Correction (Nov. 22): The FBI has not been monitoring a Brookfield-based national marketing firm that represents teachers unions. The original version of this story said FBI agents were in the business's parking lot monitoring it after threats, but the agents were parked there for unrelated surveillance, Brookfield police said Tuesday. The Brookfield Patch regrets the error.
United Education Profession in Brookfield called police several times last week to report employees had receiving harassing, threatening phone calls.
The same week that an effort to was launched, employees of United Education Profession called police three times about threats and suspicious vehicles in its Burleigh Road parking lot.
The first recall Walker petitions were signed just after midnight Tuesday, and a was held Tuesday evening outside Walker's Wauwatosa home. The rally was organized by We Are Milwaukee, whose spokesman Ted Kraig, is an employee with Council 10 of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state teachers union. The union is located in the same building as United Education Profession.
According to police reports:
At 7:11 a.m. Wednesday, a United Education Profession staff assistant called Brookfield police to say a man had phoned the business three times that morning telling her how "(expletive) up" the teachers and their unions are. The caller's identity was blocked.
United Education called police again the next afternoon, saying it was continuing to receive threats from an unknown caller.
Kraig, who works in the same building, also told police Thursday that he was getting harassing calls to his home, cell and work phones, including calls at 2 a.m. Thursday. No messages ever were left and the phone listed to a number with a 612 area code.
Kraig said he believe his recall advocacy and media interviews at the Wauwatosa rally had prompted the calls.
He added that another vocal recall supporter had reported to WEAC's Sun Prairie police that she had received a death threat from the same phone number that was calling Kraig.
At 4 p.m. Thursday United Education called police a third time, this time concerned about two vehicles parked in its lot. An employee said she had approached the occupants in the vehicles who both said they were with the FBI. The business asked police to verify this, and officers confirmed they were FBI agents.
Police said Tuesday the agents were there for unrelated surveillance and not for any issues related to United Education Profession.
Recall yard sign complaint
A resident in the 15400 block of Hackberry Lane said someone had defaced his Recall Walker yard sign sometime overnight Saturday.
A sign saying "We Love" was placed over the Recall Walker sign and someone wrote in smaller print an expletive and the word "socialist." The man said he didn't want to prosecute the offender, but wanted the incident put on the record.
