Unarmed black teen dies after being shot by white police officer
Print Edition
A 19-year-old black man who died after being shot by a white police officer was unarmed, the Madison police chief said.
Tony Robinson was shot Friday night after assaulting Officer Matt Kenny, Madison Police Chief Mike Koval said. Kenny was injured, Koval said, but didn’t provide details. It wasn’t clear whether Robinson, who died at a hospital, was alone in the apartment.
“He was unarmed. That’s going to make this all the more complicated for the investigators, for the public to accept,” Koval said during a news conference on Saturday. Police department spokesman Joel DeSpain said Kenny would not have been wearing a body camera.
Several dozen protesters gathered earlier Saturday outside of the Dane County Public Safety Building holding signs that read “Black Lives Matter” — a slogan adopted by activists and protesters around the US after recent officer-involved deaths of unarmed blacks — before walking toward the neighborhood where the shooting took place. Protesters also shouted the slogan Friday night.
Koval, who struck a conciliatory tone during Saturday’s news conference, said he understood the anger and distrust taking hold in the community and that “for those who do want to take to the street and protest,” his department would be there to “defend, facilitate, foster those First Amendment rights of assembly and freedom of speech.”
He also asked protesters to follow what he said was the lead of Robinson’s family in asking for “nondestructive” demonstrations.
Kenny has more than 12 years of experience, Koval said, and was involved in a 2007 shooting but was cleared of any wrongdoing because it was a “suicide by cop-type” situation. He has been placed on administrative leave pending the results of this investigation by the state’s Division of Criminal Investigation and the Dane County District Attorney’s review of that investigation.
A 2014 Wisconsin law requires police departments to have outside agencies probe officer-involved deaths after three high-profile incidents within a decade — including one in Madison — didn’t result in criminal charges, raising questions from the victims’ families about the integrity of the investigations.
State Attorney General Brad Schimel said the department will not share details of the investigation until it is finished. “We are resolved that the result of that investigation will be one in which the public can have confidence,” he added.
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