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Unarmed 19-year-old Killed By Madison Wisconsin Police…

A Madison, Wis., police offi­cer who fatal­ly shot an unarmed 19-year-old African American man Friday had been exon­er­at­ed in a pre­vi­ous fatal shoot­ing, offi­cials dis­closed Saturday.

Nineteen-year-old Tony Robinson was not armed when a Madison, Wisconsin, police offi­cer fatal­ly shot him, Police Chief Mike Koval said Saturday.
The 2007 shoot­ing involv­ing Matt Kenny, 45, was ruled a “sui­cide by cop,” said Madison Police Chief Mike Koval in a Saturday press con­fer­ence. The case was reviewed and audit­ed at the time by the dis­trict attor­ney’s office in Dane County, he said. Kenny, a 12-year depart­ment vet­er­an, was the pri­ma­ry respond­ing offi­cer in the inci­dent Friday that result­ed in the shoot­ing death of Tony Robinson.

Police said they received sev­er­al calls about a man who had “bat­tered someone“and had been “out in traf­fic” and then gone inside an apart­ment, Koval said Friday. Kenny heard a dis­tur­bance in the apart­ment, forced his way in, and after a scuf­fle with Robinson in which Kenny received a “blow to the head,” the offi­cer shot Robinson, Koval said.Robinson lat­er was pro­nounced dead of gun­shot wounds at a near­by hos­pi­tal. Koval did not dis­close how many shots were fired, say­ing the infor­ma­tion was part of the shoot­ing inves­ti­ga­tion, which will be han­dled by the state’s Division of Criminal Investigation.

Kenny was placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave with pay pend­ing results of the inves­ti­ga­tion, Koval said. He said that Kenny received a com­men­da­tion of val­or for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 2007 fatal shooting.
The state agency will han­dle the probe of the new shoot­ing in line with a 2014 Wisconsin law that requires all offi­cer-involved shoot­ings to be reviewed by an out­side agency. Findings will be turned over to the Dane County dis­trict attor­ney’s office, which will also review the case, Koval said.

Koval said he went to the home of Robinson’s fam­i­ly ear­ly Saturday morn­ing to express his con­do­lences and “remorse for the loss of life.” He met Robinson’s grand­par­ents in the dri­ve­way, and they spoke for about 45 min­utes and prayed togeth­er, he said. “To his fam­i­ly, and to his friends, and to this com­mu­ni­ty, that is a loss,” Koval said. “Nineteen years old is too young.”

LAtimes​.com.