johnson, Allison Johnson, and Libby Nelson — have each been charged with violating the town of Minocqua’s disorderly conduct municipal ordinance. 

They are scheduled to appear in court on September 8 before Oneida County judge Mary Sowinski. If convicted, they face a forfeiture of not more than $200 and the cost of prosecution. Default of payment could land them in the county jail for up to five days.

Bangstad himself was charged with two misdemeanors — disorderly conduct and bail-jumping. Upon arrest, the sheriff’s department lodged booking charges of disorderly conduct against the other six. The town pursued those charges as ordinance violations and forfeitures after district attorney Jillian Pfeifer decided to forgo a criminal misdemeanor charge.

After the incident, Walker filed for a four-year restraining order against Bangstad, which judge Martha Milanowski denied last month, in part because, while she called the conduct outrageous, she said it was an isolated incident.

During that hearing, Radmer described what he referred to as a dangerous situation. At one point, the officer called for back-up and waited for that support to arrive before approaching the crowd.

“Given the situation, while I was standing there, how the crowd over there was still yelling profanities and being unreasonably loud, and it being an establishment that sells alcohol, it is not safe for me to go over there by myself, where I would be severely outnumbered if anything were to happen,” Radmer testified.

How about no retraction?

After Pfeifer declined to charge the six criminally, and before the town filed its own municipal charges, Allison Johnson and Matthew Johnson sent a letter to the Times demanding a retraction for the newspaper’s report that the two had been charged with disorderly conduct.

The Times declined, standing by its reporting. Times editor Dean Hall noted that the newspaper had accurately cited the official booking logs from the sheriff’s department’s daily activity report, which listed each of the six by name with the incarceration reason being “arrest” and the charge being “disorderly conduct.”

“Under Wisconsin’s public records law, we are entitled to report the information exactly as it appears in government documents,” Hall wrote in response.

Allison Johnson and Matthew Johnson also appeared to suggest that the newspaper had accused the two of being criminally charged, which the newspaper had not. 

“We have never been charged with any crime, nor are we under investigation,” they wrote. “The publication of this false information has caused harm to our personal and professional reputations and subjected us to unwarranted embarrassment and stress.”

The fact is, the Times had never reported that they were charged with crimes — only with disorderly conduct, which can be handled either as a criminal misdemeanor or as a non-criminal forfeiture. At the time, the precise manner of formal charging, if any, had not yet been determined.

Judge: Conduct was disturbing

At the hearing for the restraining order, Vilas County judge Martha Milanowski denied Walker’s petition for an injunction because she determined no true threat had occurred and because it was the only incident involving a personal interaction between Bangstad and Walker.

“If there were more instances like what has been testified about on June 27th, I think this court would be making a different decision today,” the judge said, according to a transcript of the hearing. “But there aren’t, and so I have to dismiss the case.”

Still, Milanowski sharply criticized the conduct she saw on body cam footage, and on other recordings and evidence, and she rejected Bangstad’s attorney’s characterization of the incident as mere “name-calling and mean words.”

“What does that remind us of? Children,” Milanowski said. “Name-calling and mean words. Everybody can do better. Particularly, Mr. Bangstad, I hope.”

Milanowski said Walker had a right to be disturbed.

“And there was traffic that day, right?” she said. “It was a Friday? I think it was a Friday in Minocqua. Lots of traffic, and I could hear the voices carrying across the road.”

It was loud and disturbing, Milanowski said. 

“Mr. Walker, you have every right to have been disturbed by that,” the judge said. “You were just going to your car. It’s not classy. And to use a word that [Bangstad’s attorney] used, it’s outrageous, I think.”

Milanowski went further, likening the behavior to schoolyard bullying.

“If your son or daughter were doing that to someone, do you think that would be okay?” she asked. “No. Would you tell them, ‘You know, Johnny, I’m proud of you. You’re exercising your right to just say you disagree with something.’”

No, Milanowski said emphatically, parents would not say any such thing.

“That kid would be called out as a bully,” she said. “100 percent. If it happened in school? Who knows what would happen? That kid would probably get, maybe not expelled, but it would be addressed. And here we have grown adults doing similar behavior. And it’s outrageous.”

Milanowski made it clear that, while she did not find evidence of a true threat, the actions exceeded what should be acceptable. 

“Are they disturbing? Are they annoying? Are they something that someone should not have to put up with generally in their day-to-day life? I think certainly,” she said. 

Milanowski also observed that Bangstad and those who allegedly engaged in the conduct with him had upset not only Walker but the neighbors next to his business.

“Again, the neighbor isn’t the one petitioning, but it’s been disturbing to neighbors,” the judge said. “You might want to think about that, Mr. Bangstad, on how you go about your beer tasting and your chats with your guests or your patrons, because it’s a neighborhood. And that other person felt scared. I don’t know that she felt like she was going to be hurt, but she was uncomfortable.”

The judge summed up the conduct of those involved in the incident.

“And again, it’s really disconcerting to the court when I saw what was going on in that beer garden,” she said. “Again, I think adults can do better when they disagree with someone.”

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.