The union representing nurses at St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison and Dean Medical Group outpatient clinics in Dane County has escalated charges that the two healthcare providers are violating federal labor laws after employees voted overwhelmingly for union representation.

SEIU Wisconsin filed unfair labor practice charges this week with the National Labor Relations Board against St. Mary’s and against Dean. Both organizations are part of SSM Health, a Catholic nonprofit health system based in St. Louis.

A 71% majority of nurses at Dean’s 10 clinics voted for union representation in September, three months after nurses at St. Mary’s Hospital voted for union representation with an 89% majority in June. Altogether the two groups of nurses total nearly 1,200 people.

To date, SSM has declined to bargain with the hospital nurses’ union, citing pending challenges to the June election. Earlier in September the union charged the hospital management with failing to bargain in violation of federal law.

The newest charge against the hospital alleges a nurse was fired in August in retaliation for supporting the union.

The new charges against Dean allege that the medical group discriminated against union supporters in prohibiting union-related materials from work areas and barring employees from displaying union insignia and other items supporting the union; engaged in surveillance of employees; held captive audience meetings with threats of discipline or firing for people who didn’t attend; and threatened employees with “negative changes to terms and conditions of employment” if employees voted in the union.

Those charges follow previous charges filed with the NLRB, including one against Dean in September for firing a nurse and a string of charges against St. Mary’s earlier in September, including the failure-to-bargain allegation.

“We are doing this so we can have a voice,” said Dean nurse Michelle Camilleri in a phone interview Thursday. “My colleagues and I want to provide a certain standard of care for our patients. We want to be able to care for them in a way so they can get the highest level of care as we can give.”

She said nurses who voted for unionization were responding to policies and practices that were making it “difficult to provide that standard of care” for patients and have driven some nurses to leave SSM.

“We would like to see SSM come to the table,” Camilleri said.

In a statement Thursday, SSM denied violating federal labor laws. “There has been no unlawful conduct. We respect and value all of our employees,” the statement said.

The statement called the allegations “another ongoing attempt to distract us” from the health system’s mission.

Madison City Clerk Lydia McComas took over her job in September 2025 with the city under heavy scrutiny from state election officials after nearly 200 absentee ballots were lost during the 2024 election. During the April 2026 state Supreme Court election, 23 late arriving absentee ballots nearly weren’t counted after a staff error. 

Ann Jacobs, a Democrat on the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said at a meeting in April that the second error was “absurd.” The two problems made the city of Madison the subject of the first two investigations ever opened by WEC. 

In June, Votebeat reported that McComas told Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway that she would “firmly address the lack of communication” that caused the mistake and the clerk’s office would have more staff in place for the August and November elections. 

But McComas will be on maternity leave during the Nov. 3 election. 

Despite McComas’ absence, city officials say the processes put in place to avoid repeated errors, additional staff and help from other city departments will be enough to smoothly manage the midterm elections and the potential scrutiny that could come from WEC or the Republican Party of Wisconsin —  whose gubernatorial candidate this year, Tom Tiffany, has previously cast doubt on election results from Wisconsin’s largest cities. 

City spokesperson Dylan Brogan said of the recent errors in Madison that the city is “confident these things won’t happen again.” 

“This is a team process that involves 2,000 people,” he said. 

In McComas’ absence, deputy clerk Kaitlyn Bernarde is running the election. Brogan said that other city staff, such as City Attorney Mike Haas, who previously served as the WEC administrator, can help fill in. 

Bernarde spent more than four years as the clerk in Wausau, a credential that convinced WEC the transition wouldn’t be a problem. 

“[McComas] hired a new deputy who was the clerk out of Wausau. Based on that we didn’t have any concerns,” Jacobs told the Wisconsin Examiner. 

In an interview with the Examiner, Bernarde said prior to the August primary elections, the clerk’s office added a staff member who is responsible for managing the thousands of absentee ballots returned to the city, which she believes will prevent any further absentee-related errors. 

“That is one of our major new changes in our office, we implemented an absentee lead position before the August election, and so we have a full time staff member who’s in charge of that, as well as additional hourly staff and other city staff who are helping to ensure that we have checks in place in the system, that we can check in at different points to make sure that we’re on track to get ballots out on time to our AM delivery, our PM delivery, as well as any late deliveries throughout the day so that way some of those similar mistakes don’t happen again.” 

Bernarde also said that the city and election staff are prepared to run the midterms under scrutiny from WEC and outside observers.

“I think Madison always kind of is under scrutiny by the state, our residents and other people who are involved in the process, and so we’ve had experience working under that kind of pressure the last couple elections,” she said. “And we all want a zero [error] election, and so we talk through that with our staff, with our poll workers to ensure that we are trained and that we document any instances that happen. Because elections involve humans and so sometimes mistakes happen but we have processes in place to confront them, minimize them and then also respond to address them appropriately after.”

Two leaders of a fraternity which the University of Wisconsin suspended back in 2015 were taken to the Dane County jail after 30 young men were found filthy, partially clothed and visibly injured in the fraternity’s hot, humid basement. The pledges, most of whom were 18 years old, were apparently being subjected to a hazing ritual.

Brayden Klein and Samuel Vane, both 20, were taken to the Dane County jail and charged with hazing and disorderly conduct. Both of them posted $400 bail Thursday morning. The incident is still under investigation. 

Madison police say the pledges were found in the basement on Wednesday night. They were covered in food, condiments, and “other liquids,” police said. The basement’s temperature had been turned up to 81 degrees, making it uncomfortable and humid. A photo of the pledges shows them all confined in an area of the basement shirtless, all wearing black pants and surrounded by trash. 

The fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi,  still has a national chapter. Despite its suspension by the UW-Madison over a decade ago, the frat still maintained its campus house where the 30 pledges were found.

Alpha Epsilon Pi was started in 1913 as a Jewish fraternity. It has over 150 chapters open across the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel. The fraternity has included seven billionaires among its ranks including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, as well as the founders of other prominent businesses and politicians.

In a statement, the fraternity condemned the incident and said those responsible will be expelled from the frat. “Hazing is a betrayal of everything our fraternity stands for,” it said in a statement, ABC News reported. There have been nearly 130 deaths due to hazing incidents since the year 2000.

Reading Time: 14 minutes

Editor’s note: This story was produced with financial support from the Education Writers Association’s Reporting Fellowship program.

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Wisconsin’s 2024 Wisconsin Guarantee law automatically admits students in the top 5% of their high school class to UW-Madison and top 10% to other UW campuses if they apply by the required deadlines.
• Early evidence suggests the program has had little effect on who applies to or enrolls at UW-Madison, despite reducing admissions anxiety for some students.
• An unpublished UW-Madison study estimates 95% of students admitted through the Wisconsin Guarantee would have been accepted anyway, with the program changing admissions outcomes for about 50 students annually.
• The policy has produced unintended consequences, prompting some students to treat UW-Madison as a “safety school” while raising concerns about fairness, class rank and grading differences among high schools.
• The Cap Times interviewed about 40 students, educators and researchers and obtained exclusive research for a first comprehensive look at how the law is working in practice.

Jaidyn Glaus was sitting in her English class at Durand-Arkansaw Middle & High School last fall when she was called to the principal’s office. She had no idea why.

The Pepin County school’s principal and guidance counselor had news: Thanks to her high grades, Glaus qualified for a new program called the Wisconsin Guarantee, automatically granting her a spot at the University of Wisconsin-Madison after graduation.

Glaus had never heard of the program. “It came really as a surprise,” she said.

A few weeks ago, Glaus moved into Smith Residence Hall and started classes at UW-Madison as part of the second group of students to enroll through the Wisconsin Guarantee.

State lawmakers created the program in 2024, believing automatic acceptance for top high schoolers would make the admissions process less cryptic and help ensure the state’s “best and brightest” attend Wisconsin’s 13 public universities, with a particular focus on Madison. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed the bill into law as one of 16 conditions in a controversial 2023 deal struck between Republican legislators and UW system leaders.

Under the law, students in the top 5% of their high school class are guaranteed admission at UW-Madison if they apply by an early deadline. All other UW campuses automatically accept students in the top 10% if they apply by a regular deadline. Homeschool students may also qualify depending on their ACT score, and National Merit finalists receive automatic admission to all the state’s public universities.

To provide a comprehensive first look at the program, the Cap Times spoke with about 40 people, including students, school administrators and researchers. While most people agreed with the Wisconsin Guarantee’s aspirations and believe it has reduced anxiety for some students, views were more mixed on how the program is affecting admissions.

The policy has raised concerns about fairness in college admissions as school districts rank students differently. Some administrators worry it places too great an emphasis on grades, which don’t necessarily capture the rigor of students’ coursework. The program is also prompting some students to view Wisconsin’s flagship as a “safety school” and apply to more competitive universities out of state — contrary to what lawmakers intended.

The majority of those interviewed doubt the Wisconsin Guarantee is making a substantial difference in who applies and enrolls at UW-Madison.

A research paper exclusively obtained by the Cap Times supports that view. The study, which has not yet been published, examined a decade’s worth of UW-Madison admissions data and estimates the Wisconsin Guarantee generated about 240 more applications annually from traditional public high schools — or a sliver of the roughly 75,000 applications UW-Madison has received in recent years.

About 95% of students who received the guarantee would’ve likely been admitted to UW-Madison anyway through its standard admissions process, the research also estimates. That rate would mean the guarantee changed admissions outcomes for about 50 students from public high schools each year.

“I hope that students eligible for the guarantee apply,” said Heather Little, a UW-Madison Ph.D. student who authored the working research paper. “And then for students who aren’t eligible for the guarantee, I don’t think you should be deterred because … there’s still a huge chance that you can be admitted.”

The long-term effects of the guarantee remain to be seen, though researchers questioned if the program will keep high-achieving students in the state. While some said the program could theoretically help rural or first-generation students access UW-Madison, others raised concern that the university’s student body could become less diverse.

The guarantee is another example in Wisconsin’s long history of implementing higher education policies that have “very little” evidentiary support and documented unintended consequences, said Taylor Odle, a UW-Madison assistant professor of education policy studies.

“This is a policy that’s well intentioned, that’s kind of mistargeted. … And it has no teeth,” Odle said.

‘More complicated than it might appear’

During a public hearing at the state Capitol three years ago, Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, R-Fox Crossing, held up a thick document Republican legislators received from UW-Madison about its admissions process.

Cabral-Guevara paged through the document, revealing most of the contents were redacted. She shared how one high-achieving student in her district had approached her seeking answers after UW-Madison rejected their application. Cabral-Guevara said she couldn’t explain why.

The senator then raised doubts about UW-Madison’s standard admissions process, known as holistic admissions, in which the university evaluates students using a variety of factors, such as grades, course difficulty, extracurriculars and essays.

Citing her time teaching at UW-Oshkosh, Cabral-Guevara said she observed firsthand how holistic admissions could be “manipulated” to benefit one student over another.

“The public doesn’t even really know what it takes to get into the UW system,” she said. “We have many highly qualified students that are rejected every single day, and, in turn, they take up admission into other colleges and universities that might be out of our state.”

Wisconsin-born adults who move to other states tend to be more highly educated than residents who stay in the state or others who move here, according to a recent Wisconsin Policy Forum report.

“The bottom line is that we are losing too many of our ‘best and brightest’ high school graduates to neighboring colleges and universities,” Rep. Jerry O’Connor, R-Fond du Lac, said in written testimony. “Is this not a form of institutionalized brain drain?”

The solution proposed by Cabral-Guevara and her co-authors was a bill to automatically admit students who rank at the top of their high school classes based on criteria developed by local school districts.

The bill garnered praise from some Republicans at the hearing, including Rep. Dave Murphy, of Hortonville, who chairs the Assembly’s higher education committee. Murphy said he knew a high-achieving white student in the top of their class who didn’t get into UW-Madison and ended up going to the University of Minnesota.

“The bill could be labeled as an anti-DEI bill,” O’Connor added. “And I’ll just say, I don’t care about DEI in this situation. This is simply about not discriminating against the best of the best coming out of our high schools.”

