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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / This Week In Blackness / Another Officer Evades Charges For Killing An Unarmed Civilian

Another Officer Evades Charges For Killing An Unarmed Civilian

by Elon James White|  May 13, 20151:51 pm| 42 Comments

This post is in: This Week In Blackness

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In more sad and frustrating news, Officer Matt Kenny, the Madison, Wisconsin policeman responsible for shooting and killing unarmed 19-year-old Tony Robinson, Jr. on March 6, will not face prosecution. The police union praised the decision, announced by Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, who also happens to be the first district attorney of color in the state.

“My decision will not bring Tony Robinson Jr. back,” Ozanne told reporters. “My decision will not end the racial disparities that exist in the justice system, in our justice system. My decision is not based on emotion. Rather, this decision is based on the facts as they have been investigated and reported to me.”

Protests and marches are happening all over the city. Team Blackness discussed the case in great detail and also had a visit from Mama White.

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42Comments

  1. 1.

    Arclite

    May 13, 2015 at 2:21 pm

    The Wisconsin police officer who shot and killed a 19-year-old unarmed biracial man won’t face criminal charges in the case.

    CNN’s opening sentence makes no sense. How can a person shooting an unarmed person not face criminal charges?

  2. 2.

    indycat32

    May 13, 2015 at 2:28 pm

    What is he saying: because charging the guy won’t bring the victim back, why bother? Never knew that was the purpose of prosecuting someone. And while charging the police officer won’t end racial disparities in the justice system (nor will it end cops killing unarmed black men) it would be a start.

  3. 3.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    May 13, 2015 at 2:28 pm

    CNN’s opening sentence makes no sense. How can a person shooting an unarmed person not face criminal charges?

    @Arclite: This is a rhetorical question, right? Happens every week at a minimum in this fine nation of ours.

  4. 4.

    nellcote

    May 13, 2015 at 2:33 pm

    I’ve supported unions all my life but unless there are some MAJOR changes with police unions, no more.

  5. 5.

    Kropadope

    May 13, 2015 at 2:47 pm

    @nellcote: Surely you’re not considering disavowing all unions for the actions of a particular group of unions?

  6. 6.

    Haydnseek

    May 13, 2015 at 2:47 pm

    @indycat32: I agree. That was an absolutely horrible thing to say. It could only have been worse if he had prefaced it by saying: “Hey, don’t look at me!”

  7. 7.

    ruemara

    May 13, 2015 at 2:54 pm

    @nellcote: This is where I am too.

  8. 8.

    Svensker

    May 13, 2015 at 2:57 pm

    I was very proud of the Toronto judge who found that the local cops had illegally and unjustly harassed and injured a guy — everything the judge says should apply in Baltimore, in Wisconsin, in Missouri, etc. And what’s so hard to understand, anyway?

    http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2015/05/12/sudanese-man-wins-27000-in-carding-lawsuit-against-police.html

  9. 9.

    ant

    May 13, 2015 at 3:27 pm

    I remember when this story first came out, my heart sunk as I heard the name and place where this happened. I grew up in Madison, and had a childhood friend with the name Tony Robinson. I moved away as a teenager though, and hadn’t seen Tony but once in the 2+ decades since.

    I was relieved when I saw the age of the the boy killed, as it didn’t match up.

    Later in the day however, my sister called, this boy was my friends son.

    I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a son like this. I wish the police would be more careful about how they go about the their business. It seems like they have no regard for the people they kill, or there families and loved ones.

  10. 10.

    Keith G

    May 13, 2015 at 3:45 pm

    @indycat32:

    What is he saying: because charging the guy won’t bring the victim back, why bother

    No.

    That is most certainly not what District Attorney Ismael Ozanne is/was saying.

  11. 11.

    scav

    May 13, 2015 at 3:52 pm

    Interesting qualification “My decision is not based on emotion. Rather, this decision is based on the facts as they have been investigated and reported to me.” Put a little air in between him and the police. Cunning insulation ploy on his part? Any actual rift between DA and the police? no clue.

    I’m getting very bored with the various PD unions thinking they need to weigh in on the merits and validty of any and all legal decisions made involving cops. Has Ben Carson weighed in on whether or not we need to instantly obey anything with the Good Police Unioning Seal of Approval Rulings, unlike those mere Judicial ones coming out of the Supreme Court?

