YGB calls on UN to do an independent investigation. Robinson Family says to be fair and just, D.A. Ozanne must indict, and that an independent investigation is needed, that they have received no services and that Tony was shot 7 times. They say the documents released by the MPD were misleading.
Robins Family Press Conference, Monday
Yesterday around noon the Robinson Family, through their spokesperson Jerome Flowers, had the following statement to make:
According to the website of the district attorney, after an incident such as the police killing of Tony Robinson Jr, the goals of the D.A. are to provide prompt and fair justice while also providing critical services to the family. Further, the D.A. office would believe that peace and justice are not possible without progressive and fair law enforcement. The family of Tony Robinson Jr. wonders what about this process is progressive, fair and also wonders what critical services have been provided to them. The family calls on the D.A. to practice what its office preaches, to do what its office says it will do and that would lead to criminal charges, to an indictment of Officer Matt Kenney for the killing of Tony Robinson Jr.
While the police department and those affiliated with the investigation are trying to frame this as fair and independent, this is not a fair process, this is not a just process. What we know about how this case has been handled so far is that it is unjust. We know that the Madison Police Department got to choose who they wanted to oversee the investigation. We know that the Division of Criminal Investigation has worked in partnership with MPD in every step of the investigation. We know that the Division of Criminal Investigation is staffed with retired law enforcement officers. Although the the law allows all of this, it is not an independent investigation by any ethical or moral standards, this process is biased.
What we do know is that Tony was unarmed and shot at least 7 times in the chest and head by Officer Kenney. This is neither reasonable or necessary. We say to D.A. Ismael Ozanne, that if you want to be just an fair, you have to indict.
Additionally, the Madison Police Department is neither progressive nor fair. They use the same standards all police around the country use to justify lethal force, which is one that acts must be “reasonable and necessary”. Again, Tony’s murder was neither reasonable or necessary. That is an unjust standard, and we need a progressive standard for use of lethal force.
Secondly, there is nothing progressive or fair about the misleading documents that the MPD released last Friday. Most of the reports about police incidents were not about Tony Robinson, Jr. Again, he repeats, most of the police incident reports were not about Tony, Robinson, Jr. Furthermore the information released by MPD had nothing to do with the 18 seconds that passed between when Officer Kenney approached the apartment where Tony was and when he shot him 7 times in the chest and head. The facts we know for certain is that Tony was unarmed and was shot multiple times and killed by an officer who had a long history of using force against Madison residents. And we also know Tony was not the first person Kenney has killed.
Chief Koval has repeatedly said that Madison Police Department is living up to the national standards of policing, but national standards have repeatedly found that it is both necessary and reasonable to kill unarmed black people. MPD continues to say that Madison is different. That the Madison Model is what sets us apart and will ensure that Madison is not like Ferguson, but as long as MPD does not operate by truly progressive standards, we will not have justice. And Madison will be like Ferguson.
In closing, I leave you with this. Unity and peace will never exist in a community that allows police officers to murder with impunity. In the words of the great Martin Luther King Jr. “The time is always right to do what is right.” District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, do the right thing for our community and indict.
Questions:
Would it be accurate to say that the family does not have faith in the investigation? Flowers says that the family has not met with the D.A. currently, so what we want is for him to wait to make his decision before he is able to meet with us about the new facts of the private autopsy.
Rather than the Department of Justice, who would you want to do the investigation? Matt Braunginn says they are calling for the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Organization of American State Inner-American Commission on Human Rights to launch a truly independent investigation into the murder of 19 year old Tony Robinson by Officer Matt Kenney and secondly, on the gross racial disparities in employment, educaiton, arrest rates and wealth in Dane County for being the worse offender in the nation when it comes to black Americans. That would be a full independent investigation into the murder and into the human rights violations which we see are connected to the two.
Could you describe the differences between the private autopsy results and the autopsy results that were released earlier? Flowers says they will not, at this time, comment on that.
(I didn’t hear the next question) Eric Upchurch says right now we don’t have faith in the Madison Police Department’s ability to justly handle this case or investigation, nor do we have faith in the United States government ‘s ability to handle this investigation. History has taught us that in past cases when an unarmed person of color, namely black folks, are murdered at the hands of police, the investigation is not only handled by members of that police force, meaning that the police are investigating themselves for their own wrongdoings. But when and “independent” investigation is warranted that is also compromised by having retired police officers that also served on the force. So that is why we are going to the United Nations, to request a truly independent and impartial investigation and demand justice.
