Mass protests broke out in the city of Madison in the US state of Wisconsin after a video of the death of a local resident in police custody was posted on the Internet. According to law enforcement, the man allegedly stole bicycles and, upon arrest, attacked them with a large kitchen knife, which forced the police to open fire.
Residents were outraged by the fact that the footage of the arrest shows that at the time of the shooting the man was already lying on the ground. In the video taken by witnesses, three shots can be heard. Before this, you can see that four police officers tried to detain the alleged offender, who knocked him to the ground, and one of them kicked him.
🚨🇺🇸 Police in #Madison, #Wisconsin, fatally shot a man in his 30s after a struggle during an attempted arrest
Authorities say the man fled on a bicycle, later produced a large fixed-blade knife, injured an officer, & a Taser failed before a veteran officer fired three shots pic.twitter.com/AoPlrZ5XdR
— GlobeUpdate (@Globupdate) July 23, 2026
The police emphasized that on Wednesday, July 22, the man tried to escape from them on a bicycle, then fell off it and injured one of the officers with a knife during the arrest. They tried to use a stun gun on the intruder, but “to no avail.”
“The officer who was stabbed fired shots,” police said in a statement, adding that the shooter is an experienced officer.
The names of the killed man and the officers who detained him have not been disclosed. The Wisconsin Department of Justice will investigate the incident involving the murder of the suspect, police noted. Whether the man fell on his own or was knocked down will also be clarified as part of the investigation, the authorities emphasized.
Madison Police Chief John Patterson said at a briefing Wednesday that they attempted to provide first aid to the suspect after the shooting and took him to the hospital, but they could not save his life. He expressed his “sincere condolences” to the family of the man killed, who was between 30 and 40 years old.
According to Patterson, the escalation occurred precisely because of the knife, which turned out to be “not small and folding.”
“Obviously this creates risks for everyone. For every officer, for the man himself. I believe that this extremely limits the response options,” the police chief emphasized.
That same day, several hundred protesters marched through downtown Madison, which is Wisconsin's second most populous city (about 300,000 residents). As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes, the march ended at City Hall, where demonstrators interrupted a music festival to address the audience from the stage. The protest included local legislator Francesca Hong, who is running for governor in the Democratic primary.
Protestors have stopped traffic in both directions on East Wash in a march to concerts on the square which is known to draw thousands downtown pic.twitter.com/xuZZcKbWXH
— Laura Schulte (@SchulteLaura) July 22, 2026
“Madison police killed a black man a couple of doors from our campaign headquarters and the site where police killed Tony Robinson in 2015. This was a massacre that should not have happened,” Hong said on social media X (formerly Twitter), citing a similar incident 11 years ago.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers called on residents to exercise their constitutional right to protest “peacefully and respectfully.” The Democrat stressed in X that the life of the person killed “mattered” and the investigation should be conducted in a “transparent and responsible” manner.
