MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The shooting death of a man who police said injured an officer with a knife while resisting arrest has roiled Wisconsin's capital city, with Gov. Tony Evers calling for “transparency and accountability” and Madison community members gathering Thursday at a growing memorial.
None of the four officers who were detaining the man wore body cameras, but passersby recorded the confrontation on video, and accused the officers of overreacting.
“I thought, ‘Holy cow — what could have warranted that?’ It looked to me like they had him under control,” David Ortiz-Whittingham, who witnessed the shooting, said Thursday. “Even now, knowing about the knife, did he have to die for it? Could this have been deescalated without him losing his life?”
A crowd soon converged on the scene in Madison, a city with a deep culture of political activism. Some brought signs and flowers to a candlelight vigil at the spot where blood spilled from the man. Others chanted “Arrest the cops!” and marched to the state Capitol, where they took the stage at a summer concert series, demanding the name of the officer and that he be held accountable. The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra canceled the show.
Some remained through the night at the shooting scene as police closed the surrounding blocks to traffic.
“I don't plan to leave anytime soon because it's important to hold this space,” said Ben Weger, pastor of Stoughton United Methodist Church, who planted his chair near where someone wrote “Sacred Ground” in chalk amid the flowers. Other messages included, “We saw the videos” and “no fascist police.”
“His life mattered,” the governor said in an online post. “We will continue to keep the loved ones and family of the individual who was killed in our hearts and prayers.”
“I want to take a moment to honestly and sincerely offer my heartfelt sympathies to his family for this loss,” Madison Police Chief John Patterson said at a news conference Wednesday. He said the man killed was in his 30s. Police didn’t release his name.
Madison's independent police monitor, Aeiramique Glass, said police had not yet shared evidence or the officer's identity with her office, which will review the case and can recommend to the district attorney that charges be filed if warranted.
Patterson urged caution in reading too much from the cellphone videos. He said none show the perspective of the officers, and additional video that hasn't been released is being reviewed.
The officer who fired his weapon is a veteran of the force, the chief said. He and the three other responding officers will be placed on administrative leave pending an independent investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation, as required under state law.
Patterson said police were responding to calls that someone was attempting to enter parked vehicles, and the suspect fled on a bike before the officers surrounded him. One deployed a taser but failed to control the man, Patterson said.
In the videos circulating online, the man can be seen standing before he's brought to his knees as the officers struggle to force him into a prone position. Then he falls quickly to the pavement after what sounds like three gunshots, and seems motionless as the officers handcuff him behind his back. Arriving officers then escort one of the officers a short distance away.
The shooting happened in the middle of an intersection in the popular Marquette neighborhood, which is lined with restaurants, bars, shops and homes less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from the state Capitol. The bystander videos show numerous cars at the scene, with people watching and commenting as it unfolded.
Residents who dealt with two other police killings within the same few blocks expressed their frustration on Thursday.
“It’s really unbearable,” said Sabrina Thompson, who was crying at the impromptu memorial. “You can’t describe it.”
In 2015, a white police officer shot and killed Tony Robinson, who was biracial, on the same street. Large protests followed, but the district attorney filed no charges, determining the officer was justified. In 2012, Paul Heenan, a white musician, was fatally shot after he had been drinking and mistakenly entered his neighbor's house. That officer was exonerated as well.
The chief acknowledged that the neighborhood “has experienced a lot of trauma” and urged people to support one another.
The race of the officer who fired his gun on Wednesday and that of the man he killed were not released by police.
But Black advocacy groups, protesters and politicians spoke out against the crime and said they believe the man was Black.
The shooting also focused attention on the Madison Police Department’s lack of body-worn cameras. The force of around 500 is among the largest in the Midwest that doesn’t use the devices.
Common Council President Sabrina Madison said Thursday that she expects a police request for $400,000 to be approved, enabling the cameras to be phased in over the next three years. Others lamented that cameras aren't already being used.
“Nobody can agree on anything,” said Katey Nelson, a member of the police civilian oversight board and operations director at YWCA Madison, a racial justice group. “Now we’re here, looking at another police shooting where we don’t have what we need to make sure the officers are held accountable.”
Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin, has a long history of organized protest dating back to the 1960s. More than 100,000 people marched on the state Capitol in 2011 in favor of union rights. There were large demonstrations that turned violent after the George Floyd shooting in 2020.
And so the shooting quickly infused itself into the race to succeed Evers as governor, with voting already under way in the Aug. 11 primary.
“I am horrified and devastated,” posted Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist candidate who appeared with a bullhorn at the scene just a few blocks from her campaign office. She has called for defunding the police.
Another Democrat in the race, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, said while the details must become public, “these reports are painfully reminiscent of the tragedies we have witnessed in Kenosha, Minneapolis, and far too many communities across our country.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany called on his rivals to let the state investigation “establish the facts without politicians rushing to judgment or stoking division” in a statement that also said he would "work to end revolving-door criminal justice policies.”
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This story has been updated to correct a surname: it's Sabrina Thompson, not Thompsen.
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Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit and Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.
