The arrest of a Black man in apparent mental distress on Williamson Street in Madison, caught on cell phone video, has sparked controversy and prompted some to ask why the Community Alternative Response Emergency Services (CARES) team, which is intended to address and assist people experiencing mental health crises, wasn’t dispatched instead of police.
The Incident
According to an email correspondence between the Madison Police Department (MPD) and Madison365, police were dispatched to the scene at Willaby’s Cafe around 11:35 a.m. after “employees said the man became upset when he wasn’t allowed to use the telephone.”
The man was later identified as Willie Triplett, a well-known figure in the neighborhood.
As seen in video footage recorded by Natasha Oladokun, another customer at Willaby’s that day, Triplett falls while the police officer attempts to handcuff him. The officer then repeatedly tells the man to “Stop trying to pull away” and to “quit resisting.”
The officer then pins the individual onto the ground and straddles him. A second officer arrives on the scene and repeatedly tells the individual to “stop resisting” as the two finish handcuffing him.
After more struggle, the officers eventually bring Triplett to one of two police vehicles parked outside the establishment and pin him against its exterior while searching him. Inside the diner, a waitress can be heard apologizing to customers, while a second staff member offers to remake their food and comp it.
“It was very, very clear that as a business, the waitstaff there were just trying to treat this as an inconvenient occurrence that disturbed their customers as opposed to something that was really violent and unnecessary from the get-go,” Oladokun said.
Triplett is a well-known community member in the Williamson-Marquette neighborhood. Many, including Willaby’s owner Nathan Prince, know him as a handyman, a published author, and a friendly face around the neighborhood.
Triplett was ultimately arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and was additionally issued a citation for trespassing, according to MPD.
A Search for Accountability
As a customer and a community member, Oladokun expressed her frustration and anger about the situation, especially given the racial dynamics at play.
“There was no part of me that trusted at any point that this was going to be an interaction that was going to end safely for Willie,” she shared.
Community organizer and Police Civilian Oversight Board chair Shadayra Kilroy-Flores heard about the video a day after the incident took place via the city’s Community Response Team (CRT) Facebook page.
A mutual friend then connected Kilfoy-Flores with Oladokun, and the two began discussing what steps could be taken to help Triplett. Prior to connecting with Kilfoy-Flores, Oladokun had already reached out to her alderperson, Dina Nina Martinez-Rutherford of District 15, seeking further action and accountability, specifically from Willaby’s ownership.
Martinez-Rutherford brought Oladokun’s concerns to MPD Chief of Police Shon F. Barnes, the Department of Civil Rights, the Police Civilian Oversight Board, and the Office of the Independent Monitor.
That same day, November 21, Kilfoy-Flores went to Willaby’s to touch base with Prince, and with her encouragement, he posted a statement from the diner’s Facebook page addressing the situation.
“I feel terrible that my employees were left to deal with the situation, and for my customers who were accosted by him or triggered by the whole ordeal,” Prince wrote in the post. “But also for the arrestee himself, Willie.”
Prince disclosed the extent to which he knows Triplett, citing acquaintanceship across 20 years and knowing him as both a customer and a handyman.
“Many of you Eastside residents know him, too,” he wrote. Prince went on to say that Triplett’s actions were “outside of his usual state of mind.”
“From a community standpoint, it was pretty horrific and traumatic,” Kilfoy-Flores said of the incident. “Officers have a lot of discretion in how they handle situations.”
When asked about the video in her capacity as a member of the oversight board, Kilfoy-Flores said, “It wasn’t apparent that any [standard operating procedures] had been violated. But what I could see was that he could certainly have used help from the CARES team.”
Prince said he had already left the diner for the day when the incident took place, and only discovered what happened when he returned later that afternoon and was surprised to see Willaby’s closed.
Prince said his staff had been trying to contact him before calling police, but he had left his phone in his bag and did not see the calls and messages in time.
