Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway,
As a constituent whom you have sworn to serve in the city of Madison, I am writing today to demand clear answers and accountability around the broad daylight execution of the young man named Corey Ruiz, and the choices of stance and action you have taken in the days after his heinous murder by public servants.
Below are specific demands I am making as part of this complaint, and I would like administrative accountability for each of these:
Protect the independence and procedural abilities of the OIPM and increase their annual budget.
Pressure the MPD to provide full access and hand over all investigation materials to the OIPM.
Deny paid administrative leave to the murderer of Corey Ruiz and all officers under investigation for unlawful executions of citizens. As a tax-paying member of this community I refuse to pay for this.
Expand non-police crisis response like CARES and make information to alternative modes of neighborhood safety accessible and easy to reach for our communities.
Hold an open listening session for the Wilmar community, and honestly and conscientiously engage with their grief. The city does not get to criminalize a human being who lived and died amongst us, especially after providing the levers of mismanagement that killed him.
Further, I would like to know why excessive force was used against organizers, protestors and advocates for Corey's family? Why did drones continue to surveil our intersection for a week after dismantling Corey's memorial? Why was standing or stopping on our own street corners criminalized? Why was police presence used as a tactic to intimidate our children and families? Why were young people demanding justice for Corey on the square brutalized? Is this why we pay the salaries of the police force? So they may turn their expensive weapons and technologies on the communities they swear to protect?
Police who kill our Black and Brown neighbors cannot remain on the force — or on the street. And a City Council that does not respect our sovereignty as citizens and communities over our own spaces and privacy, does not deserve to remain in office. End qualified immunity. Establish independent prosecution for police killings, and give us back the power to safeguard our children.
Justice for Corey Ruiz is not possible without community control. As long as the police investigate themselves, discipline themselves, and protect themselves, and the City admin step in to whitewash injustice, there will be more Coreys. More Tonys. More Richards. The demand is not better policing. The demand is shared power and greater accountability. We, the voters, tax payers, the workers, the homeowners, the housed, and unhoused citizens of this city decide what safety looks like.
I look forward to your engagement with my grievances,
your constituent,
Sign Petition