  12. 12.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 13, 2015 at 4:10 pm

    @indycat32:
    He’s saying ‘This fucking sucks, but I don’t have the evidence to make a trial. I wish I did.’

  13. 13.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    May 13, 2015 at 4:13 pm

    @Arclite: He might not face criminal charges if he was attacked by the unarmed person. Just because you are unarmed doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for you to start a fight. In this case, the police officer claims that Robinson attacked him when he entered the apartment. The investigation said that this was supported both by dam age within the apartment and the fact that the officer was diagnosed with a concussion when he was taken to the hospital after the shooting.

    It’s also established that Robinson was behaving “erratically” and was intoxicated on a combination of drugs: hallucinogens; marijuana; and an antidepressent. The officer was called to the scene because of multiple 911 calls saying that Robinson was assaulting people, including trying to strangle someone.

    Just because there are a lot of unjustified shootings doesn’t mean that they all are. From what I’ve read about this case, it’s one where the decision not to prosecute is probably the right one. The evidence certainly makes it plausible that the officer was defending himself and I don’t see how you could possibly prove otherwise.

  14. 14.

    D58826

    May 13, 2015 at 4:36 pm

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: The prosecutor is bound by legal ethics (yes I know an oxymoron) not to bring a case that he doesn’t think he can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. I read that the family just wanted a trial to get their side of the story out but we can’t use the criminal judicial system to ‘get our side of the story’ out. That will rapidly turn the criminal court system into a series of kangaroo courts . The place for getting ‘our story out” is the civil justice system. File a wrongful death suit and then argue the case in civil court. In addition the standard of proof is lower than in criminal court.

    NYPD shot a man today who threatened an office with a hammer. Obviously a hammer can be used as a weapon and can inflict a lot of damage. They think he is the guy who assaulted a couple of women with a hammer over the past week or so. I’m still left wondering why they had to use a gun to subdue this guy. Surely there are people in Europe and Great Britain who threaten the cops with hammers, screwdrivers and other assorted weapons but the cops manage to arrest the guy rather than killing him.

  15. 15.

    charluckles

    May 13, 2015 at 4:40 pm

    @D58826:

    “Surely there are people in Europe and Great Britain who threaten the cops with hammers, screwdrivers and other assorted weapons but the cops manage to arrest the guy rather than killing him.”

    This I think is an important piece. Why do so many (relatively) police encounters in this country end with someone shot by the police?

  16. 16.

    D58826

    May 13, 2015 at 4:44 pm

    @charluckles: I will say this much, given the NRA’s successful weaponization or our streets, parks, churches and daycare centers maybe the American cops, unlike their European brothers, feel they have to shot first and ask questions later. It doesn’t make it right and the cops should have more alternative but they don’t

  17. 17.

    KG

    May 13, 2015 at 4:49 pm

    @scav: according to the report, WI has a law that investigations of police involved shootings are done by law enforcement agencies that do not employ the officer involved. The report is linked in the article. I read a bit but not all, apparently Robinson was on something, probably mushrooms and shoved the officer into a wall with enough force to actually damaged the wall. Kenny (the officer) says he was worried that Robinson would attack him again or gain control of his gun, so he drew and fired.

    @charluckles: two things, first, cops here have guns, most in GB don’t (don’t know about the rest of Europe). Second, and very much related, I don’t think many departments properly train officers in the use of nonlethal force. Growing up, I knew a lot of cops, I trained in karate with several as a teenager, and looking back, I get the feeling that training on the use of nonlethal force was left to them.

  18. 18.

    Calouste

    May 13, 2015 at 4:50 pm

    @D58826:

    I’m still left wondering why they had to use a gun to subdue this guy. Surely there are people in Europe and Great Britain who threaten the cops with hammers, screwdrivers and other assorted weapons but the cops manage to arrest the guy rather than killing him.

    Do American police officers actually get training in unarmed combat? Judo, jiu-jitsu, that kind of stuff? It’s not like a guy with a hammer is really a threat to someone with a black belt or one, maybe two levels below that.

  19. 19.

    D58826

    May 13, 2015 at 4:58 pm

    @Calouste: I’m not sure what the training is. I did see an article the other day that the cops who shot the guy with the toy gun in Target were only trained in how to respond to an active shooter situation. So man ==> gun = active shooter.

