by Sarah Lehr / WPR and Emily Rizzo / WPR, Wisconsin Watch
July 22, 2026
A Madison police officer shot and killed a man after that man produced a knife, Madison Police Chief John Patterson said.
The same officer who fired the shots was injured by the man’s knife, according to Patterson.
The incident happened at about 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, according to an incident report posted by the Madison Police Department that afternoon. Multiple streets in the area were blocked off Wednesday afternoon — and crowds gathered in protest.
Patterson said officials had notified the deceased man’s family about his death. However, Patterson declined to disclose the man’s race or name during a news conference just before 5 p.m. Wednesday. He said the man was in his 30s.
Patterson said one officer fired shots, although a total of four officers were involved in the incident and have been placed on leave. The Division of Criminal Investigation at Wisconsin’s Department of Justice is investigating the incident.
Patterson said police initially responded to a call about a man who was checking cars in Madison’s Marquette neighborhood. When officers arrived, Patterson said the man fled on his bike.
The chief said the man produced a knife while officers were trying to arrest him.
“This is not a small folding knife,” Patterson told reporters. “It’s a large fixed blade knife that was there and present.”
During the incident, Patterson said, police used a stun weapon on the man.
“A less lethal device, a Taser, was deployed,” Patterson said. “Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful.”
During the incident, Patterson said a second officer was injured, but police do not believe that officer was injured by the man’s knife.
“It’s not clear how that occurred,” Patterson said.
A video posted to social media on Wednesday shows police cruisers arriving at an intersection with sirens on. A person can be seen riding into the intersection and then falling off a bike onto the pavement, before multiple officers are on top of the person. The video shows the person trying to get away. Then, an officer appears to fire multiple shots at the person.
The video was posted by Richard Hegwood, who lives at the intersection and witnessed the shooting. He told a reporter he began recording when he saw police chasing a man on a bike.
“They catch the dude, they have him on the ground. He’s struggling, he’s struggling to get up, and that’s when they shot him. They shot him three times,” Hegwood said. “I never saw a weapon. He never brandished a weapon.”
Hegwood said three officers had been struggling with the person before the shots were fired.
A second video from a closer vantage point was taken by resident Michael Doubek, who said he saw an officer knock the man from a bike.
“He was on the ground, he had nearly been handcuffed, he had already been tased,” Doubek said. “One of the officers says he has a knife, after which one of the officers pulls a taser, yells, ‘Taser taser taser,’ tases him. Then all three, all of them sort of all fall on the ground together, after which one of the cops stands up kind of on one knee and shoots him three times in the head point blank while he is on the ground.”
Doubek said he does not know the details of what led to the confrontation. “But from where I was standing 10 feet away, that looked an awful lot like an execution to me,” he said.
After the shooting, the area was closed off by police tape. The person’s bicycle remained on the ground.
Advocates for Madison’s Black community said the man killed was Black.
“Another Black man is dead on a Madison street, and our community watched him die before we even knew his name,” said Brandi Grayson, the head of the Madison-based Black community advocacy group Urban Triage. “That is the cruelty of state violence.”
Hundreds of protesters gathered near the scene Wednesday evening before marching together to the state Capitol where a Concerts on the Square event was underway.
Protesters chanted and held signs with slogans, including “no justice, no peace” and “Madison police executed a human today.” Some concertgoers showed support by clapping and raising fists.
The concert was eventually cancelled by organizers.
During Wednesday’s news conference earlier in the afternoon, Patterson asked Madisonians to “please take a moment to to reflect and offer some support to one another.”
He referenced the man who died, and added, “I want to take a moment to honestly and sincerely offer my my heartfelt sympathies to his family for this loss.”
Wednesday’s shooting took place in the same neighborhood where a Madison police officer fatally shot Tony Robinson, a 19-year-old Black man, inside an apartment building in 2015.
Robinson was unarmed. The Dane County District Attorney did not issue charges against that police officer, after determining the officer had reason to fear for his life after concluding that Robinson had physically assaulted the officer at the top of the stairs within the building.
“I want to start with an acknowledgement that today involves a very traumatic incident,” Patterson said, referencing the Robinson shooting during Wednesday’s news conference. “A traumatic incident that has occurred in a neighborhood that has experienced a lot of trauma in the past.”
In an update sent just before 2:45 p.m. Wednesday, District 6 Madison Alder Davy Mayer said he was “aware of an officer-involved shooting on Williamson and Baldwin Street earlier this afternoon.”
“My priority is to make sure the community remains safe and that the public receives full details about what happened as soon as possible,” Mayer wrote in the blog post.
A version of this story was originally published by WPR. Information was added from the Associated Press.
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