Andrea Irwin says a civil rights lawsuit against the city of Madison and Madison police officer Matt Kenny is her family’s last chance to get justice for her son, Tony Robinson, who was shot dead by Madison police officer Matt Kenny March 6.
“We couldn’t get any justice in the criminal courts,” she said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon at the State Capitol. “This is all I have left.”
Earlier Wednesday attorneys Jon Loevy and David Owens, of the Chicago law firm Loevy & Loevy, announced they had filed a federal lawsuit charging that Robinson’s constitutional rights were violated when his life was taken “through an act of intentional homicide” by Kenny.
Kenny, a veteran Madison police officer, fatally shot the 19-year-old Robinson March 6 at an apartment on Williamson Street after Robinson allegedly attacked him, striking him with a closed fist.
Robinson’s friends had called 911 seeking help for Robinson, who had taken hallucinogenic mushrooms earlier in the day and was behaving “erratically.”
Kenny entered the apartment alone after he heard what he thought was the sound of Robinson attacking another person inside, but Robinson was alone and unarmed.
Kenny is white; Robinson was biracial.
In May, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne declined to charge Kenny with any wrongdoing in the incident after his review of a Department of Justice investigation, saying that he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Kenny had committed a crime. An internal review by the Madison Police Department found that Kenny did not violate department policy in his use of deadly force against Robinson.
“Kenny’s use of deadly force was unjustified,” the complaint reads. “Kenny knew that [Robinson] was 19 years old, that he was unarmed, had been experiencing mental health issues and had been told several times that the other individuals at 1125 Williamson Street had left the scene.”
A statement from Loevy and Owens says police audio and videotape “directly contradict” Kenny’s version of events and demonstrate that Robinson “posed no threat” to Kenny or others.
Loevy said at the press conference that Kenny since fired his final shots from outside of the apartment while Robinson was still inside, Robinson no longer could have been considered a threat. He also disputes Kenny’s allegation that Robinson attacked Kenny inside the stairwell.
“The police version is false,” Loevy says. “It’s completely untrue.”
City attorney Mike May said in an email that the lawsuit was "not unexpected."
"The city will vigorously defend the actions of Officer Kenny, which we believe were lawful in all respects," May writes. He declined to comment further.
The lawsuit comes one day after attorneys for the family of Paul Heenan announced that the city of Madison has agreed to pay $2.3 million to settle the civil rights lawsuit filed by the family for the 2012 shooting death of Heenan, a 30-year-old musician, by former MPD officer Stephen Heimsness.
Despite the Heenan settlement, Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, says he is confident that the city will not settle in the Robinson case.
“The facts in this case are greatly different,” says Palmer, noting that a new requirement for outside agencies to probe police shootings has made the Robinson investigation one of the most thorough and comprehensive in the nation; Wisconsin is the only state in the nation with such a law.
“The fact remains,” Palmer says, “Officer Kenny’s actions were completely justified.”
Palmer represented Kenny during the investigation of the shooting by the Department of Justice and police department, but will not be his attorney in any civil proceedings.
[Editors Note: This report has been updated to include comments from Andrea Irwin and Mike May.]