Guns and parking with La Crosse Asst. Police Chief Melby

La Crosse Assistant Police Chief Jason Melby joined to talk about guns, mostly in reference to the city’s first-ever mass shooting, plus a bit about the parking situation downtown. We also, of course, had to work in some Thanksgiving themes, too. 

La Crosse Talk PM airs weekdays at 5:06 p.m. Listen on the WIZM app, online here, or on 92.3 FM / 1410 AM / 106.7 FM (north of Onalaska). Find all the podcasts here or subscribe to La Crosse Talk PM wherever you get your podcasts.

Spent most of the show talking about guns, using the Deandrew Grant case as an example. Grant is responsible for La Crosse’s only mass shooting. Last year, he drove the wrong way down Third Street, downtown, and opened fire hitting seven people. He was sentenced to over 30 years in prison.

But the conversation with Melby hovered around the gun. And not just in this case, but guns in general. Grant was a felon who should not have had a gun. So, we talk about how these guns are obtained, how are they traced back to the person that had them before and what should the penalty be, not just for people like Grant, but also those who sell guns to people who shouldn’t have them.

After that, we made the smooth transition to parking. The police are in charge of La Crosse’s parking utility and the city is in a tough spot because it still owes a lot of money for parking ramps and Melby explains how the pandemic completely flipped the model the city had to repay that debt through things like parking permits. 

Melby has been with the La Crosse Police Department his entire 32 years in law enforcement. We began the show discussing why he got into this career, in which he tells a story that describes just that.