A 19-year-old black man who died after being shot by a police officer was unarmed, the Madison, Wis., police chief said Saturday.
Tony Robinson was shot Friday night after assaulting Officer Matt Kenny inside an apartment, according to Madison Police Chief Mike Koval.
Kenny was injured, Koval said, but didn’t provide details. It wasn’t clear whether Robinson was alone in the apartment.
“He was unarmed,” Koval said during a news conference. “That’s going to make this all the more complicated for the investigators, for the public to accept.”
The victim’s grandmother — Sharon Irwin, who is white — vented her anger on Facebook: Police “shot him in the chest like a dog,” she wrote. “F–k these racist white mother f–kers with a badge.”
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 nation after recent officer-involved deaths of unarmed black men. Later, they walked toward the neighborhood where the shooting took place.
Koval, who struck a conciliatory tone during Saturday afternoon’s news conference, said he understood the anger and distrust taking hold in the community, and said 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 at the scene in asking for “nondestructive” demonstrations. The Dane County NAACP issued a statement Saturday calling for “calm and vigilant monitoring of events as they unfold.”
Koval said police responded to a call at about 6:30 p.m. Friday, at which point Kenny went to an apartment and forced his way inside after hearing a disturbance. The officer was assaulted by Robinson, and then fired at him, Koval said. He couldn’t say how many shots were fired because of the investigation.