MADISON, Wisconsin—Family, friends and protesters from the Marquette neighborhood on East Side of Madison, Wisconsin, continue to express dismay, grief and outrage over the killing of Corey Ruiz. Mr. Ruiz, a 38-year-old Black father, was fatally shot while reportedly surrounded by police.
After he was allegedly pulling car door handles while riding a bicycle near the intersection of Williamson Street and South Baldwin. He was allegedly in possession of a kitchen knife and was shot multiple times after being forced to the ground.
At the Aug. 14 funeral of Mr. Ruiz, held at Fountain of Life Covenant Church, Rev. Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy. “Corey matters,” Rev. Sharpton said. During the service, the Ruiz family said neither the city nor the MPD had offered condolences for their loss.
In the aftermath of the July 22 shooting, demonstrations broke out.
State Representative Shelia Stubbs of Assembly District 78 called the incident troubling and deeply disturbing in a July 24 news conference. She argued that it is imperative that local government, community organizations and law enforcement all work together to ensure transparency and accountability.
Civil Rights Attorney Benjamin Crump also attended the news conference and is part of the legal team for the family. Corey Ruiz’s mother, Elsa Ruiz, his oldest sister Veronica, other siblings and his 13-year-old daughter, Kha’liyah Aliomar were also there.
Speaking of her son as one who loved his family and his daughter, Ms. Ruiz said Corey was the love of her life and that he didn’t deserve to be killed in such a brutal manner. “They took my baby from me,” she lamented. “I never thought I would have to bury my baby before he would bury me,” she said, breaking down in tears, unable to continue speaking.
Mr. Ruiz had struggles, but it was not justification for how he was treated, his family argued.
“His criminal record tells a tale of trauma, of pain, of struggle,” Corey’s sister Veronica Ruiz said. “It does not define who my brother was. For him to be executed the way he was, based on speculation, I don’t understand. I need someone to help me understand why they felt it was OK to execute my brother based on no facts at all,” she said while wiping away tears.
Describing his older brother as one who was deeply loved by his family, Adam Ruiz said Corey was a man struggling to overcome adversity, who was well liked and known throughout the community for his humor.
“What happened to my brother involving the Madison police was sickening and inhuman and should have never resulted in the tragic execution of my brother,” Adam Ruiz said. “My heart is broken. My family and I will never be the same.
of Williamson (Willie Street) and S. Baldwin
Streets on Madison’s Eastside. Photo:
Olivia Partee
It makes me sick every time and the video just keeps replaying in my head,” he said of the shooting reportedly captured by multiple cell phone cameras and posted to social media. He said Wisconsin’s capital city should require officers to wear body cameras. MPD officers do not wear body cameras.
Marjorie Aliomar, the mother of Corey Ruiz’s child, Kah’liyah, said they had known each other’s family since childhood, and described him as an artist, poet and a very kind human being. “I will miss all of the things that his daughter will never know about him because they didn’t have the chance to grow old together,” she said.
She also said that the shooting occurred only two blocks from their home and their daughter’s school. “When she starts school (in the fall), she will have to walk past her dad’s memorial,” she said.
According to Associated Press reporting, “Kiel Baitinger-Peterson, a White officer with nearly 11 years’ experience in law enforcement, fired the shots that killed Corey Ruiz on July 22, the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation said in a statement.
Baitinger-Peterson was one of four officers who surrounded Ruiz, who was on a bike, in response to calls about someone who was checking out parked cars and an alleged burglary attempt, police said.”
According to local media reports, four Madison officers are on leave while Wisconsin’s Department of Justice investigates the shooting but there is no timeline for when it will be concluded. According to Atty. Crump, results from an independent autopsy were pending.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, protesters took to the streets.
“I spent the afternoon and evening on location to listen to and support neighbors and people from across the city who descended on the location to express their reactions, emotions, sadness and anger,” wrote Davy Mayer, District 6 Alder of the City of Madison Common Council on a July 23 blog linked to his office.
“I have been in continued contact with neighborhood leaders, Common Council leadership, the Mayor’s office and MPD,” Alder Mayer’s statement continued. “My most urgent priority is providing a safe space for continued gathering and protest in District 6.
My very next priority is ensuring a thorough, transparent and independent investigation of circumstances leading up to and resulting in the police-shooting death of Corey Ruiz,” he said in part.
District 18 Alderwoman and vice-president of the City of Madison Common Council, Carmella Glenn, told The Final Call that beyond demands to end protests affecting traffic at the site of Mr. Ruiz’s death, as of Final Call press time, there has been no official statement from the city’s leadership regarding the shooting.
“When the memorial went up where he was gunned down, there was a blocking of the streets for about 13 days, and then there were news articles that came from the mayor around opening the street back up,” Alderwoman Glenn said. “But there has not been anything formal as an acknowledgement from the body as a whole.”
On August 4, bulldozers, dump trucks and a heavy police presence cleared the memorial site and protester encampment around leading to arrests and additional frustrations among those demanding justice for Corey.
Witnesses maintain that the way Corey Ruiz was approached was uncalled for and could have been handled differently, which could have then prevented deadly force.
“The closer I get to it, as someone who’s been working in social justice for a very long time, now that I’m older and being on the inside, it is diabolical, the level of missteps,” Alderwoman Glenn said of her work as an elected official.
“As soon as they open up an office like the Office of the Independent Police Monitor (OIPM), they strangle it out and don’t let it do its job, or the Office of Criminal Justice Reform, same thing.
This death has opened a wound in this city that we know all too well,” she said. As of Final Call press time, Alderwoman Glenn said the MPD has not responded to requested documentation subpoenaed by the OIPM.
Nation of Islam Student Minister William Muhammad, of Mosque No. 3 in Milwaukee, located less than 80 miles from Madison, told The Final Call that opponents of freedom, justice and equality have always employed methods to prevent real substantive change.
“The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has already warned us for decades that their mask of civility is being removed and the whole world sees them for what they are as these deaths continue.
He has warned us to watch the weather and has linked natural disasters to the increased and continued brutality and injustice that we are experiencing,” said Student Min. Muhammad. “So, they can divert attention away from justice, they can even deploy their agent provocateurs, but they cannot stop the judgment of God.”
