Funeral services for Tony Robinson, the unarmed, biracial 19-year-old shot dead by a white Madison, Wisconsin police officer last week, are being held on Saturday.
Preliminary autopsy results, released Friday, show Robinson was shot in the head, torso, and right arm, according to news reports.
Madison police have said Officer Matt Kenny shot Robinson multiple times during an altercation in an apartment. Kenny arrived at the scene following 911 reports that Robinson was running in and out of traffic and acting agitated.
The Guardian explored the incident as well as Robinson’s early life and teen years in a piece published Friday.
“The community is still reeling from Robinson’s death,” wrote journalists Oliver Laughland and Zoe Sullivan. “Many questions remain unanswered, and protesters have vowed to continue mobilising on the issue.”
On Monday, close to 2,000 high school and college students occupied the Wisconsin State Capitol demanding “Justice for Tony.”
According to the Washington State Journal:
At a forum organized by African-American church leaders on Friday evening, Madison Police Chief Mike Koval asked for the community’s forgiveness. “I desperately seek that,” he said.
But in an op-ed published Friday, Alix Shabazz and Brandi Grayson, of Madison’s Young Gifted and Black coalition, called for action, not words.
“The ‘kinder and gentler’—and media-friendly—approach of the Madison Police Department after Tony Robinson’s death might look good in pictures and headlines, but it means nothing for the lives of black people here who live through—or die from—state violence,” they wrote.
Shabazz and Grayson added: