Madison mayor condemns looting, but urges focus on systemic racism

Hundreds of volunteers rise early to help clean up State Street

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Brian Hatfield and Stephanie Wild have not worked as stagehands since Overture Center for the Arts shut down in March due to the coronavirus. But they feel immense loyalty to the place and early Sunday morning were scrubbing graffiti off the building left by vandals the night before.

“It’s my home,” said Wild, who has worked at the performing arts center since 1996, when it was still the Civic Center. “I spend a lot of time here when I’m working. Many times I spend more time here than at home.

“I would give anything to keep doing shows,” added Wild who, like Hatfield, is a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 251. “And then to see this happen to the building when we’re not in it, it’s heartbreaking.”

Hatfield was feeling much the same way. “We’re helping out where we live and work. When we’re working shows, we’re here for hours and hours.” Added Hatfield: “I wanted to come down and check on ‘our house.’”

Hundreds of volunteers turned out Sunday morning to help businesses clean up from the destruction Saturday night when groups of people smashed store windows, scribbled graffiti on buildings, and looted businesses. The cleanup effort was largely organized by the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County. The group is also co-hosting an online fundraiser that has already raised more than $100,000 for the businesses that suffered damage Saturday night.

Earlier Saturday thousands had marched peacefully at the state Capitol and around the city to protest the death of George Floyd, who died May 25 after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Demonstrators also rallied outside the Williamson Street house where Tony Robinson was killed by a Madison police officer in 2015, and in front of the Dane County jail. There have been similar protests around the country. 

At a news conference Sunday morning at Peace Park, Acting Police Chief Vic Wahl said the protest was like dozens the department has policed in the past and it concluded peacefully just before 4:30 p.m. “We were actually about to send our people home,” he said. As officers started to return to police headquarters at the City County Building, he continued, “a small group of about 150 people that had broken off from the larger group started following the officers, harassing them, and the officers did not engage and went into the building. It was at that point that the behavior of that small group began escalating.”

By the end of the night, said Wahl, 75 businesses had been damaged or looted. 

Cory Correia, who owns Isthmus Tattoo & Social Club at 218 State St., said that he and two employees were working when people tried to break into his shop. “We held them back,” said Correia.

“It was crazy and emotional — like a war zone,” said Correia. “I had never seen anything like that up close and personal. It was definitely scary.”

Correia opened his shop just 18 months ago. Like many other businesses he was closed for about two months due to the pandemic and was just able to begin seeing customers again a few days ago. “It was stressful,” he said of the shutdown. Saturday night’s destruction comes on top of an already difficult time. But Correia is trying to take it all in stride. “It’s another thing I hadn’t lived through and now I have.”  

Next door, Goodman’s Jewelers suffered substantial damage. “It’s heartbreaking to see 87 years of love and sweat put into this store be destroyed,” the store posted to Facebook. “All of the original display cases from 1933, door, and front windows were smashed out. That being said, ALL of our customers’ jewelry is safe and secure! Many of the items we own were stolen, but they are replaceable and we are grateful no one was hurt.”

At the Peace Park news conference, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway addressed the property damage, but not before she spoke to the events that sparked the protests, namely the death of Floyd and other black men at the hands of police officers. 

“I want to start by saying that George Floyd should be alive today. Our community and communities all across the country are legitimately angry that black people are killed often with no consequence.”

She thanked Freedom Inc. and Urban Triage, the two groups behind Saturday’s demonstration, for “organizing a successful, justified, peaceful protest.” And she said she wanted to make sure that everyone understands that “this was not a case of a protest turning violent. This was a case of a protest successfully concluding peacefully and then a relatively small group of people coming in to cause violence and property damage.” 

“Our community is wounded,” she added, her voice breaking. “People are hurting. Businesses are harmed. We must work to heal but I need everyone to understand that papering over the problems of racism and injustice does not bring healing. If you are angry about property damage, be more angry about the unjustified death of black people. Property can be repaired but we can’t bring people back to life. If you are angry about looting, be more angry about the systemic disinvestment in black communities over decades and centuries.”

City council president Sheri Carter also spoke at the news conference, noting that African Americans still live in fear of acts of violence. “My father was born in the depths of segregation. My father was born at a time when if you saw headlights coming down rural streets of Louisiana, it was safer to jump in the ditch and be bit by a snake because you don’t know who is driving that car. That’s where my father lived. I say that because here we are in 2020. I say that because George Floyd was added to the list of men [killed by a police officer].”

Added Carter: “At a time when we should expect [an] African American male to comb gray hair [it] is no longer an expectation. When your son goes out you expect him to come back. That’s not true for many African Americans. So this is why I say, this is the time, this is the moment, George Floyd has to be the last one.”

Douglas Morgan stood to the right of reporters at the news conference, recording the event and challenging the speakers at times. He was wearing a sweatshirt with the name of the service group he hopes to see to fruition one day — Urban Core Nation. He tried to ask a question, but wasn’t called on. What he wanted to ask, he said in an interview afterwards, was when government leaders will “put real funding” into the black community so that African American boys and girls have a genuine opportunity to succeed.

“We see Caucasian kids — their parents got the money to build their dreams. In the black community, we don’t have money to build black dreams.

“Not being able to build black dreams,” he added, leads “us into chaotic moments.”