Did the Madison police overstep its bounds with this investigation, did they interfere or collaborate with the Department of Criminal Investigation, the state? Matt Braunginn says that they don’t see a difference between the two. It’s all one system, they all work together, there’s no difference between an outside special prosecutor, the DCI and the Madison Police Department, their all part of the law enforcement and justice system which continuously collaborates together to protect their own power and their own system which is to uphold and order that is not just or humane and that is all the questions that they will be taking.
There was a break and a reporter asked one more question I couldn’t hear and Matt Braunginn says that they are looking for a positive outcome from . . . law enforcement has not been peaceful with us . . . (interrupt with more questions I couldn’t hear) . . . what we are, we are not planning for violence, I don’t know where this is coming from. That we keep asking for violence. WE have not perpetrated any violence (now clapping and I can’t hear him) The police have instigated violence upon us, why are we being asked if we are going to be violent or not when the state continues . . . he’s still clapping but drown out by clapping and cheering.
The ask people to sign the petition at
ygbcoaltion.org or iam.color of change.org
Also, the say the day of the decision, indictment or non-indictment, they are calling for poeple to meet at Willy St. and Few by the house where Tony Robinson was murdered. No matter the outcome, they will address the indictment, the mass of instiutional racism that lead to his death.
Young, Gifted and Black Press Conference, Friday
They play part of the “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech of Martin Luther King from his last day.
Brandi Grayson does introductions. She says Young Gifted and Black formed after the murder of Mike Brown. She says that the racism that murdered Mike Brown, that murdered Tony Robinson, is the same racism that leads to racial disparities in Madison and the increase in racial disparties in Madison. We have went from 8:1, in a report in 2012, but now we are at 11:1. So we are actually getting worse. So it is necessary for us to take radical actions, cuz we are in a state of emergency. She has members of the group introduce themselves. T Banks, Alix Shabazz, Matthew Braunginn, Everett Mitchell (elder member of Young, Gifted and Black).
Brandi introduced M Adams, says she is amazing, she has an awesome brain, her ability to articulate what we are facing, and to articulate the historical context is amazing.
M says that is a hard act to follow, thanks people for coming to the press conference today and she says they are having the press conference at a very particular moment in history, they are having the press conference because a very violent and tragic event happened March 6th, where Tony Robinson, a young black youth was unarmed and was killed and was murdered by the Madison Police Department, so they are having this press conference in direct response to that murdered, but also as a national trend of black people being murdered and unarmed black people being murdered by police departments everywhere in the country. So they have seen, and heard and paid attention and followed some of these police murders so many of us are familiar with Michael Brown in Ferguson, where a lot of what has happened is starkly similar to what has happened here. Michael Brown was unarmed, he was 19, he walking down the street, there are several stories told about him, but we do know about him as told to us by family members and many members of that community, is he was a very valued young person in that community and many people loved him, adored him and looked to him as a valued member of the community and he was murdered in the streets by a police officer and many young people who were outraged and hurt and deeply impacted by that took to the streets to demonstrate what power they had to demonstrate around that injustice. We also see a very similar story in New York around Eric Garner, we have seen the footage of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who was outside who was asking why are you harassing me, you don’t have a right, don’t touch me, please don’t touch me and a group of police officers assaulted Eric Garner and choked him to death and murdered him. A very similar story there, many young people took to the streets outraged by the violence happening to them in their community by the police. We also see people who are murdered by police departments and similar to what has happened in those different places, the same is happening here, many of us young folks are taking to the streets, demanding justice, demanding accountability, are deeply grieving the loss of a loved one, a valued part of our community. So Madison is suddenly part of that national trend of young black people being murdered by the police department, and the police departments in general have a deep history of structural racism and structural violence and also of interpersonal violence against the black community. This information is well documented, there is bodies of research that can account for or attest to how the police have acted out violence against the black community, first acting as an institution against folks who are enslaved as enslaved Africans and also acting out very racist and aggressive laws of the black community, also sanctioning violence such as lynching and many other things. So they are having this particular conversation in that context. Folks would like to divorce Madison from the national trend, or the national context, they are here to say that Madison is not entirely different, in fact from the national trend there is deep structural racism in this police department and that is being acted out. To show structural racism, all you have to do is demonstrate disparity and dis-proportionality that is well documented in reports like the Race to Equity report and also if you look at the Madison Police Department’s own reports that demonstrate disparity, the numbers were just crunched and there is an 11:1 arrest rate disparity of black to white, dis-proportionality is also demonstrated. And so given this context of how police as an institution has been acting out structural violence since its inception against the black community, given that in conjunction with the economic and the social conditions that black people face as a community, the police are acting as an occupying force within the black community. She says this not as a matter of opinion, not as a matter of lived experience and emotional trauma, although all of those things are extremely important, she is saying that to you as a matter of science and historical analysis. And it is not just her that has come to this, but this has been said several times over, so James Baldwin, said it in 66, Eric Holder, recently, the Attorney General (maybe former, I don’t know if he has retired yet) has also said it about Ferguson and police departments locally. (They play a video where he says that our police cannot be or be seen as an occupying force disconnected from the communities)
