Protesters gathered in Madison, Wisconsin, on Wednesday night after a police officer fatally shot a man during an attempted arrest, an incident captured on graphic bystander video that quickly spread online.
Authorities promised a full, transparent investigation and cautioned that the full circumstances of the shooting were still being determined.
A Madison Police Department officer shot the man while trying to arrest him, according to authorities. The man, who has not been publicly identified, was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The man pulled out a knife during a struggle with officers, injuring one of them, Police Chief John Patterson said in a news conference. The officer who was hurt was the one who shot the man, according to the police department.
Patterson did not identify the officer who fired the shots, describing him only as a veteran officer.
The victim was a man in his 30s, Patterson said. His family has been notified.
Protesters marched through downtown Madison on Wednesday evening, videos from local news reporters showed, shouting: “Whose streets? Our streets!” People also gathered at a vigil with flowers and candles and interrupted crowds at an outdoor concert. City authorities said road closures will remain in place early Thursday.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) said he had been briefed on the incident and called for transparency and accountability as the investigation proceeds. The state’s Division of Criminal Investigation will independently investigate the incident.
Police officers were dispatched to Madison’s Marquette neighborhood just before 1 p.m. Wednesday in response to a report of a man checking the doors of parked vehicles, Patterson said. Officers located a man who “fled on a bicycle” through backyards, he said.
Officers caught up with the man again around 1:30 p.m. near South Baldwin and Williamson streets.
During the struggle, an officer deployed a Taser while three other officers attempted to restrain the man, but the Taser was “unsuccessful,” Patterson said. Only one officer fired shots, he said.
All four officers have been placed on administrative leave.
Madison resident Michael Doubek, 31, was getting a sandwich nearby when he noticed a number of police cruisers in the area and pulled out his phone to record. A bicyclist had either fallen or been knocked off his bike and three officers were crowded around him in the middle of the intersection, Doubek said.
“He’s got a knife!” one of the officers yelled, Doubek’s video shows. The man appeared to struggle with the three officers, rising up as they tried to force him to the ground. A fourth ran up, yelled “Taser, Taser, Taser,” and then discharged a Taser, according to the video. The man collapsed to the ground, on his side.
A moment later, as one of the officers pressed a knee into the man’s lower-back area, another fired three shots.
“It was basically point blank, three shots to the head, upper-chest area,” Doubek said.
Doubek said he didn’t see a knife or any other weapon until after the bicyclist was shot, when an officer appeared to take a knife off his person and toss it to the side.
“It was so fast and so unexpected that I didn’t really even have time before it began to when it was over to even really kind of understand what was happening,” Doubek said.
After the shots were fired, a woman can be heard on the video, as sirens wail, yelling: “I saw everything! You did not need to kill him!”
Officers appear to begin administering chest compressions about two minutes after the shooting.
In the seconds leading up to the shooting, Doubek said three of the four officers “were basically on top” of the man, who had just been Tasered and was on the ground. Only after that was he shot, Doubek said.
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said that she was “angered and saddened” by the incident and that the officers would be placed on leave until the investigation is concluded. “There is real pain in our city right now,” she said in a statement. “… I understand the anger, grief, and fear people are feeling — because I am feeling that too. As a city, as a community, as a society, we need to do better.”
At the news conference, Patterson offered his sympathies to the man’s family and emphasized that the department was committed to transparency and working with the community.
“We’re going to do our darndest to communicate as proactively as we can,” he said, noting that they would reach out to community leaders. The department would have officers on duty in case of protests, he said, but they don’t want to “amplify any issues and create friction where it’s unnecessary.”
He urged people to remember that the video circulating online was one perspective of the shooting.
“It’s incredibly challenging to piece these things together,” he said, adding: “I caution everyone, this is … not a full overview of everything that was visible from different angles.”
None of the officers were wearing body cameras. Patterson said the department’s patrol officers do not generally have the devices.
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