Ten years ago tonight, Sharon Irwin-Henry ran every red light on East Washington Avenue at 100 miles per hour, racing toward UW Hospital. Her daughter Lolo and young grandson Jordan rode with her and all were on pins and needles.
Irwin-Henry had been told her 19-year-old grandson Tony Robinson had been shot and was in the emergency room.
When she arrived at the hospital she was surprised to see a multitude of Madison police officers there.
“I was like ‘Why are there so many police here?’” Irwin-Henry said. “I walked up to the lady at the front desk and told her my grandson had been shot and I needed to get back there with my daughter.”
Andrea Irwin, Sharon’s daughter and Tony’s mother, was in a back room. Irwin-Henry wanted to be with her. The hospital staff refused to allow it.
“They won’t let me go see my daughter and won’t let her come out,” Irwin-Henry said.
Right at that moment, Lolo got a phone call from Andrea. Irwin-Henry watched as Lolo doubled over screaming “No, no, no.”
“That’s when I knew my grandson was dead,” Irwin-Henry said.
She again tried to get into the room where Andrea was or at least be able to see her slain grandson’s body.
“I walked up to this little police officer who looked like Adolf Hitler and told him I wanted to say goodbye to my boy,” Irwin-Henry said. “I promise I won’t touch him. I just wanna say goodbye to him.”
“You can’t see him, he’s evidence,” the police officer replied.
Evidence? Evidence of what, Irwin-Henry wondered.
“He’s not evidence, he’s my grandson,” she replied.
Following an altercation with the police guarding the door, Irwin-Henry found herself outside the emergency waiting room with Andrea, Lolo, Jordan and her husband Tyrone. She contemplated the meaning of the officer’s words about her grandson being evidence and the overall oddness of the police’s attitudes and actions towards the family.
It was then, around 9 p.m., that news outlets began reporting what everyone but Robinson Jr.’s family seemed to already know.
Tony Robinson had been shot and killed by Madison police officer Matt Kenny.
Sharon and Andrea banged on the locked hospital doors demanding to be let back in. Madison police declined to allow them to see Robinson’s body. The police would not even explain the circumstances of why they had shot him dead. News coverage was murky and, at times, grossly misinformed in the early reports on the shooting.
“People are calling us telling us the police shot him,” Irwin-Henry said. “My daughter is banging on the window saying, ‘Let me see my son’. They never told us. They locked us out.
“That’s what my day was like.”
Decade of frustration
For 10 years, Irwin-Henry has hosted events to celebrate Tony Robinson’s life. Many take place on Williamson Street near the spot where Robinson’s life was taken. There have been mural dedications, sporting events, musical performances and many candlelight vigils.
This year, for the 10th anniversary, Irwin-Henry plans to do the largest event yet.
Tonight, from 4-9 p.m., there will be a series of events commemorating Robinson’s life at the Social Justice Center, Cafe Coda and along the 1100 block of Williamson Street in Madison.
The events include a showing of Tim Tynan’s documentary “The Tony Robinson shooting: A Case of Deadly Bias” at Aubergine, a community space at 1226 Williamson St; a candlelight vigil at the apartment building at 1125 Williamson St. where Kenny shot and killed Robinson; and a poetry performance by Poet Chaos New Money and other guests at Cafe Coda and at Dank CBD.
There will also be an exhibit at Aubergine detailing the family’s decade-long fight for justice for Tony.
“All the evidence that I went through will be there,” Irwin-Henry said.
To Irwin-Henry, Madison police saying Robinson’s body was evidence that night in 2015 is very ironic considering she has been trying to get Dane County’s District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to look at evidence about the shooting for 10 years.
The shooting
Tony Terrell Robinson felt like he could fly. He ran and leapt as high as he could through the clouds. He swore he could touch the moon. Up in the air everything was peaceful. Everything was perfect. Everything made sense to him.
He landed in front of a car honking loudly at him as it came to a screeching halt in heavy traffic on Willy Street.
He was high on shrooms and he was everywhere all at once. Some bystanders said he accosted them. He jumped in front of someone’s car. He argued with the friends he lived with upstairs in an apartment. He spoke to his dad, who wasn’t in the room.
His friends were scared and distraught. They dialed 911 hoping to save his life. They wanted someone to come give Robinson medical aid or take him somewhere safe.
Instead, Madison police officer Matt Kenny arrived and shot Robinson to death less than 20 seconds after pulling up to the apartment building.
Robinson was unarmed and in need of help. That’s what his friends had told the 911 dispatcher, who relayed the same information to Officer Kenny.