UW-Madison and UW system representatives expressed concern in written testimonies about the bill, saying the state’s public universities were already accomplishing the bill’s intent of keeping high-achieving students in Wisconsin.

UW-Madison defended holistic admissions as the best way to acknowledge differences in resources and educational opportunities across high schools with “the desire to capture wide representation from talented and impressive graduates from all 72 Wisconsin counties.”

The university noted the bill would require K-12 schools to rank students and that many schools used different methods to calculate GPA, a scale that converts letter grades into numbers. A majority of applicants didn’t have class rankings on their transcripts at all, the university said.

“To be clear, this is not an impossible change,” UW-Madison wrote. “But it is more complicated than it might appear and one that deserves very careful consideration of the costs as well as the benefits.”

The final legislation signed by Evers required all high schools to use GPA as the “sole criterion” for ranking students.

At the time, it was unclear why the automatic admissions policy was included in a wide-ranging deal between Republicans and the UW system, which largely centered around cutting diversity-related positions and programs in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for the UW system.

In a recent interview with the Cap Times, Murphy said he was involved in some talks over the deal and Republican leaders included the policy to avoid a potential veto from Evers.

“That bill probably wouldn’t have been signed by Gov. Evers otherwise without getting it into some kind of a package to make that work,” Murphy said.

A spokesperson for Evers didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Unintended consequences

A few months after the bill was signed into law in 2024, the first group of Wisconsin Guarantee recipients received notice from their high schools that they were automatically admitted based on their class rank at the end of their junior year.

Over a quarter of in-state students who enrolled at UW-Madison last fall received admission through the program. Public data on the second cohort, who started classes a few weeks ago, isn’t yet available.

The Cap Times spoke with students and school administrators from nearly 20 districts across the state, including high schools that historically send a lot of students to UW-Madison and some that don’t. They largely agreed the guarantee hasn’t been a significant factor in students deciding to go to UW-Madison, but it relieved some pressure in the application process.

“I still had to do all of the work,” said Elise Hendrickson, a Neenah High School graduate who received the guarantee and is now a sophomore at UW-Madison. “It’s just that I didn’t have to feel as stressed about like, ‘Oh, am I going to get in or not?’”

While the guarantee strengthened some high-achieving students’ confidence in attending UW-Madison, it nudged others to look outside the state.

“Some of our families, the kids will get the guarantee, and then they will shoot for the most selective schools in the country,” said Zach Galin, founder of the college admissions consulting firm Galin Education. “And if they don’t get in, they know they have this guarantee to go to UW-Madison. … They’re much more willing to apply broadly and see where the chips fall before making any decisions.”

That’s the calculus Lauren Alibali made. Shortly after the Madison West High School senior received the guarantee last fall, she met a friend at Indie Coffee on Regent Street. Alibali considered only applying to UW-Madison because she thought it would be easier.

But Alibali’s friend pushed back, reminding her of all the hard work she’d put in to qualify for the guarantee and be at the top of her class. Why not try to get into the country’s most prestigious schools?

Knowing she had “an awesome safety school” with UW-Madison, Alibali applied to Ivy League schools and other universities she considered to be a reach. Then she got into and decided to attend the University of Chicago.

“I don’t know if the opportunity of Chicago would present itself again,” she said.

Many school officials and students who spoke with the Cap Times had mixed feelings on whether the guarantee’s benefits outweigh its side effects.

Some school counselors and principals worried the program placed too great of a focus on grades alone. They felt the policy created unnecessary pressure for already stressed students to be at the top — even though many would still be well positioned for admission to UW-Madison without the guarantee.

“Whenever you have a rank, it’s a competition. Let’s be honest. And unfortunately, it pits students and families against each other at a very hard time,” said Deanne Lensert, principal of Waunakee Community High School. “We’ve definitely seen that as an unintended consequence.”

Stephen Trudeau, the high school principal of Durand-Arkansaw Middle & High School, feels torn. Growing up in a blue-collar family in Minnesota, he said college wasn’t often talked about as an option for him.

“I came from a small school. I didn’t have those types of opportunities,” he said, “so I think anytime we can create opportunities for kids to see pathways to these institutions and see themselves there, I think that’s really important.”

Still, Trudeau felt conflicted about promoting the program to his students because of the focus on rankings and grades. He knows some students may be ranked lower because they took more challenging coursework.

“Anytime we start talking rank and we start talking percentages … there becomes a game that gets played, right?” he said. “I think sometimes we lose the value of education. Are we learning for the purpose of learning, or are we learning for the purpose of some sort of external motivator or some sort of extrinsic award, such as … the guarantee?”

That’s part of why Trudeau waited to talk to top students about the guarantee until after they’d already qualified. That included Glaus, who started attending UW-Madison this fall.

Others worry the program is unfair. Vanessa Ivanov, who graduated from UW-Madison in December, has a little sister who wanted to follow in her footsteps as a Badger — but she missed the top 5% cutoff at Germantown High School by one spot. She wasn’t admitted through holistic admissions, either.

“She is very disappointed,” Ivanov said. “She ended up at UW-Milwaukee, which … is still a great school. But she looks at a lot of her classmates and the opportunities that they’re being given here at (UW-Madison), and she does not really view it as being fair or being equitable.”

Some high schools use unweighted GPAs, which award equal points for all courses regardless of difficulty. Weighted GPAs give more points for more challenging classes like Advanced Placement and honors classes.

“This program and not requiring that schools weigh their GPA puts a significant disadvantage for those who are actually taking those college preparatory classes and working to put themselves in a position where they’d be perhaps more able to succeed in that higher education environment,” Ivanov said.

Debate over weighted GPAs in response to the Wisconsin Guarantee continues to play out at certain high schools, especially those that typically send a greater share of students to UW-Madison. For some school districts with unweighted GPAs or that use other ranking systems, ties have emerged among the top students.

Representatives from some districts that have created tiebreakers or reworked GPA systems said the guarantee has sparked a lot of conversation — and stress — in their communities.

“We didn’t create the law, we didn’t create the rules, and we had no voice in the creation of the guidance,” said Curt Mould, director of digital media, innovation and strategy for the Sun Prairie Area School District. “But yet we’re on the hook for implementing. … It was never really explained to (school) systems why this was necessary.”

New research raises questions

As state lawmakers passed the Wisconsin Guarantee in 2024, policymakers in New York and elsewhere were eyeing top-percent admissions plans in response to a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling banning race-conscious admissions.

Top-percent admissions plans originated in the 1990s following state-level affirmative action bans in places like Texas, Florida and California. Because most students attend schools close to their homes and because neighborhoods often are racially divided, policymakers hoped top-percent plans would help maintain diversity at selective public universities since the same proportion of top students at every high school receives automatic admission.

However, studies have largely found top-percent admissions programs have minimal effects on enrollment patterns in the long term and fall short of meaningfully changing which high schools send students to selective public universities.

The new paper by Little, the UW-Madison Ph.D. student, builds on that body of research by studying Wisconsin’s new top-percent policy.

Through a data partnership between UW-Madison’s Division of Enrollment Management and the Student Success Through Applied Research Lab, Little compiled application data from over 800 traditional public high schools in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The Minnesota schools served as a control group since Minnesota students receive tuition reciprocity but are ineligible for the guarantee.

Little’s findings suggest shortcomings in the Wisconsin Guarantee’s ability to persuade the state’s “best and brightest” to stay. She estimates just half of all guarantee-eligible students applied to UW-Madison, and top 5% students were less likely to enroll than applicants who were admitted through holistic admissions.

For students who received the guarantee but didn’t apply, it’s unclear where they landed after graduating high school. An informal survey Little conducted of high school counselors indicated the guarantee wasn’t a significant factor in students’ college decisions. Sixteen counselors who provided written responses pointed to factors like cost, geography and proximity to home as driving students’ decisions.

Little found the “rare” students whose applications likely received a “significant admissions boost” from the guarantee were those with high academic performance but less difficult classes. However, Little said it isn’t possible with the available data to determine whether certain students who just missed obtaining the guarantee were hurt by the program.

“The students who are more likely to be hurt by the policy are kind of like the last admit from these (schools that) were sending lots of people before,” Little said. “I don’t have any evidence of that … but that’s what economic theory would tell us.”

Little’s survey of high school counselors and written responses from about two dozen UW-Madison freshmen revealed conflicting sentiments about the guarantee. She said people who feel well served by the holistic admissions process may think the new program is unnecessary, while others who perceive admissions as opaque may appreciate the benefits.

“How you feel about the policy depends on how well you think holistic admissions is working,” she said.

‘A statement that we care’

Administrators at UW-Madison and the UW system said it’s too early to know the effects of the Wisconsin Guarantee. Johannes Britz, the UW system’s senior vice president for academic and student affairs, said it could take years to get a clearer picture.

However, the UW system said it’s not tracking how many students have enrolled through the program. It’s also unclear how many high school students have qualified for the program, regardless of whether they later applied to a state university. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction isn’t tracking that data, said John Johnson, a senior policy adviser for the state agency.

Murphy, the Republican lawmaker from Hortonville, said he has received fewer phone calls from parents complaining their child wasn’t admitted to UW-Madison with the guarantee in place. He previously fielded dozens of calls on this topic in any given legislative term, he said.

More transparency around UW-Madison’s admissions is still needed, he said, but the guarantee makes the UW admissions process better.

Cabral-Guevara called the guarantee “a critical first step in ensuring that Wisconsin’s best and brightest students are given a spot on our campuses.”

“As with any new program, I am happy to work with folks on ways to make improvements so that we can continue on the progress we’ve made so far,” she said in a statement.

Researchers who’ve examined top-percent programs elsewhere expressed surprise at the approach and policy aims outlined in Wisconsin’s guaranteed admissions law — as well as skepticism that it would achieve its goals.

“Most of the percentage plans have come out of a desire to increase racial diversity in a way that doesn’t explicitly use race in the process,” said Daniel Klasik, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. “How far these policies can go in terms of actually generating new students into the system that weren’t already going before is a little bit unclear. I have a few … doubts about that.”

Some researchers questioned how the guarantee will change UW-Madison’s enrollment in the long run. Odle, the UW-Madison assistant professor, estimated the program will help support the admission of mostly affluent, white, female students — demographics overrepresented in the top 5% across Wisconsin, which the university is already good at recruiting and retaining.

Given Wisconsin’s population is less diverse than other states with top-percent admissions programs, some also questioned if the guarantee could decrease the racial and socioeconomic diversity among students at the flagship.

“In the end, wealthier schools and families will actually benefit more from a top-percentage plan than if everything is equal in terms of all the resources and opportunities across the state,” said Carson Byrd, an associate research scientist at the University of Michigan. “A lot of this sounds like it’s more meritorious, but really, what it’s doing is compounding the educational and socioeconomic inequalities of communities.”

Britz, the UW system official, said the guarantee provides the state’s public universities another recruitment tool, and he believes rural students could benefit.

“It is not a data thing,” Britz said. “It is, for me, a statement that we care for the best and the brightest.”

As Glaus moved into her dorm at UW-Madison a few weeks ago, her parents and her brother helped haul pillows, clothing cubes and a fake plant into the tight room.

Glaus’ mom, Miranda, proudly reported she hadn’t cried yet moving Glaus into the dorm — though she admitted to tearing up on the three-hour car ride to Madison and again during lunch at a campus dining hall.

With Glaus being a first-generation student, her admission and the move were bound to bring up a lot of emotions.

“Overwhelming. Proud. Excited. Sad,” Miranda Glaus said. “Dad is very nervous.”

“I’m glad she chose here,” Brad Glaus, her dad, added.

“It was either here or Michigan,” her mom said.

While Glaus debated enrolling at the University of Michigan, she chose UW-Madison for its kinesiology program and proximity to home, much to her parents’ delight. The Wisconsin Guarantee merely reinforced her choice to become a Badger.

“I’m not really sure that it influenced my decision too much,” she said. “It made me feel even better about going there, knowing that they want me.”

