The Madison Police Department Murdered Corey Ruiz

 A report by the Madison Branch of Socialist Horizon.

The Madison Police Department murdered Corey Ruiz.

(1) Memorial for Corey Ruiz. (All photos by Socialist Horizon-Madison).

Ruiz was an African American and formerly unhoused member of the Madison community. Picture (1) is the memorial and (2) is the encampment in honor of Ruiz, comprised mainly of people who lack adequate shelter. Picture (3) is the George Floyd raised fist memorial that a group of people brought from Minneapolis and reassembled at the site in solidarity. The encampment had been growing since the killing of Ruiz on July 22. Dozens of unhoused people in desperate need of proper housing, nutrition, medical, dental, and mental health care encamped at the corner of Williamson Street and South Baldwin Street, with each of them knowing full well that they could be the next Corey Ruiz! 

Madison’s city government will spend a total of $147 million dollars on the Madison police department in 2026, accounting for 20% of the city’s total budget, and the single largest expenditure overall. This eclipses the $19.3 million that the city has allocated for public health in 2026, showing the twisted priorities of Madison’s political establishment that prioritizes the policing and incarceration of poor, displaced, and unhoused people rather than the provision of resources to meet their needs.

(2) Solidarity encampment

What do the Madison cops do to address the growing unhoused population in the city? They harass, beat, arrest, imprison, and murder Black and Brown people and people with disabilities! More than half of all incarcerated people in Madison jails are Black, while comprising only 5.9% of the city population. Madison is one of the most racist in the nation.

While delivering supplies to the encampment this morning we had an opportunity to interview another Black Madisonian named Rasta, who was a friend of Corey. We started by just discussing his experience with racism in the city. According to Rasta,

“…being here together at the site where Corey was murdered by the police these last 7 days is the safest I’ve felt for as long as I can recall. I have suffered 2 strokes and a host of other health scares. When I had private health insurance, my experience at the University of Wisconsin Hospital was second to none. I was in the ICU followed by care in a private room, where I was checked on every 30 minutes. Had EKGs, MRIs, all the tests and care I required. Once I had to rely on Badger care, (WI’s Medicaid), UW Hospital’s ER essentially showed me the door. But out here, we are safe together, the community is attending to our needs. We don’t need police; we police ourselves as need be. We all deserve better than what Corey got. He didn’t deserve that and neither do we.”

(3) George Floyd Raised Fist Memorial

It has been raining quite hard now for several hours. City officials are walking around offering people vouchers for hotels. This is not because they’re concerned about the well-being of those in the encampment, but out of desire to clear the encampment and make it easier to shut everything down. Some older people have been accepting them and certainly everyone would like the opportunity to have access to a shower and air conditioning.

Need for organizing militant action for justice

The day of the killing, there was a quickly organized march of approximately 300 people that shut down the “Concert on the Square”. The following evening people marched down John Nolen Drive to the City County Building, with the march concluding with just a few dozen people chanting down East Washington Avenue. 

Unfortunately, no one has organized to bring the community down to defend the encampment from Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway. After a week of mounting complaints by local businesses, it is likely she will eventually bring in the police to clear tents, take peoples belongings, and attempt to get rid of the memorial to Corey to restore “business as usual”.

Recently, a white man walked right into the very middle of the memorial site and smashed a man in the face, completely unprovoked. He then went on to throw a black woman, before two others who were a part of the encampment came over and put a very quick stop to the provocateur’s violent activities. The offender was then turned over to the police.

It’s quite possible that the hope was that a provocation would lead to a fight, giving Rhodes-Conway an excuse to shut the encampment down immediately.

Winning justice for Corey’s family and for the community as requires organizing, especially with so many people coming out to the memorial in solidarity. There could have been calls on social media inviting workers and students to join anti-racist and anti-police brutality protest actions. There could have been mass meetings of community members on site to discuss, debate, and decide on demands and goals to build a movement for justice for Corey.  

There could have been callouts for solidarity from unions, church congregations, and local socialist organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America—who could have mobilized their large memberships to oppose Satya Rhodes Conway and the murderous Madison Police Department. Mass participation by an organized working-class movement could have created an alternative to the more conservatizing effects of Madison’s non-profit sector, which has played a role in disorganizing the building of a much broader and inclusive movement. Thousands of people could have organized to march, provide mutual assistance, and present demands for justice in protest of Corey’s murder.

Local politicians have learned lessons from the mass protests of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. They allowed the concert to be shut down without arrests. The police stayed away from the initial protests. The city closed down all the public events that protesters might have engaged with. The growth of the encampment was essentially ignored until a larger movement could be diffused. Officials from the “Independent Police Review board” held a press conference calling for Madison’s city government to require police to have body cameras—which city officials have staunchly opposed. Without sustained efforts to build an organized movement around more militant demands for justice and police accountability, the spontaneous protests dwindled from several hundred back to several dozen within a week. 

While the DSA put out a statement condemning the killing, they for the most part have chosen to steer clear of any public engagement. They are focusing their attention on supporting the campagin of Francesca Hong, who is the DSA candidate in the upcoming Wisconsin Democratic Party gubernatorial primary. Since the DSA’s primary political objective is to make  electoral gains and inroads into the Democratic Party, they chose not to provide the political leadership and organizational resources necessary to build the kind of movement capable of holding Madison’s killer cops accountable and to get justice in a city where poor, racially-oppressed, and unhoused communities face constant threat from the MPD.

Without an organized and militant movement, killer cops get off scot-free. Matt Kenney, the cop who killed Tony Robinson in 2015, and Kiel Baitinger-Peterson, the cop who killed Corey Ruiz, are unlikely to face any real consequences. We must organize and turn the anger and frustration into action that holds these murderers accountable, or else they will be emboldened to kill again.

Police cannot be reformed, they must be abolished    

In Socialist Horizon we are clear that ending police brutality isn’t going to stop with body cameras or de-escalation training for cops. We are very clear that the role of the armed enforcers of the capitalist state is to repress poor, displaced, and working-class people of color in defense of property and profit; whether its Madison cops shooting down people in the street or ICE abducting, imprisoning, deporting and killing migrants and refugees. The US imperial war machine enabling the ongoing genocide in Gaza and relentless bombing of Iran is part of this same capitalist system and its enforcement through brutality.

It will take mass organized, militant action such as sit-ins, walkouts, strikes, and other forms of class rebellion to force justice for Corey Ruiz, while also bringing us closer to liberation from a system based on endless racist violence, oppression, war, and exploitation. Anger is growing. Becoming an organized socialist matters now more than ever. Join Socialist Horizon in the fight for our lives—and for revolutionary liberation.    

Update:

(4) MPD dismantles memorials and brutally represses those defending encampment.

On the morning of August 4th very early in the morning the Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway sent in the Madison Police Department to clear out the encampment with huge garbage trucks. They stole tents and other personal property of the people living in the encampment. They ruined Corey’s memorial by trashing the flowers and candles brought by so many to pay their respects. Lastly, they came for the beautiful George Floyd memorial raised fist. More than a dozen activists linked arms to protect the fist (cover photo) and were descended on by fully armed police who brutalized and arrested them (4). Shame on Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway and the other politicians who supported her directive to the MPD to demolish Corey’s memorial and the solidarity encampment.