08/04/26 Willy / Baldwin Protest Area Cleared

Early this morning, the intersection of Willy and Baldwin Streets was cleared. Please see below for a summary sent to alders. Alders (including me) were not notified in advance of this action.

Statement to Alders from the Mayor's Office

Early this morning, City staff cleared and opened the intersection of Williamson and Baldwin. The work was led by non-law enforcement staff from multiple City agencies. City departments were able to clear the barricades, preserve personal property and memorial materials, and to prepare to open the street up to normal traffic. All personal property and memorial materials were packed and are available for pick-up at Demetral Field. The 50 or so unsheltered individuals who were on site were given the option to stay in hotels and were offered transportation there; nearly 30 of them took advantage of this option. 

Unfortunately, as City staff cleared the area, rocks and other items were thrown at City employees and two fires were set; as a result, law enforcement was called in to stabilize the scene, and a small number of individuals were arrested. All officers involved were in regular uniforms, and no large-scale crowd control measures were deployed. Again, multiple efforts and calls to end the occupation peacefully were made but ultimately ignored. 

This effort was done with as much compassion as possible under less-than-ideal circumstances. The decision to invoke this option was not made lightly and was only made after almost two weeks of trying to resolve the situation peacefully, and voluntarily, with the people occupying the site – efforts that many of you were directly or indirectly involved in. 

We were not able to provide a timeline in advance for this action, as this would have compromised the unprecedented amount of planning it took to avoid having law enforcement lead this action. There have been many negative impacts on the Marquette Neighborhood, but we learned from 2020 is that when police are being protested, having the department at the frontlines produces even more negative outcomes. Setting a deadline or timeline for this action would have made keeping law enforcement away impossible. 

The death of Corey Ruiz was another tragic wake up call for Madison. Even one community member killed during interactions with the police is too many. There is more work to be done at the City level to prevent this from happening again - work to build on the success of our CARES program in diverting calls away from police, work on police policy and training, and more. We need reform at the state level as well. There are many hard conversations to come and we will all have to work together to have them with the community.