Whether or not the guarantee existed, Glaus’ parents never doubted their daughter would get into UW-Madison.

“I knew she deserved it,” Miranda Glaus said. “She was going to go wherever she wanted to go.”

Erin Gretzinger is a K-12 education reporter and Becky Jacobs is a higher education reporter for the Cap Times in Madison. They can be reached at egretzinger@captimes.com and bjacobs@captimes.com.

Wisconsin’s college admissions law has unintended consequences is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Nurses at St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison have filed official charges with the National Labor Relations Board against the hospital’s parent company, SSM Health, for allegedly violating federal law by refusing to negotiate a contract with the recently established nurses’ union. 

The hospital’s nurses voted by a landslide earlier this summer to establish a union — a result that SSM fought to prevent the NLRB from recognizing. The efforts of management to prevent the union recognition were rebuffed by federal officials. 

In a news release on Tuesday, the nurses argued that hospital administration is wasting time engaging in anti-union activities when instead negotiations on a labor contract should be getting underway. 

The nurses have complained that the hospital administration has reduced staffing to unsafe levels, putting patient safety at risk. Staffing levels at St. Mary’s are the lowest of Madison’s seven hospitals. 

“SSM should be investing in staffing, support and retention of nurses, not wasting time and resources fighting our union, which is our voice to speak up for our patients,” St. Mary’s nurse Hannah Joers said in a statement released by the union. “Our number one goal is to win a contract which better takes patients’ level of sickness into account for staffing, and makes sure that we keep nurses by the bedside. SSM executives in St. Louis are abusing our empathy, making us do more and more with less and less. We’ve had enough, and the time has come to transform the system so that our patients’ needs come first. We will never back down and we are 1,000% determined to win a strong contract to provide the highest quality patient care.”

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• A UW-Madison police officer received a letter of reprimand after a student journalist in April 2025 brought to light allegations of inappropriate behavior.
• The behavior included late-night texts and flirtatious conversations with female students while on duty and relaying confidential police information to help students avoid consequences for underage drinking.
• The internal police investigation into the officer’s behavior included no interviews with students.
• Two students reported the officer’s behavior to Greek life officials in October 2024. Greek life discussed the concerns with the officer, but did not alert UWPD.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison police officer received a letter of reprimand last summer after a student journalist alerted UWPD about allegations of the officer’s inappropriate conduct with sorority and fraternity members. A follow-up Wisconsin Watch investigation has found UWPD interviewed no students as part of its internal review.

Additionally, six months before the student journalist alerted police, two former sorority executives reported the officer’s unsettling behavior to UW-Madison’s Greek life staff, who discussed the matter with the officer but did not forward the complaint to UWPD.

Wisconsin Watch first reported in July 2025 on allegations that UWPD Officer Diego Lema Hernandez had initiated late-night texting conversations, asked female students on coffee dates while on duty and relayed confidential police information to help students avoid consequences for underage drinking.

Wisconsin Watch is now naming Lema Hernandez because UWPD confirmed he received a letter of reprimand in June 2025. Lema Hernandez did not respond to requests for comment.

UWPD investigators found that Lema Hernandez failed to exercise good judgment in communicating with students about his knowledge of when Madison police would check bars for underage patrons.

Other allegations, which are fully redacted from the final report, were not sustained.

Lema Hernandez, who joined UWPD in 2017, remains a downtown community liaison officer for the department.

Student journalist prompts investigation 

UWPD learned of allegations against Lema Hernandez in April 2025 from a UW-Madison student journalist, who spoke with 11 students on the condition of anonymity.

“We took these concerns and allegations very seriously and launched an internal investigation based on the information provided to us,” UWPD spokesperson Marc Lovicott said in an email.

According to the internal investigative report obtained under the state’s public records law, UWPD conducted two interviews with Lema Hernandez and a five-minute phone call with a Madison police officer. Investigators also reviewed dozens of Lema Hernandez’s text conversations and identified 70 that related to bar checks, often followed by short phone calls.

Referred to as “raids” by students, bar checks are police inspections of drinking establishments for compliance with alcohol laws, including age and capacity restrictions.

In one February 2025 example, a student texted Lema Hernandez about whether Whiskey Jacks Saloon would be checked that night and if they should leave. Lema Hernandez responded that he could call in five minutes. They spoke for about a minute, and the student later thanked him on the way home.

In other texts when asked about bar checks, Lema Hernandez responded with phrases like “likelihood is high tonight,” “nothing for tonight that I know of,” and “yesterday and tonight run a good probability.”

When questioned, Lema Hernandez told investigators that he called students to tell them he did not have information about when or where bar checks would occur — and that even if he did, he would not share it.

Throughout UWPD interviews, Lema Hernandez recognized that a lot of the text messages “look bad” when it comes to sharing information about bar checks. He also acknowledged the optics of a male officer meeting with sorority members and said he does not want to put himself or UWPD “in that position.”

“Better judgement should have been used in the language to convey what information you do and don’t have in several areas,” UWPD Assistant Chief Kari Sasso wrote in Lema Hernandez’s June 2025 letter of discipline. “You know you should have been more direct in your text messages sharing that you do not have information on where and when bars will be checked.” 

“Your verbal and written communications must be clear to ensure there are no misunderstandings. You are a valued member of the department. You go above and beyond to be a resource for your community, providing safety tips, meeting with community members, and assuring students have a sounding board to guide them through tough situations.”

UWPD concluded its investigation before Wisconsin Watch published the student journalist’s report in July 2025. The department did not interview any of the students who made the allegations, according to the investigative report.

Lovicott said UWPD still has not received any formal complaints from any campus department or students about Lema Hernandez. He said UWPD could not interview students because the student journalist did not provide the sources’ identities. He did not respond to a question about whether police attempted to use the text message records to contact students.

“Based on the findings of our investigation, there was no new information in the article that warranted reopening the investigation,” he said in an email.

University policy unclear on reporting police complaints

After last year’s article was published, Wisconsin Watch spoke with two former student sorority executives who said they brought concerns about Lema Hernandez to staff at the UW-Madison Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) in October 2024 — six months before UWPD learned about separate allegations from the student journalist.

Both requested anonymity because they feared potential consequences for speaking publicly about former colleagues. Neither was among the 11 anonymous sources who were interviewed for the Wisconsin Watch article.

“I really appreciate you all making a story about this, I think this officer has made so many women feel this way,” one of the women wrote to Wisconsin Watch in response to the article.

She said Lema Hernandez was openly flirtatious, calling her sweetheart in conversation and texting her late at night.

“I had gone back and forth so many times, wondering, ‘Am I overreacting? Am I in the wrong? Is this my fault?’” she said later in an interview. “It became more and more clear to me that he was creating a power dynamic and really stepping over the line of being a professional resource.”

Her friend, another sorority executive, recalled one incident when Lema Hernandez spent the entire day hanging out at the Fraternity and Sorority Life office. When arrests came up in conversation, Lema Hernandez offered to “arrest” her, she said. She agreed, thinking it was funny — but left the interaction “physically, mentally and emotionally” uncomfortable after he handcuffed her hands behind her back. Wisconsin Watch reviewed a copy of a photo of the incident.

The women reported Lema Hernandez’s behavior to FSL staff, and their concerns were escalated to director Maggie Hayes, who told them later that month that she would reach out to Lema Hernandez directly, the sorority executive said.

In an email, Hayes initially told Wisconsin Watch that the complaint was shared “with the UWPD team.” After UWPD said it was not contacted about the complaint, she clarified that the office called Lema Hernandez directly to discuss the complaint.

UW-Madison’s Office of Student Affairs said in a statement that the complaint did not meet Title IX reporting requirements for sexual harassment or rise to the level of notifying Lema Hernandez’s supervisors or UWPD.

UWPD policy creates a clear internal reporting process once a complaint reaches UWPD. UW-Madison’s university-wide reporting policies, however, do not appear to require employees to forward non-Title IX complaints about UWPD officer conduct to the department.

“The FSL team confirmed that the described behavior did not meet the criteria for mandatory staff reporting,” said Jenny Bernhardt, director of communications for the university’s Office of Student Affairs. “With the student’s consent, (FSL) addressed the general issue directly with Officer Lema Hernandez as concerns raised by a larger group of FSL student leaders.”

Bernhardt spoke on behalf of Hayes, who did not respond when asked why she initially said FSL spoke with the UWPD team. Bernhardt confirmed FSL did not further escalate the information after speaking with Lema Hernandez.

“In the FSL staff conversation with Lema Hernandez in October 2024, it was agreed that his future communications with FSL students would be related to safety, security, and event management only, conveyed through UW-Madison channels, and include FSL Office staff,” Bernhardt said. 

UWPD records show Lema Hernandez communicated with students about bar checks about two dozen times between the October 2024 conversation and when UWPD launched its internal investigation in April 2025.

‘Who do you hold responsible?’

Lema Hernandez often visited sorority houses to give presentations covering campus safety, medical amnesty and behavior-based policing.

The student journalist who wrote the original Wisconsin Watch article attended one of Lema Hernandez’s sorority presentations and recorded audio in which Lema Hernandez told freshmen and sophomores, “Every now and then I might hold whatever door I’m manning open for the three or four of you to leave without any real consequences — but don’t tell my boss that. I say that because I’ve actually done it.”

UWPD investigators did not review the recording itself, but asked Lema Hernandez about the student journalist’s account of it. He told investigators he probably said something like he would “rather hold the door” but it’s not something he can or would do.

He also told investigators that part of his role as an officer is to ensure the Greek life community is following the university approval process when hosting social events at bars. 

Sylvia Butters, another student journalist, interviewed Lema Hernandez for a class project in February 2025. In a recording Butters provided to Wisconsin Watch, Lema Hernandez described how students would alert him about planned social events at bars, which he would relay to Madison police. He said he would then personally monitor the events and tell Madison police not to worry about checking them.

He mentioned a February 2024 fraternity event at 7 Iron Social, a since-closed sports bar on State Street. The event appears to match one where police found 106 of the 125 patrons were underage, according to an official city report on the incident.

“I (told the officers), from 9 to 11, there’s an event, it’s been checked. I will continue doing my checks. Essentially, don’t touch it until at least 11:30,” he told Butters.

Lema Hernandez told Butters that Madison police entered 7 Iron Social at 11:46 p.m. after an intoxicated individual “stumbled into a group of cops” who were planning to check a different bar. They found no one checking IDs or monitoring capacity at 7 Iron Social, he said.

“Who do you hold responsible?” Lema Hernandez told Butters. “For Officer Diego, like, y’all were good until 11:30 … Then, I have a conversation with the (fraternity), like, ‘I had you up until I couldn’t have you anymore.’”

“There’s a lot of things that I can do for people,” Lema Hernandez added. “I take, obviously, a big risk when I do it.”

Asked if Lema Hernandez was authorized to communicate with Madison police in the manner he described — including conveying when officers should or should not conduct a bar check — Lovicott said UWPD officers routinely work with Madison police.

“That is precisely what happened in this instance; information sharing helps our partners know about official events and where they’re located,” Lovicott wrote in an email. “It is purely information sharing, and has nothing to do with how MPD conducts patrols or enforcement actions.”

UW-Madison police disciplined an officer over student interactions. The investigation raises more questions. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Click here to read highlights from the story

• Wisconsin collects statewide data on serious police uses of force, but inconsistent reporting standards make it difficult to reliably compare departments.
• Police departments differ in what they define use of force, with some tracking actions — such as dog bites, pointing firearms or vehicle maneuvers — that others do not.
• One expert says inconsistent statewide standards can make agencies that report more comprehensively appear more force-prone, potentially discouraging transparency.

A Madison police officer’s fatal shooting of 38-year-old Corey Ruiz last month was the department’s first in more than five years.

Madison police officers are less likely to open fire during an arrest than officers in most similarly sized departments nationwide. But police shootings account for only a tiny fraction of all uses of force in Madison and elsewhere. 

How does Madison’s broader use-of-force record compare with other departments? Inconsistent state-level data makes that question difficult to answer.

