The attorney for Quadren Wilson, who was shot and seriously wounded by state Department of Criminal Investigation officers on February 3, said in an email to Madison365 that his client has met with Dane County Sheriff’s Office investigators.
Attorney Steve Eisenberg also said in the email that Wilson was unarmed and complying with police commands when DCI officers opened fire during the February 3 arrest on Madison’s far west side. Wilson’s family has said he was shot five times and underwent surgery on February 5. He remains in the Dane County Jail on a parole hold from the state Department of Corrections.
“Mr. Wilson gave a full accounting of what occurred in a candid, truthful statement” to investigators Thursday, Eisenberg wrote. “He was pinned in his vehicle between two law enforcement vehicles, had his rear driver-side window broken out, and was ordered to put his hands up. When he complied, he was shot, we now know, by two DCI agents. Mr. Wilson was unarmed. He thought he was going to die.”
Calling the incident “egregious wrongdoing on the part of law enforcement,” Eisenberg noted the amount of force brought to bear in the arrest.
“We learned (Friday) that there were 21 officers from various agencies on hand to arrest a single unarmed man in this operation. Twenty-one! And they still shot Mr. Wilson, unarmed, sitting in his car—thereby demonstrating a total disregard for his civil rights, if not outright contempt for his humanity,” Eisenberg wrote.
Eisenberg said Wilson and his family want the officers involved held accountable, and that they “aren’t going to let this be swept under a rug. They aren’t going to be quiet. They want answers and they want action because there shouldn’t be another Quadren Wilson. This has to stop happening.”
Investigators have not yet identified the officers who opened fire, nor have they made any vehicle-mounted camera video available. Madison365 has requested that video.