M explains that Eric Holder was making a statement about what he was experiencing, what he was seeing and what he was working on in regards to Ferguson, but not just Ferguson, as he points out, is riddled with structural racism, but also other police departments as a whole. And so given this, given that the police departments are filled with structural racism, and might I add, not only here locally have we seen that structural racism show in dis-proportionality and racial disparities, we also have heard locally how this particular police department is following national uses of force, national protocol, and other national standards which are filled with structural racism, which are embedded with structural racism. If you are following the national standard, you are following the standard of Ferguson, you are following the standard of Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago and so many other police departments that we know are deeply impacted and deeply embedded with structural racism. And given that and the amount of resistance that is happening in the streets, and that is great and important and we at Young Gifted and Black take that very seriously, and will continue to do so. We still, based on historical analysis and based on social movement science, we can see that we are not yet in a place in our movement where we would expect to see an indictment or a conviction of murder of a police officer for murdering a black person. To give an example of what she means, there was a point in our history 100 years ago that if there was a public lynching taking place, that we did not at all expect to see any police interference with that, or we did not at all expect to see anyone convicted of murder because of that. What is different then and now, is that an entire social movement has happened where enough political power of black people has built up to force the state to make the change that says that if you are publicly lynching someone you will be convicted of murder. That shift, that build of political power has not yet happened in our political movement. Because that power has not been fully built up, we can fully expect, given historical analysis, and given social movement science, we fully expect a non-indictment of murder or non-indictment of killing of the officer who killed Tony Robinson. Based on that, based on that historical analysis, based on the trends and conditions, and based on what is actually happening, with the police department and with communities, we also know that a fair and just investigation will not happen. And what we have also learned form observing other places like Ferguson, New York, L.A., and many other places, is not only don’t we expect a fair local investigation, but we also cannot rely on a fair local investigation. We have not yet seen the federal government act on the side of our community against police departments and so according to that trend, we do not expect that either. So, it is now that Young Gifted and Black, Freedom Inc folks, locally, nationally, and internationally, we call for an independent investigation led by the International Human Rights body, specifically we are calling on the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Organization of American States Interamerican Commission on Human Rights to initiate and conduct a dual track investigation in Madison Wi. The first would be a completely independent investigation into the murder of Tony Robinson by the Madison Police Officer Matt Kenney and second would be an independent investigation into the gross racial disparities suffered by black people in Madison, including the manner in which the police serve as an occupying force over the black community. So the use of the United Nations or international bodies to advance black liberation or to advance black struggle is not a new concept. There are a couple examples of where we have seen local black organizing in the United State when matching or pairing or using International Law or framework or treaties or bodies to help advance the struggle so the United Nations was founded in 1945 and the National Negro Convention was founded in 46 and in 47 there was an official complaint that the NAACP put forth and in 51 that complaint or charge of genocide was delivered to the United Nations and that, along with all the on the ground organizing, and many other things was a key piece in helping to elevate what was happening to black people around lynching and actually was a key piece or significant piece in helping abolish the institution of lynching. And thing we have seen local organizing be paired with international law or bodies is the work that Malcom X was doing and in ’63, Malcolm X said that we cannot expect the same country, the same group of people who are actively acting out violence against us to be the same people who will stop and hear our cries and stop the violence against us. So that is when Malcolm X made the call and said black people should not just be fighting for civil rights, instead we need to elevate and fight for human rights, we need to go to a higher law, a higher body, a higher court and a bigger audience, not just the nation, but the entire world to help further the black struggle and that is exactly what Young Gifted and Black intends to do here.
Action Steps
1. Sign the petition to ask the UN – iam.colorofchange.org or www.ygbcoalition.org
2. Spread the word, show up and show out the day of the non-indictment at Williamson St. where Tony took his last breath. They will be joined by people from across the country.
3. Stay in touch and up to date. Find them on facebook at fergusontomadison or email fergusontomadison@gmail.com or 608-618-0942 (0YGB)
Then there were questions. Sorry, don’t have time to do them.
The first question is about the Michael Bell law and the independent investigation and why that is not sufficient. The second question is the one you want to hear the answer to.