Based on security footage, Prince alleges that prior to the police’s arrival, Triplett had come in and started asking customers for money. He eventually sat down at a booth with customers and began speaking in “racist and xenophobic language that progressed to really homophobic language.”
When asked whether he thinks the police should have been called that day, Prince responded in the affirmative. “It’s really important for me to have the cafe [be] a safe space for everyone,” he said.
But Oladokun said this notion of safety was subjective. “I was a customer that day, and there was no consideration given to my safety,” she said. “I was the only Black person besides Willie in that room.
“In that context, we are all seen as the same, whether we are well, whether we are out of our minds, whether we are just struggling under a system that is intent on seeing us dead, it does not matter. The end result is the same, and we know this.”
An Alternative Course of Action
Despite ultimately agreeing with the decision to bring police presence onto the scene, both Prince and Kilfoy-Flores questioned why the CARES team was not brought in to respond.
CARES, or the Community Alternative Response Emergency Services, is a team of professionals meant to serve as an additional resource during behavioral health emergencies. CARES can only be accessed by calling 911, and is available to respond weekdays from 8:00 AM-8:00 PM and on weekends from 10:00 AM-8:00 PM.
This incident occurred near midday on a Wednesday.
“It was certainly a situation [where CARES] would have helped,” Kilfoy-Flores said. “To have someone with maybe a little calmer demeanor to assist.”
Prince admits to not having known about the services that the CARES team offers prior to this situation.
“I didn’t know about the CARES program,” he said. “I honestly had thought after George Floyd and everything, that MPD had done de-escalation [training].”
Kilfoy-Flores pointed out that this lack of knowledge isn’t unusual for the average Madison business owner, let alone community members at large.
“I think that we do need to do some sort of community education for the community to know how and when to be able to access CARES,” she said.
Prince describes the situation as “unprecedented,” and recalls only one other time during his 14 years of owning Willaby’s, seven years ago, in which he had to de-escalate a situation at the diner.
“By the time the cops got here, me and the guy were crying and hugging and I told the cops like, ‘Hey, you know, I think we’re good here,’” he recalled.
Because of these incidents’ rarity, Prince says that sharing de-escalation tactics and conversations around how to handle situations of this nature have not been part of his onboarding process with new Willaby’s employees.
But, in light of this incident, Prince is looking toward implementing this into his employee training. “This isn’t something that just happens once at Willaby’s,” he said. “This kind of situation is gonna happen again somewhere else at some point.”
“I want to help spread the word for employees and business owners and even just the public at large,” Prince continued. “Rather than calling the cops or, at least if you call 911, to differentiate and let them know, ‘This is like a CARES situation.’”
“De-escalation is not only a skill that should be mastered by the police,” Kilfoy-Flores said. ‘[It’s] also a skill that is helpful, I think, for your everyday server, your everyday business owner.”
Seeking A Way Forward Rooted in Community Care
Prince shared that the day after the arrest took place, the officer responsible for the arrest returned to Willaby’s to request security footage. During this visit, Prince asked about Triplett’s whereabouts and was told that he was put in segregation after booking.
Kilfoy-Flores shared that Triplett has since been released from Dane County Jail and has been linked with resources via JustDane, a local social services organization. His bail, which amounted to $450, was ultimately posted by a friend.
Kilfoy-Flores said people who have known Triplett as a member of the Williamson-Marquette neighborhood are also looking to assemble a more informal care team for him so that “there are some services and people in place to really help him.”
Despite the support that seems to be in place for Triplett after his arrest, Oladokun asserts that it doesn’t change the facts of what happened that day at Willaby’s.
“There’s nothing that can give that man his two days back out of jail,” she said. “There’s nothing that can give him adequate restitution for not just that incident, but I am sure, a lifetime of injustices.”
“From the minute I walked in and I saw the way Willie was talking to the men at the table […] it was very clear that he just needed someone to listen to him,” she continued. “He just needed someone who would be calm and who would give him face time. Instead, what he was met with was violence and abuse and a complete disregard to his dignity.”
This story has been updated to correct the service hours of the CARES program.
