Shadayra Kilfoy-Flores was driving back home to her residence on Madison’s East Side when one of the best nights of her life would suddenly turn into one of the worst nights of her life.
Kilfoy-Flores, a longtime Madison community leader and activist and the current chair of Madison’s Police Civilian Oversight Board, was coming home from a late celebration dinner with her daughter, Sirena, on the night of Oct. 4 when a large car began to menace her while she was driving down Willy St. on Madison’s near East Side.
“It was a large black truck – like an Escalade or a Tahoe – with tinted windows that came right up to me very fast,” she remembers. “They had gone into the oncoming lane on Willy Street as though they were trying to pass and then they went back behind me.”
To get away from the car, Kilfoy-Flores took a quick left onto Few Street at the intersection of where the Weary Traveler Restaurant and the Social Justice Center reside and started driving towards the skatepark at the end of that block.
“As soon as I was fully turned [onto Few St.], they started to unload their guns on me. I didn’t know right away. With the first shot, I hit my brakes thinking it was my tire or something. But then all the windows were breaking and I started seeing sparks, I was like, ‘Oh, my God. They’re shooting at me!’
“I was so in shock. I had so many thoughts. What if they back up and start shooting some more? What if they circle around the block and come and get me?”
Extremely distraught, Kilfoy-Flores parked the car and ran to a neighbor’s house. The police were soon on the scene.
The Madison Police Department said they received multiple calls of shots fired in the area of S. Few Street and Williamson Street that night and a vehicle remaining on scene sustained multiple apparent bullet strikes. Police said a car driving on Williamson St. appeared to have been targeted by the driver of another car also traveling on Williamson that left the area. Overall, Kilfoy-Flores says that MPD has been very helpful with this incident and that the police found four bullets in her car.
The Social Justice Center on the corner of the 1200 block of Williamson St. was damaged by one of the bullets that ricocheted off the back of Kilfoy-Flores’ car and hit the non-profit. Fortunately, no one was in the building at the time of the shooting.
“Whoever did this is not in custody. They still have no idea who did this. I don’t know if it was road rage or if it was one of these crazy white supremacists, to be honest,” says Kilfoy-Flores, who adds that as the chair of Madison’s Police Civilian Oversight Board, she has been harassed by a number of angry white supremacists. “We need any businesses who have cameras in that area to turn their footage over, please.
“It was extremely violent and very, very scary. My kids are shaken and my mom is shaken.”
On top of all the trauma Kilfoy-Flores experienced, her car was totaled. A GoFundMe that was set up to help with her car has so far raised $12,000 of the $15,000 goal.
“The support I have gotten since this traumatic incident has been beautiful. It really makes me appreciate my community,” Kilfoy-Flores says.
“But it is just so scary to think that somebody, whether they knew me or didn’t know me, wanted me to be dead. They didn’t care if they hurt me or left me for dead. That’s what’s so scary. One of those bullets could have killed me, but the fact that there were so many of them. They weren’t trying to scare me. They were trying to kill me.”
