WMTV15 news report.
A 19 year old unarmed black man has been shot and killed in Madison, Wisconsin. Reuters. Anthony "Tony" Robinson was shot during a struggle after police entered his apartment. Police say he may have been a suspect in a recent assault. No weapon was found at the scene. Police are claiming that Almost immediately, protests interrupted. Tensions between the black community and police have been very high since a series of controversial shootings happened last year, the most notable being the Michael Brown shooting. A recent law will ensure that the investigation into the shooting will be done by an outside agency.
My Comment:
Ugh. This is not what I want to have happening in my state. And to have it happen in Madison is the worst case scenario. Now I am not going to pretend to know what happened this early in the investigation. But this is already trending on Twitter so it is clear that a large segment of people have already made up their minds. There is a decent chance that this could be the next Michael Brown/Trayvon Martin/whoever and this time it is happening in my backyard.
So what are the chances of this blowing up? Fairly good I'd say. Madison is so far to the left that anyone to the right of Che Guvara is a neo-conservative. They have a huge population of students that just love to protest. And they already have this trending on Twitter. There is also the possibility that this time the cop really did do something wrong (way too soon to tell though). What they don't have is a huge minority population. The city is mostly white with only 6% of the population being black. Minorities in Madison, and indeed Wisconsin, aren't very common, outside of Milwaukee and a few other places. And the minorities that do live in Madison have a better chance of being middle and even upper class then they do in other parts of the country. In short most of the protesters, if further protests happen, won't be poor, angry minorities. It will be privileged white students and aging hippies.
As for the shooting itself, it is WAY too soon to have an opinion on it. The investigation has just begun so there is no way to tell if the officer acted correctly. Some people want his or her head and some are convinced that he or she is innocent. Both of those groups are wrong. The whole point of a criminal justice system is that crimes will be investigated and suspects will be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Right now there is almost no information whatsoever so if you have reached a conclusion on this case already you are of one of two groups. You either think that cops are always wrong when they shoot an unarmed person or you think that cops are always right when they shoot an unarmed person. Either way, you aren't helping anything by making up your mind before there has been any investigation.
Finally, I'm really hoping that this isn't another Michael Brown style media frenzy. I have a lot of friends who are cops and their job is dangerous enough without the risked involved in this kind of situation. Though I'm a hundred miles away from Madison, it is possible that protests could spread or revenge attacks could happen. Even if there was some kind of injustice here, the whole state shouldn't have to burn because of it... I don't want Madison to turn into Ferguson.
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