High School Students Occupy Wisconsin Capitol Over Police Shooting of Black Teen

In the fourth day of protest against the police killing of 19-year-old Tony Robinson, students crowded the rotunda of the Wisconsin Capitol on Monday, March 9. (Photo: bekahbeth/cc/flickr)

High School Students Occupy Wisconsin Capitol Over Police Shooting of Black Teen

Madison teenagers call for "justice for Tony" after latest police killing of unarmed teen Tony Robinson

Roughly 1,500 high school and college students rallied at the Wisconsin Capitol on Monday in the fourth straight day of protests against Friday's police killing of unarmed black teenager Tony Robinson.

According to the Wisconsin State Journal, students from all four Madison high schools as well as Sun Prairie High School, where Robinson graduated in 2014, rallied outside of area schools Monday morning before filling the rotunda and two upper floors of the State Capitol. The protest later paid visits to City Hall and the Madison police station.

"I came here because Tony deserves justice," Trinidy Clark, a 15-year-old student at West High School, told the State Journal.

The 19-year-old was unarmed when he was shot late Friday by Madison Police Officer Matthew Kenny, a fact that Chief Mike Koval on Saturday confirmed. The shooting comes amid growing awareness and outrage over police violence against people of color and occurred just days after a Justice Department report accused the police department in Ferguson, Missouri--where black teen Michael Brown was shot in August--of blatant racism and discriminatory policing practices.

During Monday's protest, the students, dressed in black, took up the banner of the "Black Lives Matter" in their call for "Justice for Tony." As they rallied, images and messages of support were shared widely on Twitter under the hashtags #TonyRobinson and #Justice4Tony.

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