After stabbing a Madison, Wisconsin, police officer during an apprehension on July 22, an officer shot and killed Corey Durell Ruiz, a 38-year-old ex-con with a lengthy criminal history.
Independent journalist Andy Ngo labeled Ruiz a “violent super predator” with “at least 40 convictions for an array of violent crimes, including battery and robbery.”
Ngo added that Ruiz owed nearly $50,000 in child support to the mother of his child.
Regardless of the circumstances surrounding his death, Ruiz was black, and Black Lives Matter activists — led by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represented the family of George Floyd — quickly sprang into action.
https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/2080840098711588870?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Reminiscent of Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) — later renamed the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) — which emerged in June 2020 in the aftermath of Floyd’s death, BLM activists established the Corey Ruiz Autonomous Zone (CRAZ) at the location in Madison where the shooting occurred.
BLM and Antifa protesters have blockaded two blocks and, amazingly, The New York Post reported that rather than trying to dismantle the zone, the city of Madison “is helping them by providing portable toilets and other resources.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Laura Schulte corroborated the Post’s reporting: “The city has placed a few trucks to help shield the intersection.”
Below, Schulte shares photos of the nail-studded boards lining the encampment’s perimeter, which are intended to keep people out.
One photo shows a sign that reads, “Protests can be inconvenient. Murder is worse.”
One X user responding to Schulte’s post pointed out the obvious, “It’s absolute insanity that the City of Madison is helping make this street shutdown permanent.”
Local television station WMTV 15 reported that, unsurprisingly, business owners and residents within the zone say they feel “trapped” and frustrated by the ongoing disruption, saying that “the closure is affecting their ability to operate and move freely.”
According to the outlet, the “demonstrators set up barricades made of trash cans, wooden pallets and nails at the intersection of Williamson and Baldwin streets, blocking traffic on the busy mixed-use corridor.”
Needless to say, people are demanding answers. When an encampment is surrounded by nail-studded barriers, trapping residents in their homes and preventing merchants from conducting business, it has moved well beyond the bounds of a peaceful protest.
Yet Madison City Hall is not only allowing this lunacy to continue, but also helping to sustain it. What about the rights of law-abiding residents, business owners, and visitors who must live and work in the area? Imagine if someone inside the zone needs emergency medical care or police assistance.
Residents deserve clear answers from city officials. The city cannot allow this to continue.
Those interested in the legality — or, more accurately, the potential illegality — of the city’s decision to assist the “protesters” may be interested in a short X thread by Wisconsin attorney Dan Lennington. In it, he cites the city ordinances, state and federal laws, and constitutional protections that may apply to the situation currently unfolding in Madison.
https://x.com/DanLennington/status/2082306038577930698?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://x.com/DanLennington/status/2082306043401339128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://x.com/DanLennington/status/2082306048103178633?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://x.com/DanLennington/status/2082306054067474899?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://x.com/DanLennington/status/2082306059041931616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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