Protests broke out in Wisconsin on Wednesday after a deadly police shooting in Madison sparked controversy.
Madison Police Chief John Patterson said Wednesday that the fatal shooting occurred when officers responded to a call about a man in his 30s suspected of attempting to break into cars in the Marquette neighborhood. The suspect fled police before officers apprehended him at an intersection, when a struggle ensued as the man resisted arrest and attacked an officer with a knife, Patterson said. The injured officer used a Taser on the suspect, but it proved unsuccessful, the police chief said, leading the officer to fire his weapon at the man.
Protests broke out against police following the incident, as some critics questioned the tactics used and claimed the shooting was racially charged, as the man who was killed appeared to be black. Critics compared the situation to the fatal shootings in Wisconsin of Jacob Blake in Kenosha in 2020 and Tony Robinson in Madison in 2015, both of which sparked allegations of racism from police, as the killings involved black men. They framed the shooting as unnecessary, slamming police for allegedly shooting the man three times “in the head at point-blank range.”
“Another Black man is dead on a Madison street, and our community watched him die before we even knew his name,” Brandi Grayson, the head of the Madison-based black community advocacy group Urban Triage, said. “That is the cruelty of state violence.”
“They catch the dude, they have him on the ground, he’s struggling, he’s struggling to get up, and that’s when they shot him, they shot him three times,” witness Richard Hegwood told Wisconsin Public Radio. “I never saw a weapon; he never brandished a weapon.”
People chanting “Arrest the cops!” were seen near the site of the latest shooting on Wednesday, in a group of hundreds of protestors that included Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, who called the shooting an “execution” and decried the loss of another potentially black man to “police violence.” Protesters also marched downtown to the Wisconsin State Capitol and disrupted a summer concert series, which the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra later canceled, according to the Associated Press.
A stream of Democratic primary candidates in the state’s gubernatorial race issued statements condemning the shooting, including state Sen. Kelda Roys, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, and former Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan.
WISCONSIN DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT MOVES TO STOP DSA GOVERNOR HOPEFUL
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway (D) placed blame on the police following the shooting, calling on the department “to do better” and saying she was feeling “anger, grief, and fear.”
“This incident leaves me, as I’m sure it does others, questioning why this happened and what can be done so it never happens again,” she said in a lengthy statement. “What decisions were made by officers that led to escalation instead of deescalation? What different choices could have been made to prevent harm?”
The Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation is investigating the shooting. All four officers have been placed on administrative leave, Rhodes-Conway said, until the investigation is over.