A police officer in Madison, Wisconsin shot and killed a man Wednesday after the suspect pulled out a knife and wounded the officer during an attempted arrest, according to the city’s police chief.
Video recorded on a cellphone and shared widely on social media captured the moments surrounding the shooting. Three gunshots can be heard in the footage. Madison Police Chief John Patterson cautioned at a press conference that the video only shows one angle of the full incident.
Patterson offered condolences to the deceased man’s loved ones. “I want to take a moment to honestly and sincerely offer my heartfelt sympathies to his family for this loss,” he said. The man was in his 30s, but police have not publicly identified him.
The shooting took place on a city street in a well-known neighborhood filled with restaurants, bars, shops, and homes, located less than two miles from the Wisconsin state Capitol. Video from the scene shows vehicles stopped at an intersection while bystanders watched the events unfold.
The same street was the site of a 2015 fatal police shooting, when a white officer shot and killed Tony Robinson, who was biracial. That incident triggered large-scale protests, though the district attorney ultimately determined the officer was justified and declined to file charges.
Police did not disclose the race of the officer involved in Wednesday’s shooting or the man who was killed. However, Black community advocates in Madison stated that the man killed was Black.
Brandi Grayson, who leads the Madison-based Black community advocacy organization Urban Triage, responded to the shooting with a pointed statement. “Another Black man is dead on a Madison street, and our community watched him die before we even knew his name,” she said. “That is the cruelty of state violence.”
A crowd gathered near the scene Wednesday afternoon, with people chanting, “Arrest the cops!”
According to Chief Patterson, officers had been responding to reports of someone trying to break into parked cars in the area. The suspect fled on a bicycle through nearby backyards before officers caught up with him in the street.
Patterson said the suspect either fell from his bike or was pulled off by officers, and during the ensuing struggle, he produced a knife and injured one of the officers. A taser was deployed but failed to stop the suspect, the chief said. The officer who had been stabbed then fired his weapon. The man was taken to a hospital, where he died. Patterson described the officer who fired as a veteran on the force but did not share further details.
A second officer also sustained an injury, though the circumstances remain unclear. Two other officers at the scene were not hurt.
The Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation has taken over the inquiry into the shooting, as is standard protocol when law enforcement officers are involved in a shooting.