    Aside from the racial aspects of American culture there is also the High Noon quick on the draw imagery to our how the west was won cowboy culture. To retreat and deescalate isn’t ‘manly’

    But somehow we have to get past it

  20. 20.

    japa21

    May 13, 2015 at 5:01 pm

    @KG: True, an officer may be able to subdue someone without shooting him, but in the midst of attempting to do so, specially if that subduee is on drugs, it would be a legitimate fear that the officer’s gun would be taken from him.
    The problem may not so much be that they can’t subdue with non-lethal force, but that they have guns that are easily taken away in the midst of all that.

  21. 21.

    scav

    May 13, 2015 at 5:01 pm

    @KG: I said I hadn’t a clue as to why he put that little space in there. But, instead of just stating “Based on the facts I have before me X, Y and Zed (I don’t think I can win the case / whatever)” he introduced not only the gap of “as reported to me” distancing but also the facts “as investigated”. Could be an overabundance of caution, could be standard boilerplate. But I’m still struck by the acknowledgement of these are “facts” with qualifications attached. It may or may not reflect anything specific on this individual case, but would be interesting if an explicit acknowledgement that the PD and DA are not mutually and exclusively in each other’s pockets.

  22. 22.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 13, 2015 at 5:09 pm

    @D58826:
    As I recall, L’il Bush had the standards changed after 9/11 to encourage police departments to move to a ‘shoot first, because it’s probably a terrorist’ training model rather than the old ‘try to deescalate’ model.

  23. 23.

    Midwest Product

    May 13, 2015 at 5:11 pm

    Tony Robinson, Jr. pled guilty to armed robbery last year. He was reportedly tripping and on some sort of medications, and had attacked and threatened at least one other person (probably multiple people) before attacking the responding police officer.

    This isn’t Ferguson or North Charleston. The person who was shot was unquestionably a violent criminal who was actively committing acts of violence at the time of the shooting, and after the shooting occurred the police made immediate attempts to rescuscitate him rather than leaving him to bleed out.

    As with all police shooting incidents, justified and not at all justified: ALL on-duty police officers should wear body cameras AT ALL TIMES. So much doubt in this instance could be resolved by having footage of the incident.

  24. 24.

    burnspbesq

    May 13, 2015 at 5:26 pm

    legal ethics (yes I know an oxymoron)

    You seem to be enamored of this little linguistic fillip.

    I am equally enamored of telling you to go fuck yourself every time you deploy it. So there we are.

  25. 25.

    Big Picture Pathologist

    May 13, 2015 at 5:28 pm

    Let me preface what I’m about to say by stating that I am somewhat close to this particular case and probably fall further left politically than the majority of the commenters here.

    There is a significant difference between this situation and the other similar ones that have been discussed on this blog. Namely, Tony Robinson was under the influence of drugs and appears to have attacked the policeman (and IIRC some bystanders as well prior to the shooting).

    No, using mushrooms should not be a death penalty. Yes, being unarmed should make a policeman be more willing to not use the gun.

    However, let’s be clear: this is not Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Ed Garner or any of those other murders. This was, sadly, a case of a young man who made a bad decision to do drugs and then attack a policeman.

    We need to resist the attempt to lump this case with the others. The victims of those other cases did less to bring on their fates than Mr. Robinson.

  26. 26.

    Tone in DC

    May 13, 2015 at 5:33 pm

    I would agree (somewhat) with the folks here who say this shooting was wholly justified if this phenomenon did not exist.

    http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/06/dash_cam_footage_from_open_car.html

    http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Armed-Woman-Attacks-Carjacks-Limo-Driver-Police-206525901.html

    http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-cliven-bundy-rally-20150401-story.html

    All of the perps listed above are still alive. All were armed. So is that waste of space who killed 20 or more people in that theater in Colorado in 2012.

    Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sean Bell and so many others… unarmed. And dead.
    I’m seeing a pattern here.

  27. 27.

    charluckles

    May 13, 2015 at 5:35 pm

    If being high, assaulting others, and having a criminal record is sufficient to get you killed by the police, than half my high school graduating class should have been shot dead years ago. Not to mention the dropouts.

    The problem here seems to be that police in this country are frequently escalating situations instead of deescalating it. They should be protecting and serving, and that includes protecting and serving the intoxicated asshole with a criminal record.

  28. 28.

    MomSense

    May 13, 2015 at 5:58 pm

    I have to agree with Imani that this is the best broadcast you’ve ever done. Please make Mama White a regular. Coolest. Mom. Ever.

