Where I stand
Equal Enforcement of the Law
The test of a Sheriff is simple: does the law mean the same thing for everyone, or does it bend for the connected?
In Dane County, we just watched it bend. A judge found probable cause that Ridglan Farms was committing felony animal cruelty. State inspectors documented 311 violations. The facility settled and surrendered its license. It was never criminally charged.
The people who exposed that cruelty face felonies. The Sheriff’s office referred sixty-two people, thirty-three felony burglary counts, for nonviolent rescues; by July 2026, prosecutors had charged fifty-one of them. The one man who actually committed violence against people that day, who slashed tires, slammed car doors into people, and drove his truck into activists on video, was referred only for reckless driving and criminal damage, and three months later has not been charged with anything. Driving a truck into a crowd is not “reckless driving.” A referral that took it seriously would have put reckless endangerment and assault on the table.
And the Sheriff held that up as proof of the office’s “fair and impartial application of the law,” describing the man only as “a nearby neighbor who tried to intervene with the activists,” never disclosing that the “neighbor” is the facility owner’s son-in-law and a town constable. Those facts go to the heart of any claim of impartiality.
Felonies for the people who exposed the abuse. A pass for the abuser. A pass for the man who drove into a crowd. That is not law enforcement. That is taking sides.
As Sheriff, I will:
- Apply one standard. Activists, businesses, and the politically connected get investigated by the same rules, every time.
- Take every credible complaint seriously, whether the accused is a protester or the company the protest is about.
- Disclose conflicts of interest instead of hiding them, and recuse the department where they exist.
- Tell the public the whole truth about who is involved in an incident, not a curated version that protects the connected.
Equal justice is not a slogan. It is the job.
Sources
- Isthmus (April 24, 2026): Judge Rhonda Lanford found probable cause to believe Ridglan “has committed multiple criminal violations” of state animal cruelty laws
- Channel3000 (Sept. 25, 2025): DATCP’s 311 violations against Ridglan Farms
- Isthmus (Oct. 30, 2025): the settlement, Ridglan surrenders its breeding license by July 1, 2026, in exchange for no criminal charges
- Dane County (April 15, 2026): the Sheriff’s Office refers charges against 62 individuals, including 33 burglary counts
- FOX6 Investigators (July 6, 2026): 51 activists charged, 47 with felony burglary as party to a crime, while Blizzard, referred in April, “has not been charged,” with video of him slashing the rescue van’s tires and ramming it with his truck
- Video, March 15, 2026 (campaign-published copy, angle one): Blizzard driving his truck into activists
- Video, March 15, 2026 (campaign-published copy, angle two): the same incident from a second camera
- Dane County Sheriff’s Office video (April 15, 2026): the Sheriff describes Blizzard only as “a nearby neighbor who tried to intervene with the activists” and cites the referrals as proof of “fair and impartial application of the law”
- Simple Heart (April 11, 2026): Ridglan’s head veterinarian chairs the Town of Blue Mounds Board, and the owner’s son-in-law, Jerry Blizzard, is the town constable