State lawmakers laid the groundwork for such comparisons in 2021 — one of many police oversight reforms enacted nationwide after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd a year earlier. Wisconsin lawmakers voted to require the state Department of Justice to catalog serious uses of force by police departments and sheriffs’ offices. The DOJ now maintains a public Use-of-Force and Arrest-Related Death database, but the underlying law leaves room for law enforcement agencies to differ in the types of force they report to the state.

The result: The data offers apples-to-oranges comparisons that make it difficult to meaningfully weigh one agency’s record against another’s. 

Departments vary in rules for use-of-force tracking

Law enforcement agencies generally require officers to report uses of force to their chain of command.

Most agencies compile those records into internal datasets or annual reports, but they vary widely in the types of incidents they track.

The Green Bay Police Department, for instance, requires officers to file an after-action report if they use their police car to block, pin or strike another moving vehicle. The Milwaukee Police Department requires officers to file a similar report after conducting a “forcible blood draw.” Madison Police Department guidelines mention neither type of incident.

Both the Madison and Milwaukee police departments, however, require officers to file after-action reports if they point their firearms at a person, regardless of whether they fire a shot. Green Bay’s department does not. 

“There’s really no uniformity,” said Matt Graham, a senior data analyst with the nonprofit Center for Policing Equity. 

While some states — New Jersey, for instance — have standardized use-of-force reporting rules for law enforcement, Graham said, Wisconsin’s patchwork of policies more closely resembles the national norm.

Though internal use-of-force data can’t be used to compare agencies, a single police department can still use its own data to “analyze whether any racial or other demographic disparities exist in their use of force patterns” and evaluate whether policies and training effectively limit unnecessary use of force, said Meghan Stroshine, associate director of Marquette University’s Criminal Justice Data Analytics program.  

Internal Madison Police Department records show more than 2,300 uses of force between 2020 and the first quarter of 2026, sometimes listing more than one use of force for a single police encounter. Most incidents involved bodily force alone, though officers reported using Tasers 197 times and pepper spray 127 times. The department averaged roughly 185,000 annual calls per service in recent years.

Officer Kiel Baitinger-Peterson’s shooting of Ruiz in late July was the department’s seventh since 2020 and its first fatal case since October 2019, when officers killed 63-year-old Dean Thomas in a shootout on Madison’s southwest side. 

Limited state-level data

The Department of Justice database is more complete than Madison’s internal records in at least one instance.

Madison use-of-force records include an entry matching the December 2024 arrest of 32-year-old Richard Johnson in a hotel parking lot. Officers tackled Johnson while investigating a reported car theft; the department’s entry describes his resulting injury as an “abrasion.” It does not note that Johnson went into cardiac arrest and died at a hospital the following day. 

The Dane County medical examiner ruled the death an accident, citing Johnson’s cocaine use as the primary cause of his heart attack. Madison’s Office of the Independent Police Monitor disputed that finding in June, arguing that Johnson’s death should be treated as a homicide. 

Unlike the internal Madison records, the DOJ’s database includes Johnson’s “arrest related death.” 

The 2021 state law behind the DOJ’s use-of-force tracking efforts requires the agency to collect records only on incidents resulting in “great bodily harm or death” and those involving gunfire — either an officer shooting at a civilian or vice versa. A separate law requires the agency to log any cases in which a person “dies while detained, arrested, or in the course of being arrested,” even if the death isn’t a direct result of a use of force. The DOJ combines both sets of records in its database.

That dataset lists 70 arrest-related deaths between 2022 and 2025. The Rock County Sheriff’s Office reported five of those deaths, all but one of which took place in the county’s jail. Though the database doesn’t specify causes of arrest-related deaths, the sheriff’s office characterized one death as a suicide and another as an accidental drug overdose.

The DOJ’s records are far from a perfect measuring stick. The DOJ relies on law enforcement agencies to provide up-to-date reports of serious uses of force, but agencies differ in the types of force they consider serious enough to report to the state.

While the agency “works continuously with agencies to train on proper data entry and usage of the form, as well as performs incident audits,” DOJ spokesperson Riley Vetterkind wrote, “the responsibility to report accurate, up-to-date data falls on each law enforcement agency.”  

“Ultimately, even when relying upon a rigid definition, human judgement is still a factor,” he added.

Those variations can skew the number of incidents a given department reports to the state. 

Green Bay police, for instance, reported 31 serious use-of-force incidents to the DOJ between 2022 and 2025 — second only to Milwaukee’s police department, which reported 35 incidents in the same period. 

Milwaukee employs roughly 1,500 sworn police officers and received over 1 million calls for service over that four-year span, compared to Green Bay’s 176 sworn officers and roughly 270,000 calls for service. 

The Kenosha Police Department, with more sworn officers serving a city only slightly less populous than Green Bay, reported only five incidents. 

Those figures do not include arrest-related deaths, including the February 2024 suicide of 40-year-old Steve Evaristo Ventura after a shootout with Green Bay police officers. 

But Green Bay may not be as much of an outlier as it appears. All but three of the department’s use-of-force incidents in the state database involve police dog bites. 

Madison’s police department has not reported any dog bites to the DOJ since 2022, though its internal records list 27 incidents involving dog bites in the past four years — most of which sent the bitten person to the emergency room. A Madison Police Department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the department’s threshold for reporting uses of force to the state.

The Milwaukee Police Department likewise reported no dog bites to the DOJ between 2022 and 2025, though the department’s own use-of-force records list nearly a dozen dog bite incidents — many of them accidental. 

Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis told Wisconsin Watch he can’t neatly explain his department’s relatively high use-of-force tally without first reviewing peer agencies’ standards for reporting to the DOJ. 

“Our intention is to report everything to the state that we’re required to under the law,” he said, “because I think it’s good for the public to know.”

Most Wisconsin law enforcement agencies reported no uses of force to the DOJ. Among those that reported at least one incident, a third exclusively reported incidents in which a police officer discharged a firearm.

The mismatch in use-of-force reporting standards across departments limits the usefulness of the DOJ’s data. 

“If you’re able to actually compare across departments, you could have a good idea of what reforms (or) what interventions are actually reducing use of force,” Graham said. “So far, that’s generally not possible in most places in the U.S.”

In the meantime, agencies that report a broader range of use-of-force incidents to the DOJ risk appearing more force-prone than agencies with narrower reporting standards, Stroshine said. 

“Without an insider’s understanding of the data and what it represents, one could make any number of erroneous conclusions about a department, its culture, or the nature and frequency of its officers’ use of force,” Stroshine said. “As a consequence, one could argue that nonstandardization creates a disincentive for data transparency.” 

The 2021 state law left some discretion for law enforcement agencies to decide which incidents to report to the state. 

Some of that flexibility was intentional, said Scott Kelly, chief of staff for state Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, the bill’s prime sponsor. 

“One of the things that was discussed was that different departments do record uses of force differently,” he said, “and we didn’t want to change how they dealt with it themselves.” 

With law enforcement agencies already under heightened scrutiny at the time, pushing departments to standardize their use-of-force reporting could have been too much to ask, he said. “That’s for a future legislature to decide.”

Davis, the Green Bay chief, says consistent statewide reporting is an achievable goal.

“We already use the same standards for use-of-force training and policy throughout the state,” he said, “so I think it’s not too far to jump to get to the same standards for use-of-force reporting.”

Wisconsin tracks police use of force, but the numbers are hard to compare is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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When a Madison police officer fatally shot Corey Ruiz on July 22, his death sparked outrage — and questions. 

Among them: Why was Ruiz killed, and what kind of training or rules could have prevented his death?

Ion Meyn, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, has studied exactly that. For a 2021 paper, he and his team interviewed police officers across the country and watched dozens of training videos to understand how police think about use of force and what guidelines they learn — even as departments argue that such situations can never be governed by hard and fast rules. 

In this case, police say Ruiz pulled a knife when officers were trying to detain him. Meyn predicts authorities will conclude that the officer who shot Ruiz acted in line with his training, and thus that they won’t issue criminal charges or disciplinary action. 

“I’ve seen so many of these shootings, so I see the justifications that are going to be provided,” Meyn said.

That, Meyn argues, is why communities should create enforceable rules for police. He spoke with Wisconsin Watch about how police training can make interactions with civilians more dangerous and why officers aren’t the only experts who should shape policing policy.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

According to your research, what rules are police officers following when they’re making decisions about when to use deadly force?

This is a really contested space. If we say “What rules does the Madison Police Department follow?” the first assumption would be that officers only follow the training they hear from Madison Police Department trainers. I don’t believe that. We have officers who are keyed into officer networks. We have supplementary sources of information for training. We have the training that occurs in squad cars after the official training.

There’s a much larger ecosystem of input officers are receiving. 

If you look at some of the biggest national providers of training, the videos that are available to officers are very aggressive. From my perspective, many trainers use language that is dehumanizing, that is part of this culture of “us” and “them” that the officer’s duty is to identify criminal elements and to protect good people from these bad people. 

I haven’t been privy to the training rooms in the Madison Police Department, so I don’t know exactly what’s being trained, but the (common) general principles include things like “Always retain a tactical advantage,” “Reaction is slower than action,” and “The only person that can deescalate is the civilian.” 

Now, there is a Madison Police Department protocol that says when you approach a situation, you should try to build in time in order to allow dialogue between the officer and the suspect. But then it says only do that within what you’ve been reasonably taught about tactics and these other principles, and so those other principles are in so many ways, in conflict with this protocol, and so it’s almost like the exception that swallows the rule.

You can see that playing out in many incidents in the way that the officer interprets the likelihood that they’re going to be subject to some kind of major bodily injury or death. They’re going to imagine the worst-case scenario because they don’t want to give the bad guy the first shot, right? 

One of the takeaways from your article is that people without police training often seem to act less violently than police do around some of the same potentially threatening people.

That is the conclusion I draw. Take Tamir Rice (the 12-year-old Cleveland boy who was shot and killed by a police officer who mistook his toy gun for a real gun). If you watch the video of Tamir Rice with his fake gun that looked like a gun, he’s kind of waving it around. People walk by him before the police get there, and they wave him away, or they say, “What are you doing?” They’re assessing risk and they’re not seeing an imminent threat, or if they’re seeing a threat, they’re deescalating it and seeing what they can do. 

This also happens in situations where someone has a knife and (other civilians) are trying to talk to the person with the knife, but they’re scared. They’re keeping their distance, and it’s been going on like this for a while. Then they call the cops, and the guy’s dead in 10 seconds. Why is that?

The reason is their training. The training makes this person with a knife (appear) much more dangerous than they are to a person who might be trying to assess the situation without that training. Another thing that you see in training is a constant flow of videos that show officers getting hurt, and that’s just not empirically a representation of what happens in these situations. 

Criminologist Franklin Zimring argues that police departments should write rules that tell officers when to refrain from shooting or stop shooting. What kind of rules do you think police should be following?

To me, (the question is), what kind of conversation are we going to have about the rules we want, and who’s an expert on what force should be used? Who is the Madison City Council going to invite into police reform, and how significant a voice are they going to give to, say, sociologists and social workers? The best way forward is inviting those voices in and giving them a significant role.

I am not the person to come up with the best set of rules, but I am the person that’s going to say, “It’s clear that you’re not bringing in other voices. It’s clear that you’re not bringing in empirical data to appropriately assess risk.”

Another point you make in your article is that community members should trust their own reactions to these kinds of events, and that local governments can actually set their own standards for how they want police to operate. 

They can. Police departments will say, “We’re in compliance with the law and national standards and the Constitution and all those things, and therefore your attempt to change things is unreasonable.” That is absolutely wrong. 

What the Supreme Court actually said is, “It’s not our job to regulate training or use of force. Our job is to say if a police department uses a tactic that is so egregious, that it’s unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” That’s regulating an outer boundary of minimally acceptable conduct. The court said, “We leave it to communities to determine how they want to be policed.”

So communities have a lot of power to regulate it. They’re going to be up against a police union. They’re going to be up against powerful political players. They’re going to be up against an organized campaign that will tell people who are trying to change it that they have no right to speak in this space. 