Dashcam video shows Kenny arriving. Kenny drew his gun immediately while still standing outside the apartment. He told dispatch he was going inside, even though backup officers Jamar Gary and John Christian were pulling into the driveway. Kenny didn’t wait for them.
The video below contains graphic content.
Kenny claims Robinson attacked him and punched him in the face at the top of a staircase.
In the dash cam footage, Robinson’s feet appear in the doorway indicating he is down and lying flat on the floor.
Kenny continued to fire his gun into Robinson’s chest as he lay motionless on the floor.
“Don’t move,” Kenny shouted at Robinson as he lay bleeding to death.
According to Irwin-Henry, Robinson had burn marks on his chest from Kenny’s gun.
“He had to have the gun almost close to his chest for that to happen,” she said. “My boy didn’t have a chance.”
Kenny, who shot Robinson seven times, rendered medical aid to Robinson.
For Irwin-Henry, that’s practically the worst part of the incident.
“He stood in that boy’s blood telling him, ‘You can make it,” Irwin-Henry said. “‘Don’t move,’ he said. Bitch, he was already on the ground and his feet were pointing to the sky and you can see that in the video.”
Kenny told investigators he believed he heard Robinson assaulting someone upstairs. He said it sounded like Robinson was strangling someone inside the apartment.
Sgt. Gary went upstairs and checked. When he returned to where Kenny was standing, Kenny asked him who was upstairs.
Gary told him there was nobody up there.
Fight for justice
Following an investigation, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne announced in May 2015 that he’d come to a decision about whether to charge Kenny for killing Robinson.
Early in the morning on Mother’s Day, Ozanne said he would host a press conference 48 hours later.
Making the announcement on Mother’s Day shocked and angered supporters of Robinson’s family.
“What District Attorney Ozanne did was disgusting,” said Shadyra Kilfoy-Flores. “He chose to do that on Mother’s Day. Shame on him. I’ve never felt the same towards him. What he did to Andrea Irwin and all the other mothers of kids of color in Madison, he let us know our children didn’t matter. That’s how that woman spent her first Mother’s Day without her son.”
The subsequent press conference didn’t help matters. Ozanne said he found Kenny’s actions to be lawful and would not pursue charges against him.
Ozanne has never found a Madison police officer to have acted unlawfully.
With Ozanne refusing to go against police officers and legalities preventing other entities like the Mayor’s office, Madison’s City Council or even Madison’s police chiefs from firing bad officers, it has been up to Robinson’s family to continue the fight for justice.
Robinson’s death also led to the creation of the Police Civilian Oversight Board and the Office of the Independent Police Monitor, which can take complaints about police misconduct and identify cultural trends within Madison’s police department.
“We’re working on it,” said Kilfoy-Flores, who served a term on the PCOB. “It’s not fixed, but we’re working on it. I believe it is getting better. We have not had any killings by police for quite a while and I like to think it’s because the work we’ve been doing has made an impact on how they react.”
Irwin-Henry is launching a complaint against officer Matt Kenny through the Office of the Independent Monitor.
If successful, the complaint could result in Kenny being found guilty of violating several standard operating procedures. This could result in his termination, if the Police and Fire Commission deems termination necessary.
Former Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes tried to force Kenny to resign several years ago, but Kenny declined and remains on the force.
“He should have been and hopefully will be fired,” Kilfoy-Flores said. “Breaking that many standard operating procedures at that level is extremely concerning. He broke a lot of rules.”
Irwin-Henry has exhausted nearly all possibilities of holding Kenny accountable. She has brought evidence to Ozanne, who she said refused to look at it. She has used a loophole in state statutes to try and charge Kenny criminally through a Circuit Court process.
The complaint through the Independent Monitor may be the last resource available.
“The Police and Fire Commission is capable of finding him guilty of violating any or all of four operating procedures,” Irwin-Henry said. “That could lead to firing. That’s what we want to succeed in doing … that he will no longer have a job with the police department. He’s already gotten away with it for 10 years.”
Today, March 6, will be about celebrating Robinson’s life. The days that follow will continue the fight for justice. Irwin-Henry says it is time for closure so that her family can see justice and other families of people wrongfully slain by police can know that justice is coming their way, too.
“It’s been a long 10 years,” Irwin-Henry said. “He thought it was okay because my boy was Black. This man murdered my boy with deliberate cause.”
If all goes the way Irwin-Henry wants, she hopes to gather the community for the 11th anniversary next year knowing that at long last they’ve tasted justice.
