A police officer in Madison, Wisconsin, shot and killed a man Wednesday in an incident that was captured on cellphone footage, sparking local protests.
John Patterson, the Madison police chief, acknowledged the shooting at a news conference, but stressed footage circulating was just one perspective of what happened.
“I want to take a moment to honestly and sincerely offer my heartfelt sympathies to his family for this loss,” Patterson said. The dead man was in his 30s, Patterson said, but police did not release his name.
The shooting happened on a city street in a popular neighborhood lined with restaurants, bars, shops and residential homes less than 2 miles from the state capitol. Footage of the incident shows numerous cars stopped in the intersection with people watching as it unfolded.
“Another Black man is dead on a Madison street, and our community watched him die before we even knew his name,” said Brandi Grayson, the head of Urban Triage, a Madison-based Black community advocacy group. “That is the cruelty of state violence.”
A crowd formed near where the shooting occurred on Wednesday with people chanting: “Arrest the cops!”
Police had been responding to calls that someone was attempting to enter parked vehicles in the neighborhood, Patterson said. The suspect fled on a bike through nearby backyards in an attempt to get away before officers contacted him in the street, Patterson said.
The suspect either fell off his bike or was taken off his bike by officers and during the struggle pulled out a knife and injured an officer, Patterson said.
In one of the videos circulating online, three officers are seen holding the man down and attempting to arrest him. The officers lose control of the suspect, who frees his arms and attempts to get up off his knees. One officer appears to reach for his pistol, when a female officer runs toward the others shouting: “Taser! Taser!” That officer did not draw his firearm.
After some jostling, the suspect falls to the ground. As he goes down, another officer rises to his feet, pulls out his pistol, leans down toward the man on the ground and fires three shots at close range.
The officer who fired the shots then re-holsters his gun and places the suspect’s arm behind his back, before standing up and walking away. Two other officers push the suspect over onto his belly, before others arrive to attempt to offer medical attention.
The officer who fired the lethal shots had been injured by the suspect with a knife, Patterson said. He described the officer as a veteran of the police force, but didn’t provide his name.
Another officer was injured, but it’s not clear how, Patterson said. The other two officers were uninjured.
The race of the officer who fired his gun on Wednesday and that of the man killed were not released by police. But advocates for the Black community in Madison said the man killed was Black.
Sabrina Madison, the city council president, called the videos “both disturbing and painful”, in a statement. “I’ve received several calls from alders with questions and what I can say without a doubt is that I expect a full, comprehensive, and transparent independent investigation into today’s shooting of a community member,” the statement reads.
The Wisconsin department of justice criminal investigation will investigate the shooting because it involves police officers.
A white police officer shot and killed Tony Robinson, who was biracial, on the same street in 2015, a shooting that spurred large protests. The district attorney did not file charges against police in that incident, determining the officer had been justified.
The Associated Press contributed
