“I never thought I would bury my baby before you buried me,” said Elsa Ruiz, mother of Corey Ruiz at a press conference held two days after he was killed by Madison police.
On July 24, Ruiz’s family and attorney Ben Crump spoke to the media and the public for the first time. The press conference comes two days after East Side resident Corey Ruiz was shot and killed by a veteran Madison police officer. Speculation as to the reasoning behind the officer’s actions have caused continuous unrest around Madison as Ruiz’s family and the community demand answers and accountability for his death. At the press conference, Ruiz’s family spoke on who Corey was and called for charges to be brought against the officer responsible for killing him.
“My family and I will never be the same. I’m having a hard time processing it,” said Adam Ruiz, Corey’s younger brother. “The video keeps replaying in my head. It’s hard to go day by day knowing that my brother is dead. My family needs justice for what they did to him.”
A vigil for Ruiz, near the site of the killing, is only two blocks away from their home and two blocks away from his daughter’s school. Kah’liya Aliomar, 13, recounted the day her father was killed.
“Imagine waking up thinking it’s gonna be a normal day,” Kah’liya said. “I had called my cousin. We were just talking for a little bit, then my mom called me. She called me and told me that she wished she told me something when she was at the house, and I was so confused. I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And she said my dad has been shot. My heart was so broken.”
Her mother, Marjorie Ann Aliomar, saw the videos earlier in the day but couldn’t tell who it was. Ruiz’s sister, who lives in Austin, Texas, and made the drive to Madison immediately after the news, called her screaming that it was Corey.
“Look at what happened. There’s too many videos. There’s too much evidence,” Marjorie said. “I hate it that [Kah’liya] has to walk past this every day. And I hate that she can’t see him grow old. I hate that he will never see her graduate.”
His family described Ruiz as kind, funny, a lyricist, poet and artist. His daughter called him her twin.
The family was joined by Ben Crump, nationally renowned civil rights attorney who specializes in wrongful death investigations, who will represent them. Crump called into question the circumstances that led to Ruiz’s killing.
Crump said that the numerous videos circulating online from multiple angles show that Ruiz’s death was an “execution” by the officer.
“People all over Wisconsin were shocked when they saw the execution of Corey Ruiz,” Crump said. “People all over America are shocked when they see the execution of Corey Ruiz, because they understand when they see that video that it was so unnecessary to execute him, it was unnecessary and justified, and unconstitutional how they executed Corey Ruiz. Thank God there was video.”
Crump credited the community for documenting Ruiz’s killing. He believes that without that, “we cannot imagine what the narrative would have been.”
He lambasted officers for taking the actions they did — from the calls for suspicion that someone was looking into cars, to the chase, the knife Ruiz is alleged to have attempted to take out, injuries officers claim to have sustained, use of force and justification for shooting Ruiz.
“This was a suspicion of a property crime. There was no property crime,” Crump said. “They had a high-speed chase of your brother on a bicycle over suspicion of a property crime, and then, when they caused the collision with Corey, they not only tackled him, not only tased him, not only kicked him, but then you saw they shot him three times in his head and other parts of his body. That is an execution.”
Crump called out Madison police’s lack of body cameras and how it became the duty of the community to document events. That responsibility should not be on the people, Crump said, and fails to hold police to account in other cases where the community were not able to document.
The family seeks justice. When asked by reporters what that would look like, Crump responded with what he says to anyone who asks that.
“If this was your brother, if this was your father, if this was your son, what would justice look like to you? Well, that’s exactly what we want,” Crump said. “That same justice, equal justice. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“The world is watching to see if Corey Ruiz can get justice in 2026. Justice means accountability. It means the district attorney charging the police if they see that it was a crime committed on that video,” Crump continued. “It is allowing that they get full justice, not partial justice, not half justice, not three fifths justice. That there is civil justice and there’s criminal justice, and then we want legislative changes to make sure to make sure no other 13-year-old little girl has to come and articulate how her heart is broken because the police killed her father.”
Crump didn’t elaborate on what legislative changes should be made, but did point out the need for Madison police to use body cameras.
Additional protests are expected to occur with one planned on July 25 from 8 pm to midnight on Williamson Street.