So that’s the political aspect of it, but it’s certainly not a legal one. There’s no legal constraint to changing the way that we train police.

You predict there won’t be any criminal or administrative sanctions regarding Corey Ruiz’s death. Given that, what do you hope might come out of this incident?

My hope every time with these things is that it increases the number of people talking about it in a way that is open and curious. They want to learn how police are trained. They want to learn what rules officers are subject to. By the way, it’s very dangerous for civilians if they don’t know what police training is. 

(I also hope) people start feeling like they have a voice. I’ve just seen people get stepped on left and right, told that they just don’t have the right to speak, that they don’t know anything about policing, that they don’t know what it’s like to face a bad guy. That’s the constant refrain you hear. 

And I really hope that this community in Madison works with dispatch and comes up with a program that really is serious about directing a good portion of calls away from police into folks with a different set of expertise that’s much more based on getting social support for people.

Q&A: What the Corey Ruiz shooting reveals about police training — and who shapes policing rules is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Twenty-two people have been arrested since the city of Madison began clearing out a protest encampment on the city’s near east side, officials said Wednesday after a night marked by clashes between protesters and police.

After city workers approached the encampment around 5 a.m. Tuesday and some of those occupying the space did not leave, a police spokesperson said the demonstrators threw rocks and set fires. Police moved in, and the street reopened to traffic just after 9 a.m.

For close to 13 days, the area had been blocked off by a memorial to Ruiz, a 38-year-old Black man. That memorial morphed into an encampment spanning several city blocks, as people brought tents, mattresses and grills to the site at South Baldwin and Williamson streets, known as Willy Street to Madison residents.

Around 8 a.m., city street sweepers moved in to clean the area. City workers placed memorial objects into boxes that were later taken to Demetral Field, a nearby park.

“For nearly two weeks, I and City staff have been working day and night to peacefully resolve the occupation of Williamson and Baldwin without law enforcement intervention,” Mayor Satya-Rhodes Conway said in a video message on Tuesday, adding that city officials plan to work with the Ruiz family and other community members to create an ongoing space to grieve. “But that work could not begin while city streets were occupied, local businesses were on the verge of closing, and residents in the Marquette neighborhood were caught in the middle of an increasingly volatile situation. ”

MPD: People threw objects, set fires

The operation to clear the streets started at roughly 5 a.m., according to Madison Police Department spokesperson Stephanie Fryer. She told WPR that the city initially sent in non-police staffers to tell people to clear the area. She said that the city sent in its Community Alternative Response Emergency Services and that street division workers walked through the encampment with a megaphone “essentially telling people now is the time to begin grabbing your belongings and leave.”

Fryer said police got involved after people started starting fires and throwing objects at Streets Division workers.

“We also had been told that they were taking candles that were lit for the memorial and also throwing those in the air, trying to start fire that way,” Fryer said.

Two people protesting were injured while the encampment was being cleared, according to Fryer. One person was evaluated by medical staff and taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and the other refused treatment. Fryer said a city employee was taken to the hospital after suffering a “medical event.”

Fryer emphasized that one’s personal property from the site was being thrown away.

“The only things that were removed and actually thrown away were the items that obviously were started on fire or actual trash in the area,” Fryer said.

Protesters describe heavy machinery clearing camp in pre-dawn hours

Samuel Brooks of Portage was among those cited. He said he was handcuffed, taken downtown and later released by police after being at the encampment early Tuesday. Brooks says he previously spent more than a decade living in the Willy Street neighborhood, and he had been at the encampment overnight.

“We saw city vehicles moving around, and then we got word that the police were massing nearby, and yeah, they just circled up,” Brooks said.

Brooks said city officials arrived some time before dawn. When that happened, he said he was among the people trying to wake up a couple who were sleeping in a tent and who he believed to be homeless.

“Bulldozer was coming straight for their tent,” Brooks said. “People were trying to get things under his wheels so we could get these people like out of the way before they came through.

Brooks’ arrest report showed that he was arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest. It listed a $449 fine from the city. He said he wasn’t worried about the citation.

“I’ve got resources,” said Brooks, who is white. “I think my skin is a shield against police violence in a lot of situations.”

Chaous Riddle of Madison said she was also at the encampment when it was forcibly cleared early Tuesday.

“The whole thing was actually horrific,” Riddle said, as she recalled seeing heavy machinery and construction equipment plowing through the encampment. “They came in with their ToolCats. They barely missed people because it was dark.”

A sculpture of a raised fist that had been part of a memorial for George Floyd in Minneapolis had been brought by protesters to the Madison site. That sculpture, flowers and signs were also moved to the nearby park.

Encampment began as protest site for Corey Ruiz

The encampment started as a protest site following the death of Ruiz in a struggle with police. It has blocked a busy thoroughfare and shut down traffic to businesses and residences in the neighborhood since.

Police said Ruiz, who was homeless, produced a knife during a struggle with police, injuring one officer. Police used a Taser that they said was unsuccessful, and then an officer fatally shot Ruiz. The shooting, which was captured on video by bystanders, is being investigated by the state Department of Justice.

Protesters have called for a permanent memorial to Ruiz as one of their demands following the shooting.

Devon Snyder, a civil rights activist who is part of Madison’s Police Civilian Oversight Board, said he found the city’s move to clear the site “hypocritical.”

“This is disheartening,” Snyder told a WPR reporter at the scene. “Something that was a tragedy, built a beautiful community. And they come and do this? … They want to call this an unlawful assembly. If this was an unlawful assembly, then why did the city support this for the last week?”

The move to clear the encampment comes after days of escalating warnings by the mayor. 

On Sunday, she said the city would issue tow orders for vehicles blocking the street. On Monday, she signaled that city action was imminent.

“Countless efforts have been made to convince people that the occupation of Williamson Street and Baldwin Street is counterproductive,” Rhodes-Conway said in a statement Monday. “A huge amount of patience has been given because the last thing Madison needs is a large-scale police operation. That’s why those occupying the area need to leave immediately.”

Madison’s Common Council will be meeting Tuesday night for the first time since the shooting. That meeting will be in virtual format only. A city spokesperson previously said that decision came out of an abundance of caution after threats against multiple elected officials.

Editor’s note: WPR’s Sarah Lehr and Jenny Peek contributed reporting.

A version of this story was originally published by WPR.

Madison police clear encampment at shooting site, arrest 22 is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Editor’s note: This column was excerpted from an open letter sent on July 30, 2026, to Madison city officials. On Aug. 2, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway announced plans to remove barricades and tow vehicles occupying Williamson Street — while relocating memorial items. 

On July 22 Madison police shot Corey Ruiz on Williamson Street. That shooting should have been a moment of profound self-examination for this city. Instead, what has followed has exposed another failure of leadership.

Let me be clear: The shooting raises profound questions about Madison’s use of force and demands a full, independent investigation and public accountability. A man is dead in a system that too often relies on armed police to respond to public health and social crises.

But what has happened in the days since has become something else entirely.

I spent time walking along Williamson Street this week and speaking with business owners. I watched volunteers attempting to provide mental health support, addiction services, sanitation and basic necessities that should never have fallen on their shoulders.

This is not a functioning response.

I saw broken glass, discarded needles, human waste and other signs of a neighborhood under tremendous strain. Businesses that have served this community for decades are struggling to stay open. That includes St. Vincent de Paul, which helps keep families housed by paying utility bills and distributes thousands of diapers every month. 

Small business owners who had nothing to do with the shooting are seeing their livelihoods threatened as city leaders allow others to shoulder responsibilities that should belong to the government.

This crisis was entirely predictable.

Williamson Street has long been home to organizations that provide food assistance, harm reduction resources and help navigating housing and social services. Those organizations perform essential work, and our community is better because they exist. But they were never meant to become substitutes for a comprehensive public health system.

When a city fails to provide sufficient emergency shelter, addiction treatment, psychiatric care, crisis response, supportive housing and outreach, people in crisis congregate wherever help can be found. This is the consequence of the government failing to build a system capable of meeting people’s basic needs.

Instead of investing in that system, Madison has effectively concentrated its social safety net in one neighborhood.

That isn’t compassionate.

It isn’t sustainable.

And it isn’t fair — to people struggling with addiction or mental illness, to the volunteers trying to help them, or to the residents and small businesses that call Williamson Street home.

What disturbs me most is that everyone now seems to be fighting the wrong battle.

The shooting of Ruiz should have united Madison around demanding better policing and stronger public health infrastructure.

Instead, neighbors are turning against protesters. Protesters are turning against businesses. Businesses are turning against the city. Residents are exhausted. People experiencing homelessness and addiction remain trapped in the same circumstances that existed before the shooting.

No one is winning.

I’ve read dozens of comments from Madison residents, many of whom initially supported the demonstrations but now say they feel abandoned by city leadership. They describe blocked businesses, unsafe conditions, interrupted access to essential services, fire hazards, open drug use and a neighborhood that increasingly feels less like a protest than a place where the government has stopped governing. Whether every account is accurate is beside the point. The common thread is unmistakable: People feel abandoned.

Government exists precisely for moments like this.

It is not enough to allow volunteers to build makeshift public health services on a public street while trained professionals remain absent.

It is not enough to leave sanitation to neighbors cleaning up broken glass, discarded needles and human waste outside their own storefronts.

It is not enough to ask local businesses to absorb devastating financial losses while waiting indefinitely for a resolution.

And it is certainly not enough to respond to profound social failures primarily with police.

Madison prides itself on progressive values. Those values mean very little if they amount to outsourcing public health to nonprofits, addiction treatment to volunteers, housing to charities, sanitation to neighborhood residents and crisis intervention to police officers.

Williamson Street deserves better.

The people living with addiction deserve better.

The business owners deserve better.

The residents deserve better.

Corey Ruiz deserved better.

If this city truly wants to honor his memory, then stop managing symptoms and start addressing causes.

Invest in mental health infrastructure.

Expand shelter and supportive housing.

Fund addiction treatment and professional outreach.

Restore sanitation and public safety.

Support the businesses and nonprofits that have borne the costs of this crisis.

Hold officers accountable when they use unlawful or excessive force.

And stop expecting one neighborhood to carry burdens that belong to all of Madison.

The tragedy began years before the shooting when we accepted that nonprofits, charities, neighborhood volunteers and police officers could substitute for the public systems that are supposed to be run by the government. 

The shooting was one terrible consequence of that failure.

The chaos that has followed is another.

Madison can do better.

Right now, it is choosing not to.

Sarah A. Larsen is a Madison resident. 

Guest opinion: After the Corey Ruiz shooting, Williamson Street encampment exposes Madison’s deeper failures is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

A Madison police officer last week shot and killed Corey Ruiz during an attempted arrest on the city’s east side. The shooting renewed debates about race, policing and use of force, while also prompting broader conversations about homelessness and mental health.

To help readers make sense of the fast-moving story, we’ve collected reporting from across Wisconsin that explains what happened, what’s next and why it matters.

We’re working on several in-depth stories exploring the issues the shooting brought to the forefront, and we’ll continue sharing that reporting in the weeks ahead.

What happened

The shooting unfolded in less than 30 seconds, but questions about what happened and whether the officer’s actions were justified continue to shape public debate.

For readers seeking a closer look at the shooting, ABC News produced a frame-by-frame analysis of the fatal confrontation. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked three policing experts to review the encounter. Two raised concerns about the officers’ tactics and use of force, while a third concluded that Ruiz’s resistance during the arrest and the presence of a knife likely justified the officer’s decision to shoot.

The Wisconsin State Journal reviewed Ring camera footage and police scanner audio that shed light on the calls that prompted police to attempt to arrest Ruiz.

Read:

• Madison officials identify Corey Ruiz as man police shot and killed — Associated Press/Wisconsin Watch
• Visual analysis of the deadly Wisconsin police shooting — ABC News
• Some police experts troubled by Madison shooting of Corey Ruiz  — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (republished paywall-free here.) 
• New details emerge about the moments before police shot Corey Ruiz — Wisconsin State Journal

How political leaders are responding

The shooting has become an issue in Wisconsin’s race for governor, while drawing responses from elected officials across the state and beyond. Most political leaders have called for transparency and an independent investigation, but state Rep. Francesca Hong, the Democratic front-runner for governor, quickly labeled the shooting an “execution,” while others — including Republican front-runner U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany — have urged the public not to reach conclusions before the investigation is complete.