    Tomorrow is payday and I think I’m going to have to buy some fucks.

  29. 29.

    D58826

    May 13, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    @burnspbesq: I apologize. Actually almost became a lawyer many years ago but decided to get married first.

  30. 30.

    MomSense

    May 13, 2015 at 6:00 pm

    @ant:

    I am so sorry, ant.

  31. 31.

    Arclite

    May 13, 2015 at 6:26 pm

    @indycat32:

    What is he saying: because charging the guy won’t bring the victim back, why bother? Never knew that was the purpose of prosecuting someone. And while charging the police officer won’t end racial disparities in the justice system (nor will it end cops killing unarmed black men) it would be a start.

    “Look forward, not back.”

  32. 32.

    Frankensteinbeck

    May 13, 2015 at 6:28 pm

    @charluckles:
    I agree, and it’s relevant to the DA’s comments. He doesn’t like this situation and the systemic racism involved, but because this is within the legal limits, he cannot make a case to bring to court.

  33. 33.

    Steve

    May 13, 2015 at 7:08 pm

    Sounds to me like a guy on shrooms and other stuff kinda brought on his own passing. Best way not to get killed by the cops is to stay off drugs and avoid criminal activity.

  34. 34.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    May 13, 2015 at 7:13 pm

    @Tone in DC: And sometimes white people on drugs get themselves killed. You can’t assess the appropriateness of police behavior in a single event with statistics. That’s not the way it works. Sometimes, probably far less frequently than it actually happens, a cop is justified in shooting a black male. Given that Robinson inflicted a concussion on the cop prior to being shot, it appears that this is one of those cases.

  35. 35.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    May 13, 2015 at 7:16 pm

    @charluckles:

    If being high, assaulting others, and having a criminal record is sufficient to get you killed by the police, than half my high school graduating class should have been shot dead years ago. Not to mention the dropouts.

    You left out, “. . . and smashing a cop’s head into the wall,” on your list. My guess is that most of your graduating class didn’t try that one.

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    May 13, 2015 at 8:16 pm

    @charluckles:

    This. As far as I can tell, cops are currently trained to demand obedience and use deadly force as the next resort when it should be the last resort.

    Why would it have been bad for the cop to retreat and call for backup so they could go in with overwhelming non-deadly force to arrest an unarmed suspect? I mean, other than the fact that it’s not the knee-jerk macho reaction they’re trained for.

  37. 37.

    DanR2

    May 13, 2015 at 9:17 pm

    This wasn’t a case of a white cop harassing a black kid for no reason and shooting him. The guy’s own friends called 911 (mutliple 911 calls) because he was on drugs/going nuts and assaulting people on the street.

    Tragically, this is not all that unusual and race really has nothing to do with it.

    That said, it would be nice if cops had some training on how to shoot a kneecap or something and let the tweaker live to mend his ways rather than unload 6-7 rounds in the torso. The deadly force shit is the problem.

  38. 38.

    machine

    May 13, 2015 at 9:34 pm

    Save your electrons, DanR2. Inconvenient facts just get in the way of useful narratives.

  39. 39.

    DanR2

    May 13, 2015 at 9:44 pm

    @machine: what facts? ETA. eh, you’re right.

  40. 40.

    Mike G

    May 13, 2015 at 10:30 pm

    “My decision will not bring Tony Robinson Jr. back,” Ozanne told reporters.

    Then we should stop prosecuting anyone for murder, since none of the trials will bring anyone back. What a stupid emotional statement.

  41. 41.

    Irony Abounds

    May 13, 2015 at 10:43 pm

    @charluckles: protecting and serving the perp to what extent? Does a cop have to sustain a certain amount of beating before he or she can take action? He was dealing with a guy hopped up on drugs who was clearly a treat to the cop and others if he were to get away. Just because someone is a cop doesn’t mean he or she can’t defend themself. The circumstances in this case seem completely different than the ones that deservedly have raised the ire of people of color, and using it as a basis for civil disturbance only diminishes the cases where it is legitimate.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 14, 2015 at 1:10 am

    @Mike G:

    Then we should stop prosecuting anyone for murder, since none of the trials will bring anyone back.

    How does that follow? It was a prefatory statement. As a lawyer in Madison, I tend to trust that Ozanne does not believe that his office has a viable case. Ozanne has a reputation as a straight shooter.

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