Chali Pittman
Protesters march down Willy Street on July 24, 2026.
Protesters march down Willy Street on July 24, two days after Corey Ruiz was killed during a scuffle with police.
On July 23, former Madison Ald. Juliana Bennett — one of five candidates running for a Madison assembly district — was helping lead a crowd of protestors that marched into a meeting downtown of mayors from around the country, calling for “Justice for Corey.”
It was one day after a Madison police officer, according to bystander footage posted on social media, fatally shot Corey Ruiz three times seconds after another officer deployed a taser. (Police chief John Patterson has said the taser was ineffective; he has also asked people not to rush to judgment.)
Near the entrance, Bennett confronted Ald. Regina Vidaver, a former council colleague. “Why are you here and you’re not with community members?” Bennett asked. “You are an elected official, this is your job. You know your job is to stand with people.”
Vidaver said she’d just come from Ruiz’s vigil. “I can’t fix everything, Juliana, and you know it,” she said. “I do not have the power.”
“You could introduce a resolution right now calling on the police department to arrest cops,” Bennett pressed. “You can. You have that power.”
“I can’t, and it has no weight. As you know,” Vidaver said. Bennett replied, “It does have weight to the mother who lost her child.”
Ruiz’s killing has re-opened deep wounds in Madison, testing community trust in policing, in established systems, and elected officials at large. Ruiz’s killing happened in the Willy Street neighborhood, the site of five other police-involved shootings since 2004. It’s also renewed longstanding debate over who actually has the power to enact change.
Protesters hit the street almost immediately after the killing. They join with longtime police reform advocates in asking for accountability and justice for Ruiz and his family, but the specifics of their requests sometimes overlap and contradict. Among their calls: Arrest the cop who shot Ruiz or, at least, fire him now; also, suspend all the officers involved without pay.
Suspending officers without pay would require labor negotiations with the Madison Professional Police Officers Association. It would also take a change in the police department’s standard operating procedures on “officer-involved deaths,” which currently mandate that the involved officers get administrative leave with pay.
Firing the officer would be complex. The authority to hire or fire police officers lies with Madison’s Police and Fire Commission, an independent agency mandated by state statute, composed of commissioners appointed by the mayor.
Not even the police chief can fire an officer. He only has the power to file a complaint with the PFC. In 2013, former Police Chief Noble Wray filed a complaint against officer Stephen Heimsness, who shot and killed Paul Heenan in 2012. Heimsness announced his resignation before the PFC ruled, and the complaint was dismissed.
Chali Pittman
Madison Police Chief John Patterson.
Patterson has promised that the police department will examine its policies, training and response.
The Ruiz shooting is, per state law, currently being investigated by an outside agency — the Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation. Once completed, the decision to charge the officer will be up to longtime Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne.
Ozanne has not charged police officers for fatal police killings before — clearing Stephen Heimsness in the shooting death of Heenan, and Matt Kenny in the 2015 shooting death of Tony Robinson. If he does make the decision to charge, the cop could be arrested. If Ozanne declines to press charges, the DCI’s investigative file would become public, at which point, the officer’s name would also be released.
Advocates also want the way cops are trained to change. Baseline training standards are set by the state Law Enforcement Standards Board. Most members of the 15-person body are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. (Both Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett and Dane County Emergency Management Director Charles Tubbs serve on the board.)
Officers statewide are taught the same procedures for defense and arrest tactics. Those standards are looser than what was recommended by a civilian-led committee charged with reviewing policies and procedures of the Madison Police Department. In 2019, the committee issued a report with 177 recommendations, including that the police department establish a set of “precautionary principles” in its procedures for use of force. Among other things, it would direct that deadly force be used as a last resort and in proportion to the threat presented.
It’s unclear whether these principles were formally adopted in the department’s policy on use of force, which requires an officer to “reasonably believe” that nothing else could “protect another person or the officer from “an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm.”
Speaking at a chaotic press conference July 23, Police Chief John Patterson promised to immediately review departmental procedures. “We’re not going to wait for a final report from DCI to begin the work of examining our policies, our training and our response,” Patterson said. “The review has to start now, and it can’t wait. There is accountability. If this investigation finds that policy, training, judgement failed yesterday, I will say it publicly and we’ll fix it.”
Some of the protesters are members of local groups that have long advocated for police reform. At a July 27 press conference, held at the Social Justice Center, Zon Moua, organizing director for social justice organization Freedom Inc., called for community control over policing and more authority for the Office of the Independent Police Monitor and civilian oversight board — two bodies established in 2020 to be police watchdogs.
“We need the power to actually make policies. We need true independence from the city to be able to do that. If that is not where we’re moving, if that is not what the city is going to hand over, we actually want the board gone. Because we are actually asking for community control. We do not want a false board, a false office, that cannot actually do what they need to do for the community.”
At the press conference, interim independent monitor Aeiramique Glass, who was hired last November, confirmed she is conducting her own investigation, but is finding it difficult to get cooperation. She says she subpoenaed the police for dashcam video of the incident, along with other records. She also described a “significant amount of obstruction” in obtaining records, including difficulty in getting the names of the officers involved.
It’s a new legal test, as the police monitor office didn’t exist when previous police-involved shootings were investigated by the DCI. Patterson has said there are many questions he can’t answer because he does not know the answer and he does not want to jeopardize the independence of the state investigation.
Protestors are also asking for increased funding for the Office of the Independent Monitor. In her recent budget request, Glass rejected Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway’s directive for agency cuts of 2%, telling reporters on July 27 that she has asked for $771,000, nearly double the $405,000 the office currently receives. (Operating budget requests will be published online Aug. 3.) She said the mayor of a city that purports to have a racial and social justice motto should never have asked her to reduce a “nothing” budget.
Advocates say Glass should get 1% of the Madison police budget, or about $1 million, to fund operations for both the board and her office. The police department’s 2026 operating budget is $98.5 million, or about 22% of the city’s total operating budget. But cutting the police budget is a matter that is also now under the purview of the state Legislature.
Under a sweeping bill that overhauled Wisconsin’s shared revenue formula, signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers in 2023, municipalities must retain their current levels of policing, fire and EMS workers, or face a 15% reduction in shared revenue. That would amount to a loss of about $1.5 million per year for Madison, says city budget director David Schmiedicke.
Glass says her department needs the additional funds for such positions as a full-time statistician, investigator, case manager and independent counsel, as well as needed software.
But finding the money will be tough as the city is already looking at a roughly $11 million operating budget gap.
The monitor’s office has gotten some political support of late. Shortly after Ruiz’s death, four alders withdrew their names from proposed amendments intended to clarify the monitor’s role, but were perceived by some as limiting the officer’s powers. Sorting out existing issues will happen with the help of a restorative justice facilitator, according to a July 27 update from Council President Sabrina Madison.
In a tense budget session last fall, the council found itself choosing between funding for the independent monitor’s office and body cameras for police. Members chose to keep the former, promising to return to body cameras this year.
Madison is one of the largest cities in the nation without body cams for their officers. Patterson told Isthmus in June that he was requesting over $414,700 in funding for 220 body cams over a three-year period; he called it an “intentional phased approach.” Ruiz’s family has called for Madison police to be outfitted with body cams, as have some protesters, though not all are on board.
Mayor Rhodes-Conway recently endorsed Patterson’s funding request, and a majority of the council is poised to approve it as well.
The independent monitor has endorsed them too. She says they’re not an “either-or” but a “both-and” — a tool for transparency and accountability that should be backed by strong guidelines on their use.