Read:

• Candidates for Wisconsin governor react to Madison shooting — Wisconsin Public Radio
• Guv candidates react to police killing in Madison — WisPolitics
• Wisconsin congressional delegation reacts to deadly police shooting — Spectrum News 1

Questions of accountability

The shooting has revived long-standing debates over how Madison investigates police use of force — and whether the city has appropriate oversight tools. As required by state law, the Wisconsin Department of Justice is investigating whether a crime occurred during the shooting. At the same time, the Madison Police Department is conducting an internal administrative investigation into whether officers followed department policies. Madison’s independent police monitor is carrying out a separate review.

WPR explores the role — and limits — of Madison’s independent police monitor and examines why Madison remains one of the few major Wisconsin cities without police body cameras. The Cap Times breaks down what each investigation meant to answer and why city leaders postponed broader police oversight reforms after the shooting.

Read:

• Madison revisits police body cameras after years of debate — WPR 
• Madison’s independent police monitor investigates Corey Ruiz shooting — WPR 
• Here’s what to expect from the Madison police shooting investigations — Cap Times 
• Madison police oversight changes tabled after fatal shooting — Cap Times

Searching for healing

Memorials, protests and an encampment have turned the Willy Street neighborhood into a space for mourning, reflection and demands for accountability.

The Cap Times captures the emotion of a vigil honoring Ruiz. Isthmus explores how the intersection has become an evolving community hub — what some are calling “Corey Street” — while examining why longtime residents see echoes of previous police shootings.

Read:

• At Corey Ruiz’s vigil, a Minneapolis statue stands for solidarity — Cap Times
• A community hub on what’s now dubbed Corey Street — Isthmus
• In the Willy Street neighborhood, history repeats itself — Isthmus

The conversation continues

The shooting has prompted statewide reflection on what healing and recovery might look like.

@wisconsinwatch

Memorials and an encampment have transformed the intersection of Williamson and Baldwin streets into a space for mourning and protest after a Madison police officer fatally shot Corey Ruiz during an attempted arrest on July 22. Businesses near the site face a balancing act. Many owners support calls for justice while struggling with the financial effects of street closures. Here’s a rainy day look at what some have renamed “Corey Street.” Read more about the shooting and its aftermath at WisconsinWatch.org. #coreyruiz #madisonwi

♬ original sound – Wisconsin Watch – Wisconsin Watch

Alan Robinson wrote in Madison365 about what the city owes Ruiz and what meaningful accountability could look like. “Corey Ruiz’s name cannot become a ladder for anyone’s campaign, organization, career or social-media following,” he writes. “No person owns this moment. No organization owns this grief.”

The Wisconsin State Journal, meanwhile, highlights the balancing act facing businesses near the protest site. Many owners support calls for justice while struggling with the financial effects of ongoing street closures.

WMTV reports on the city’s effort to move unhoused people from the area with hotel vouchers. It has drawn criticism from at least one advocates, who argues the strategy prioritizes clearing the neighborhood over addressing long-term housing needs.

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service gathered a range of voices from Milwaukee and beyond.

“Another senseless police-involved shooting,” Milwaukee resident Bryan Winters said. “I believe there were multiple missed opportunities to get Corey the proper mental health treatment that was missed by the community and the justice system.”

Read:

• The city we owe him — Madison365
• Willy Street businesses feel the strain as encampment enters second week — Wisconsin State Journal
• ‘People don’t want to go’: Madison nonprofit questions city’s motive behind hotel vouchers for unhoused community — WMTV
• We talked to Milwaukee residents and others about the police killing of Corey Durell Ruiz. Here’s what they said. — Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service

We’ll continue sharing reporting that helps add context and clarity as this story unfolds. 

The Corey Ruiz shooting: essential reading is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

Ahead of the 2026 midterms, Wisconsin election officials are planning for the potential of mail ballot delivery delays by encouraging voters to mail back absentee ballots as soon as possible or return them some other way.

And on Friday, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin sued the Wisconsin Elections Commission, arguing voters should be able to cast provisional ballots on Election Day if they don’t think their mail ballot will arrive on time.

Unlike many other states, which allow ballots to be counted if they arrive after Election Day as long as they’re postmarked by that day and arrive by a set cutoff time, Wisconsin requires mail ballots to arrive by 8 p.m. on Election Day to be counted.

Historically, the USPS and Wisconsin Elections Commission advised voters that mailing back a ballot a week ahead of Election Day would suffice. Now, the commission and municipal clerks are calling on voters to allow more time.

Milwaukee election chief Paulina Gutiérrez reported receiving only 20 mail ballots on Election Day in April’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election — a low number even for a small election — but more than 269 late ballots on the day after, which Gutiérrez said was a high number for an election of that size. Seeking to avoid such a high number of late-arriving ballots in the future, Gutiérrez told Votebeat that for the upcoming August election, the city opened its ballot drop boxes four weeks sooner than it would have in the past.

“We are encouraging voters to use our drop boxes or drop off their absentee ballot at (early in-person voting sites),” she said.

If they’re unable to do either, Gutiérrez said voters should mail back their ballots at least two weeks ahead of Election Day.

In Madison, which received more than 100 late ballots in April — also more than what’s typical — City Clerk Lydia McComas told Votebeat that drop boxes open three weeks ahead of the August election.

“We emphasize this is a convenient and far faster option than returning an absentee ballot via USPS,” she said.

Many election officials observe mail delays

These concerns are shared by election officials across the state.

In a recent survey, two-thirds of Wisconsin election officials said they observed problems with absentee ballot mail delivery in the April election. About one-third of officials said voters had complained to them about mail delays.

Nearly 40% said that mail performance in the election was somewhat or much worse than mail performance in past elections.

That experience isn’t universal. Vernon County Clerk Jerry Pedretti, who’s also clerk of the separate town and village of Genoa, told Votebeat that rural USPS workers recognize absentee ballots from the envelopes and make “every effort to make sure that they’re getting them delivered.”

Similarly, Buffalo County Clerk Lisa Schmitt said a couple of ballots arrived after Election Day in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election but problems weren’t major. That was likely a result of postmasters keeping the mail local rather than sending it out via Minnesota for processing, which she said is the typical procedure for non-election mail.

Nonetheless, commissioners at the Wisconsin Elections Commission are concerned about the delays. On MyVote, a website for voters to request ballots, the commission still includes the USPS recommendation for voters to return mail ballots at least seven days before Election Day. But in June, the commission’s new election manual and guidance to voters went further, suggesting at least 10 days before Election Day.

At a meeting in early July, commissioners discussed this updated guidance. “I’m concerned about us just saying 10 days is enough,” Democratic commissioner Mark Thomsen said at the meeting.

USPS spokesperson Desai Abdul-Razzaaq said that he is confident the Postal Service will perform well in the upcoming elections. While he said the USPS takes officials’ concerns from the April election seriously, he said “the overwhelming majority of Election Mail was processed and delivered within established service standards.”

Voters sue for ability to cast provisional ballots

Amid these delays, voters are challenging commission guidance prohibiting voters from casting in-person ballots on Election Day if they think their mail ballot might arrive too late to be counted.

The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin said the commission’s guidance violates the right to vote enshrined in the Wisconsin Constitution and is calling on a Dane County Circuit Court judge to allow voters to cast provisional ballots if they think their ballots might arrive late.

Unlike standard in-person ballots, which generally go directly from the person casting them to a tabulator, provisional ballots are segregated and verified and counted later on, once election officials determine they are validly cast. The league is asking for mail voters to be able to cast provisional ballots and only have them counted if their mail ballots don’t arrive on time.

State law says that a voter who mails or delivers an absentee ballot to a clerk isn’t permitted to vote in person in the same election on Election Day. But the league said the commission is too narrowly interpreting that law in its rule prohibiting voters from casting ballots if they suspect their ballot will arrive late.

“This rule risks denying Impacted Voters their right to vote — the right most preservative of all others,” the lawsuit states.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Amid USPS delays, Wisconsin officials tell voters to mail their ballots ASAP as voters sue for more options is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Most Wisconsin law enforcement agencies use body-worn cameras.

The Madison Police Department, despite being one of the largest in the state, does not — at least not department-wide.

That could change, if Common Council members support a budget proposal backed by the mayor and the police department.

Madison’s lack of body cameras has drawn renewed attention in recent days after a Madison officer fatally shot Corey Ruiz, a 38-year-old Black man last Wednesday. Police say the officer was injured after Ruiz pulled a knife. Four officers are now on leave pending a Wisconsin Department of Justice investigation.

Currently, the only Madison officers with body-worn cameras are those on the SWAT team and motorcycle unit.

But at a Thursday press conference about the killing of Ruiz, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said she wanted to fund body-worn cameras for the entire police department. She’s backing a three-year phased plan, that would lead to full adoption by 2029.

That comes after years of contentious debate and multiple failed proposals to broaden the use of body cameras.

Ruiz family calls for body cameras

Now, following Ruiz’s killing, attorneys for his family have expressed outrage about Madison’s lack of department-wide body cameras.

“We are in a major metropolitan city in the state of Wisconsin, and Madison is one of the few cities that still does not have police body cameras,” attorney B’Ivory Lamarr said. “In 2026, solving a police shooting should not be a mystery.”

Corey Ruiz’s brother, Adam Ruiz, also said body cameras are needed.

“I believe that system is corrupted and us, as the people, we need to stand up and come together to put a stop to this madness,” Adam Ruiz said. “They need body cameras to stop future incidents to stop future incidents from happening.”

Bystanders took video of the shooting, and Ruiz’s attorneys said, given MPD’s lack of body camera, that footage is essential.

“If there wasn’t video, we can only imagine what the narrative would have been,” attorney Ben Crump said. “Thank God for all of those people who had their cell phones out.”

Mayor says cost swayed her decision

Previously, Rhodes-Conway supported a pilot program that tested out body cameras on a limited basis. But until now, the mayor had not committed to backing a permanent body camera program.

On Thursday, Rhodes-Conway said budget considerations had swayed her decision.

“My main concern has been the cost,” Rhodes-Conway said in response to question from WPR. “When we initially got the estimates from the pilot, there was a very large price tag, and the (police) chief has worked to bring that price tag down in various ways.”

In a budget request submitted earlier this year, Madison’s police department asked for $414,784 over three years to roll out body cameras. That phased approach would start with officers in the city’s north policing district in 2027. By 2029, the cameras would be used across the entire city.

Rhodes-Conway says she plans to back that request from the police department when she submits her own budget proposal later this year. The funding would ultimately need to be approved by Madison’s Common Council.

For more than a decade, Madison body cam proposals have stalled

For more than a decade, Madison’s elected officials have debated whether the city’s entire police force should use body cameras. But efforts to introduce the cameras have been stymied. Over the years, opposition has come from some of the Common Council’s more left-wing members, as well as from some local activists.

Some have questioned whether body cameras would actually change police behavior. Others have raised concerns about privacy and “over-policing.”

The use of body cameras often gains attention in the context of police misconduct. But increasingly, law enforcement officials are using body camera footage as evidence to secure convictions.

During a Common Council meeting in 2023, Madison resident Steve Verburg was among those who spoke out against body cameras.

“What’s happening is this ongoing surveillance ends up worsening over-policing of marginalized communities,” he said.

Another resident, former Common Council candidate Michelle Ellinger Linley, told the council the purpose of body cameras is “not to make our communities safer, but to uphold unnecessary surveillance, tracking and record-keeping of communities at highest risk for exploitation.”

Those remarks came just before Madison’s Common Council voted to approve a pilot to test body cameras in the North Police District. That 90-day trial has since ended.

