Tony Robinson was arrested last April after an armed home invasion in Madison at 6am, according to police reports, after a neighbour 'spotted several men, one of them with an armed long gun, entering an apartment building' (Wisconsin Department of Corrections)
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A 19-year-old African-American teenager was unarmed when he was shot dead by a police officer on Friday evening in Madison, Wisconsin, the city’s police chief has said.
The shooting sparked protests in the city, with demonstrators chanting “black lives matter” on the streets and conducting a sit-in at the City Hall.
Tony Robinson was shot dead by police officer Matt Kenny, who was responding to a report of battery and a man jumping in and out of traffic in a residential area at around 6.30pm.
He then forced his way into an apartment after hearing sounds of a disturbance inside, said Madison police chief Mike Koval on Saturday.
“Once inside the home, the subject involved in this incident – the same one who had allegedly been out in traffic and had battered someone – this same subject then assaulted my officer, and in the context of mutual combat in that sense, the officer did draw his revolver and subsequently shoot the subject,” Koval said in a public statement.
Kenny then administered CPR and Robinson was taken to a local hospital where he later died.
Protestors gather during a rally on Saturday 7 March in Madison, Wisconsin, against the shooting of Tony Robinson
Koval said an initial search found no gun or other weapon at the scene. The shooting is now under investigation by the city’s Department of Criminal Investigations.
“We have to be clear about this,” Koval said. “He was unarmed. That’s going to make this all the more complicated for the investigators, the public, to accept, to understand… why deadly force had to be used.”
Police investigate the shooting of Tony Robinson in Madison, Wisconsin, on 6 March (AP)
Koval also appeared conciliatory in his address, saying he understood distrust in the community after “this tragic death”.
It was also reported that Kenny, a police department employee for twelve years, used deadly force in 2007, when he also shot and killed a man.
Madison police chief Mike Koval speaks at a press conference on Saturday 7 March 2015
He was later exonerated of any wrongdoing, even receiving a commendation, according to the police chief. The incident was later concluded to be “suicide by cop”.
Robinson’s shooting is the latest in a string of African-American deaths at the hands of police in the US that have stirred racial tensions and prompted accusations of institutionalised racism.
It comes days after the US Justice Department said it would not prosecute Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, whose death sparked riots and nationwide debate.
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In its report the Justice Department said the St Louis suburb’s local police system had systematically targeted African Americans.
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