Council president: Community now wants body cameras

More recently, in November 2025, Alder Barbara Harrington-McKinney introduced an amendment that would have redirected just over $400,000 from the Office of the Independent Police Monitor to fund “staffing capacity needs related to implementing body worn cameras.” That amendment failed 17-3.

The amendment would have eliminated the police monitor’s annual budget. And some alders complained it was introduced too late in the budget process.

On Thursday, Madison Common Council President Sabrina Madison said she believes a body camera proposal will clear the council in 2026.

“The community, for a while, was not wanting to implement body-worn cameras yet,” Madison said. “That has changed.”

The city’s police cruisers are outfitted with dashboard and backseat cameras. And cellphone videos from bystanders have been circulating online after Wednesday’s shooting.

But DOJ investigators have no way to review body camera footage if it doesn’t exist.

In an interview with WPR, Madison said it’s impossible to know whether a body-worn camera would have changed the outcome of Wednesday’s shooting. But she said those cameras could provide additional information.

“Now folks are really having that discussion more often about what is the gap that we’re missing when we don’t have that footage,” Madison said.

Madison Police Department backs body cameras

During Thursday’s news conference, Police Chief John Patterson spoke about tensions in Madison following the killing of Ruiz.

“Everyone in this room can feel the thinness of trust in this city right now,” Patterson said.

He called MPD’s lack of body cameras “another challenge to repairing trust in our community.”

In his budget request submitted earlier this year, Patterson called body camera funding his “No. 1 request.”

Patterson’s predecessor, former Police Chief Shon Barnes, tried to implement department-wide body cameras. Barnes was unable to do so before he left to lead Seattle’s police department last year.

The Wisconsin Professional Police Association, a union representing police officers, has also advocated for body-worn cameras.

“Unfortunately, because Madison officers are not equipped with body-worn cameras, investigators and the public will not have the benefit of video from the officers’ perspectives in this most recent case,” said the association’s executive director Jim Palmer, referring to the shooting of Ruiz. “Body-worn cameras aren’t perfect and don’t always capture everything an officer sees or experiences, but they can provide critically important additional evidence and context.”

During Madison’s last mayoral election in spring 2023, Rhodes-Conway’s opponent, Gloria Reyes, came out in support of citywide body cameras. Reyes is a former Madison police detective, who was endorsed by the city’s police union.

At the time, Rhodes-Conway did not categorically oppose the proposal. But she cautioned that body cameras alone cannot solve police violence.

Rhodes-Conway expressed a similar sentiment in the days after the killing of Ruiz.

“(Body cameras) are part of a solution,” Rhodes-Conway said Thursday. “But they are not the solution.”

If the police department’s latest proposal is approved, Madison would purchase 220 of body cameras by 2029.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Madison revisits police body cameras after years of debate is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Protesters burst into a Thursday news conference about the police shooting of a homeless man in Madison, taking the microphone from the police chief and arguing with some attendees who said they wanted to hear more about the investigation.

The group of roughly 20 protesters burst into the room at the Madison police station, shortly after Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and Common Council President Sabrina Madison identified the man killed by police as Corey Durell Ruiz, a homeless resident.

Ruiz, 38, was shot and killed Wednesday after police said he resisted arrest and injured an officer with a knife.

Police Chief John Patterson stepped away from the microphone when the protesters were shouting, and one man in the group took his spot at the podium. The event quickly devolved into a shouting match.

@wisconsinwatch

A vigil for Corey Ruiz was held Thursday at the intersection of Williamson Street and South Baldwin Street in Madison, where Ruiz was fatally shot by a Madison police officer. We spoke to several Madison residents about the fatal shooting. Madison Police Department’s police chief, John Patterson, said Ruiz’s death will be investigated as a homicide during a press conference shortly before the vigil. The Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating the shooting. #wisconsinwatch #coreyruiz #mpd #madisonshooting #madison

♬ original sound – Wisconsin Watch – Wisconsin Watch

One protester held a sign saying “Corrupt cops deserve to die too!!!”

Moments earlier, the mayor said the shooting will be “rigorously investigated.”

“It does not matter who you are or what your past is, you should not lose your life as a result of an encounter with law enforcement,” Satya Rhodes-Conway said.

Madison, for her part, said “Corey could have been my brother because my brother is homeless and he often rides a bike.”

Court records show Ruiz had been in and out of jail over the past decade on charges including failing to pay child support, driving a vehicle without consent, jumping bail, threatening authorities, taking a vehicle without consent, possessing drug paraphernalia, resisting an officer and retail theft.

“He’s a human being. He had a family. He has parents who loved him who brought him home, who cared for him,” Madison said, adding that she’s struggling to understand what she’s seen in videos of the shooting that have circulated on social media.

“My first thought is, when the officer’s walking away, why isn’t he walking away in cuffs,” Madison said. “I’m angry, there’s no way around it.”

Once the protesters quieted down, the chief resumed his presentation, promising his department’s full cooperation with the state investigation.

Police have released few details

The shooting has roiled Wisconsin’s capital city, with Gov. Tony Evers calling for “transparency and accountability” and Madison community members gathering Thursday at a growing memorial.

None of the four officers who were detaining the man wore body cameras, but passersby recorded the confrontation on video, and accused the officers of overreacting.

“I thought, ‘Holy cow — what could have warranted that?’ It looked to me like they had him under control,” David Ortiz-Whittingham, who saw officers swarming and heard the gunshots, said Thursday. “Even now, knowing about the knife, did he have to die for it? Could this have been de-escalated without him losing his life?”

The police chief released few details Thursday, saying the investigation into the officer-involved shooting must run its course.

Earlier Thursday, Madison’s independent police monitor, Aeiramique Glass, said police have not yet shared evidence or the officer’s identity with her office, which will review the case and can recommend to the district attorney that charges be filed if warranted. She said the department and city are “obstructing what the community and the public” want.

“Let me do my job,” she said.

Patterson said the police were committed to cooperating with Glass as the independent monitor’s investigation is carried out, at the same time as the state’s probe.

The chief urged people not to draw conclusions

Patterson has urged caution in reading too much from the cellphone videos. He said none show the perspective of the officers, and additional video that hasn’t been released is being reviewed.

The officer who fired his weapon is a veteran of the force, the chief said. He and the three other responding officers will be placed on administrative leave pending an independent investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation, as required under state law.

Patterson said police were responding to calls that someone was attempting to enter parked vehicles, and the suspect fled on a bike before the officers surrounded him. One deployed a taser, but Patterson said he didn’t know if the taser worked. Those efforts failed to control the man, Patterson said.

In the videos circulating online, the man can be seen standing before he’s brought to his knees as the officers struggle to force him into a prone position. Then he falls quickly to the pavement after what sounds like three gunshots and seems motionless as the officers handcuff him behind his back. Arriving officers then escort one of the officers a short distance away.

Patterson said he did not know the extent of the injuries sustained by the officer who was injured by the knife.

“This situation was clearly dangerous,” Patterson said. He later continued, “I am incredibly saddened by the loss of life.”

A neighborhood now accustomed to police shootings

The shooting happened in the middle of an intersection in the popular Marquette neighborhood, which is lined with restaurants, bars, shops and homes less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from the state Capitol. The bystander videos show numerous cars at the scene, with people watching and commenting as it unfolded.

“I saw everything! I saw everything! You did not need to kill him! … We watched it all!” a woman yelled in the video recorded by Ortiz-Whittingham. Three loud shots could be heard among the sirens, followed by screams.

Residents who dealt with two other police killings within the same few blocks expressed their frustration on Thursday.

In 2015, a white police officer shot and killed Tony Robinson, who was biracial, on the same street. Large protests followed, but the district attorney filed no charges, determining the officer was justified. In 2012, Paul Heenan, a white musician, was fatally shot after he had been drinking and mistakenly entered his neighbor’s house. That officer was exonerated as well.

The chief acknowledged that the neighborhood “has experienced a lot of trauma” and urged people to support one another.

“I want transparency, I want accountability,” Patterson said.

Questions about race and technology emerge

The race of the officer who fired his gun on Wednesday and that of the man he killed were not released by police.

But Black advocacy groups, protesters and politicians spoke out against the crime and said they believe the man was Black.

The shooting also focused attention on the Madison Police Department’s lack of body-worn cameras. The force of around 500 is among the largest in the Midwest that doesn’t use the devices.

Common Council President Sabrina Madison said Thursday that she expects a police request for $400,000 to be approved, enabling the cameras to be phased in over the next three years. Others lamented that cameras aren’t already being used.

“Nobody can agree on anything,” said Katey Nelson, a member of the police civilian oversight board and operations director at YWCA Madison, a racial justice group. “Now we’re here, looking at another police shooting where we don’t have what we need to make sure the officers are held accountable.”

The mayor said her budget, which has not yet been released, will include funding for body-worn cameras. Rhodes-Conway said the city needs to put together a policy for the use of the cameras, and said that will be completed before the budget takes effect in January.

And now it’s a talking point in the governor’s race

Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin, has a long history of organized protest dating back to the 1960s. More than 100,000 people marched on the state Capitol in 2011 in favor of union rights. There were large demonstrations that turned violent after the death of George Floyd in 2020.

And so the shooting quickly infused itself into the race to succeed Evers as governor, with voting already underway in the Aug. 11 primary.

“This state sanctioned violence was an execution,” posted Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist candidate who appeared with a bullhorn at the scene just a few blocks from her campaign office. She has called for defunding the police.

Another Democrat in the race, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, said while the details must become public, “these reports are painfully reminiscent of the tragedies we have witnessed in Kenosha, Minneapolis, and far too many communities across our country.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany called on his rivals to let the state investigation “establish the facts without politicians rushing to judgment or stoking division” in a statement that also said he would “work to end revolving-door criminal justice policies.”

Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit and Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: The Associated Press erroneously reported George Floyd was shot and killed by police. An officer in Minneapolis murdered Floyd by pinning him to the pavement and putting a knee to his neck. This story has been updated to reflect the correction.

Madison officials identify Corey Ruiz as man police shot and killed is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• UW Health leaders created a new company called WorkForward to help health care systems and state agencies nationwide create their own apprenticeship programs. 
• UW Health officials started offering apprenticeships to their employees in 2018. 
• The program has helped the company fill entry-level roles and retain existing staff while filling gaps for in-demand positions. 
• But experts say apprenticeships aren’t a silver bullet: They require clinical staff to supervise apprentices; employers have to pay staff for hours they’re in school; and each state has its own regulations for apprenticeships.

Violet LaClair was ready to leave her job. 

As a certified nursing assistant at UW Health in Madison, she used the skills she developed while caring for her dying grandmother for nine years. Her co-workers had supported her through her gender transition. She’d even won an award for providing “extraordinary” care. 

She loved her workplace, but after four years, she wanted a change.

“I felt like I’d done it all,” LaClair said. “I felt like at some point I needed to challenge myself more.” 

She thought about going back to school, but that didn’t seem doable. She was already in her 40s and didn’t have time or money to spend.

Then she learned she could get trained to be a medical assistant for free, while working, through an apprenticeship program UW Health started in 2018. She pays no school costs, and she gets paid for the time she spends in class. 

Three days a week, she works at the company’s Union Corners clinic, where she gets patients situated, takes blood pressure, flushes ears and more. 

“I can pretty much do anything the doctor asked me to,” LaClair said. Two days a week, she takes classes on pharmacology, laboratory procedures, and law and ethics.

“I think the program is great,” LaClair said. “It’s given me a whole new chapter in my life, and something to be excited about.” 

Opportunities like these are novel, but increasingly common. The idea is simple: Maybe the country’s next nurses, surgical technologists and medical assistants are already working in hospitals and clinics. The people who’ve spent years booking appointments or drawing blood might jump at the chance to train for new careers — if their employers will help them do it. 

UW Health now offers apprenticeship options for 17 professions, including surgical techs, pharmacy technicians, respiratory therapists and registered nurses. Apprentices pay nothing for their course work, and they get paid to be in class.

To date, more than 1,000 apprentices have graduated. 

Bridgett Willey, who oversaw the launch of those apprenticeships, said they’ve helped fill a critical gap. Wisconsin colleges alone just aren’t graduating enough students to meet the needs of the three major health systems in southern Wisconsin, Willey said. 

The popular programs, which attract far more applicants than they can accommodate, have helped the company fill entry-level roles and hold onto existing staff. Before it began offering apprenticeships, as many as 3 in 10 positions for medical assistants, nursing assistants and pharmacy technicians were unfilled, Willey said. Today, it’s around 1 in 10. 

“We’ve increased our supply by growing our own and training our own folks,” Willey said. 

UW Health isn’t the only health system trying this model. Apprenticeships, once a rarity in health care, have become increasingly common at hospitals and clinics nationwide.

But offering this kind of on-the-job training isn’t always easy. Now, UW Health plans to use what it’s learned to help other states overcome the financial and bureaucratic barriers that can stand in the way. In May, the health system announced it created a separate company called WorkForward to help health systems and state agencies elsewhere set up apprenticeships. Willey, who directs that new project, thinks it’s the first such initiative by a U.S. health care company.

The health care apprenticeship surge

Historically, apprenticeships have been a key on-ramp to technical trades like plumbing and carpentry, allowing trainees to earn as they learn.

Now, apprenticeships are flourishing in U.S. hospitals and clinics, too. In just five years, the number of registered apprentices in the health care field has grown by more than 40%, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, as employers have expanded existing programs and others have started new ones. 

The boom comes as demand for health care workers has shot up across the country, triggered by the growing needs of an aging population and a wave of longtime health care workers retiring. By 2038, the country will be short about 109,000 registered nurses, 61,000 physical therapists, 33,000 pharmacy technicians and 13,000 respiratory therapists, according to projections by the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis.

Meanwhile, vocational and on-the-job training is becoming increasingly popular across the board, said Susan Skillman, senior principal research scientist at the University of Washington Center for Health Workforce Studies. 

“Apprenticeships in general are growing,” Skillman said. “We’re kind of in that place in the nation where the pendulum is moving away from four-year college degrees.”

Staff seize opportunity to advance

Some health apprenticeships last months while others last years. At UW Health, apprentices training to become medical assistants finish in 10 months while future registered nurses train for four years.

No matter the length or industry, all apprenticeships involve a combination of on-the-job training and classroom instruction. In the case of Wisconsin’s registered apprentices, who are approved through the state’s Department of Workforce Development, employers must pay apprentices for the time they spend in class. In some cases, the employer pays for the apprentices’ school costs, too. 

At UW Health, the employer covers tuition. The health system’s staff also coordinate the apprentices’ work and school schedules to avoid conflicts. 

Those were big selling points for Brianna Matheson, 35, who had worked as a medical assistant for 12 years when she learned last spring that UW Health was starting a three-year surgical tech apprenticeship. She’d spent time in the operating room before, and she liked helping with clinical procedures.

“I was just ready for something more,” Matheson said. “I was in clinics for so long, doing the same thing for so long. I wanted to learn again, be a student again, and be a novice.”

When the application opened, she was the first to apply. 

“I had kind of given up on the idea of going back to school because I, like so many others, need full-time income, and I didn’t really want to give up all of my free time to work full time and go to school in the evenings and weekends,” said Matheson, who now processes and delivers supplies to the operating room at Madison’s University Hospital. 

Not only does she not pay tuition, but the Department of Workforce Development offers a stipend for scrubs, reimburses mileage to and from school, and even covers some daycare costs for apprentices with kids, Matheson said. 

The position also let Matheson keep her prior $25 hourly wage, reflecting the raises she’d earned during more than a decade on the job. When Matheson graduates in May 2028, she’ll earn surgical tech wages, which range from around $30 to $44 an hour, according to current UW Health job listings.

“I would not have been going back to school at this point in life to pursue this without the support of specifically the apprenticeship program that UW Health is offering,” Matheson said. “I wouldn’t have done it on my own.”

Apprenticeships attract new job applicants

Offering apprenticeships could help health systems draw entry-level job applicants like 25-year-old DeForest native Alex Lippman. 

Lippman trained as a certified nursing assistant in high school, then worked at a skilled nursing facility in Madison. He started college at Arizona State University with plans to become a doctor, but moved back to Wisconsin when his grandmother fell ill in his sophomore year. He wanted to continue his education but figured he’d missed his chance.

Then, in 2023, UW Health announced it was starting the state’s first apprenticeship for registered nurses. That apprenticeship, like all of UW Health’s multiyear apprenticeships that lead to degrees, are open only to employees who’ve worked for the system for at least six months. 

“I had a plan of trying to get into this program because going back to school on my own was no longer feasible,” Lippman said. He got a job as a certified nursing assistant and began the apprenticeship the next year. 

Today he takes classes at Madison College and works three night shifts a week caring for patients with brain and spine injuries in University Hospital’s neuro intensive care unit. He’s on track to graduate in 2028.

UW Health’s shorter training programs, meanwhile, are open to new applicants as well as current employees. Already, some have finished one and moved onto another, looking to advance their careers, Willey said.

“What we’re seeing is that people come in through one of our entry-level (apprenticeship) programs like medical assistant or nursing assistant, get their feet under them working in that capacity, and then now they’re applying for our degreed registered apprenticeship programs,” Willey said.

This isn’t the first time the company has built its own pipeline of health care workers. In 2013, Willey started a program called Health Occupations and Professions Exploration, or HOPE, where high school students spend a Saturday learning to do CPR, place a breathing tube in a mannequin, and more. The goal, Willey said, is to show students the range of careers available in health care. The program has trained about 6,500 students.

How much can the model grow?

Apprenticeships offer a unique way to address workforce shortages and help employees move up on the job, said Andy MacCracken, who coordinates health workforce planning for North Carolina at the NC Center on the Workforce for Health. That, he said, is one reason the number of apprentices and apprenticeships in the health care field has soared in recent years. 

Still, he said, it’s not clear exactly how much of the health worker shortage can be solved through apprenticeships. 

“We need to have a realistic view about what we’re actually aiming for when deploying apprenticeships as a solution,” MacCracken said. “I think apprenticeships are a really helpful tool in the toolbox. They’re not the only one.”

One challenge: It’s expensive to pay the clinical staff needed to supervise apprentices, so it can be hard for health system leaders to make the business case to their boards. Even health systems that embrace apprenticeships may not be able to accept as many apprentices as they’d like. 

UW Health pays for its apprenticeship program with a mix of its own funds, private donations and public funds, though Willey said the latter is usually only available for starting up a new program.  

Still, there are always far more applicants than openings. When the registered nursing apprenticeship launched in 2023, 200 employees applied for 16 slots. Last year, 70 people applied for 40 medical assistant apprenticeships.

Another challenge: Each state has its own laws about what counts as an apprenticeship and what standards an employer must meet when offering one. Likewise, the regulations for each profession may vary from state to state too. And then there are the accrediting agencies that approve educational programs, which are still getting used to the idea that students might get paid for their clinical training hours.

Willey said WorkForward will publish research on apprenticeship approaches that work, lobby for resources to support such programs and help other states identify potential funding sources. The company is a nonprofit, she said, which will apply for private and public grants. It will not receive direct funding from UW Health. 

Currently, she said, WorkForward is working in Massachusetts with Tufts Medicine and Mass General Brigham — the state’s largest health care employer — and 12 of the state’s community and technical colleges.

“It would be great if we could take the solutions that we’ve built and spread (them at) scale across the U.S. … Health care continues to be a driver of new jobs for the U.S. economy,” Willey said, “and we have an aging population who needs more care, and so we need to be addressing these things now.”

MacCracken said he hasn’t heard of another health care employer taking on this role, but he thinks it makes sense, as employers may be more willing to listen to other employers. 

In North Carolina, he said, he’s already seen how a few model programs can pave the way for others. 

“I think because of the successes of some of the early adopters who have put these programs in action, we’re seeing great results, and so that’s helping inspire more action and scalability and replication.” MacCracken said. 

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.

Can Wisconsin’s health apprenticeships become a national model? UW Health thinks so is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Wildfires in northern Minnesota and Canada have caused some of the worst air quality on record for Wisconsin. The entire state remains under an Air Quality Advisory for fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke until noon on Friday, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. 

As of 2 p.m. Thursday, most of the state’s air quality was in the “very unhealthy” or “hazardous” Air Quality category. That means that everyone, not just sensitive groups, should avoid outdoor activities, the DNR said.

In areas near Superior, the Air Quality Index rose above 800, while parts of eastern Wisconsin including Milwaukee and Kenosha measured above 650. National Weather Service meteorologist Benjamin Sheppard told Wisconsin Watch these levels are some of the worst on record. 

“What we’ve heard from some of our partners is that the Air Quality Index values that we’re seeing are definitely either never before seen or up there,” Sheppard said. “I’ve been working here for three years, and I’ve seen nothing anywhere near that high.” 

Index values in Wisconsin have exceeded the records set by wildfires in June 2023, DNR spokesperson Craig Czarnecki said in an email, noting that the figures “will still need to be quality assured.” At that time, levels peaked at 273, which means concentrations in Superior and the Milwaukee area have more than doubled. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends setting up a portable air cleaner or filter in a room that can be closed off from outside air and setting your air conditioner  to recirculate mode if possible or close the outdoor intake damper. 

Fine particulate matter, also known as PM2.5, is a main pollutant released from wildfire smoke that can enter the bloodstream. Dr. Joan Schiller, a member of Healthy Climate Wisconsin and retired medical oncologist, told WPR this can exacerbate lung conditions.

“I don’t think people realize how far away you can be from the fire itself and still have health problems,” Schiller said. “These health problems typically manifest themselves as respiratory problems, such as exacerbation of COPD or asthma or emphysema.” 

How can I check the air quality in my area?

The Environmental Protection Agency monitors the air around the country and compiles an air quality index, or AQI.

Here’s what to know about the index and how to keep tabs on your area, especially in U.S. regions dealing with smoke from Canadian wildfires.

What does the air quality index measure? 

The index rates how clean or polluted the air is each day. The EPA uses this measure to keep tabs on five kinds of air pollutants. The main concern from the wildfire smoke is fine particle pollution. These particles are tiny enough to get deep into the lungs. They can cause short-term problems like coughing and itchy eyes and, in the long run, can affect the lungs and heart.

What do the numbers and colors mean? 

The index categories typically only run from zero to 500 – although levels have reached well above 500 in multiple parts of the state. The higher the number, the worse the air quality. That range is broken down into six color-coded categories. Green or yellow — in the zero to 100 range — the air is pretty clear. Once it gets up to orange, the air quality could be a concern for sensitive groups like children, older adults or those with health conditions.

In the red and purple zones, the air quality is considered unhealthy for everyone.

And if the index gets to maroon — at 301 or above — pollution levels are hazardous.

At these high levels, take precautions to avoid breathing in the dangerous air. That can mean reducing your outdoor activities, running air purifiers inside and wearing a well-fitting mask like an N95 when you’re outside.

What’s the air quality right now? 

Check AirNow.gov, which updates every hour. The site shows a real-time map of the air quality across the country and also includes a forecast for the day ahead. The map pulls in measurements from a network of air monitoring stations across the country. States and cities may also offer more local guidance.

How long will smoke last in Wisconsin? 

According to Sheppard and the National Weather Service (NWS), a southerly wind on Friday means smoke is anticipated to retreat from west to east  – likely bringing an end to the advisory for much of the state. 

“With those southwest winds, the air is going to get kind of clearer and healthier in a southwest to northeast manner,” Sheppard said. “Areas further north and east in Wisconsin are going to be most likely to hang on to that smoke.” 

Areas along Lake Superior may also need to have the advisory extended, NWS said. But Sheppard said winds could bring back a second wave of smoke to the rest of the state as soon as Saturday. 

“The weather models tentatively are telling us that the second batch of smoke could be as strong, or perhaps even worse,” he said. 

The Associated Press contributed reporting, as did Hongyu Liu of Wisconsin Watch.

Wildfire smoke brings hazardous air quality in Wisconsin. Here’s how to stay safe is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.