In Madison this week, a man armed with a large fixed-blade knife injured a police officer during a struggle after officers responded to reports of someone checking parked cars and possibly breaking into vehicles. The suspect fled, resisted, produced the weapon, and was shot. Wisconsin’s Department of Justice is investigating. These are the known facts.
Within hours, Democratic state Rep. and gubernatorial hopeful Francesca Hong was on the scene declaring it “an execution” and “state sanctioned violence.” No investigation is complete. No full evidence reviewed. Just the typical jump to conclusions — police are racist murderers and executioners.
Sound familiar? In August 2020, Kenosha police responded to a 911 call from the mother of Jacob Blake’s children. She reported a domestic incident, said Blake was not supposed to be at the residence, and that he had taken the keys to a vehicle she had rented. Dispatch flagged a “wanted” alert. Blake had an active arrest warrant from a May 2020 incident involving the same woman, in which she reported he had entered her home without permission, sexually assaulted her, and taken her vehicle and debit card. He was charged with third-degree sexual assault, trespassing, and disorderly conduct. During the August confrontation, Blake resisted officers, was tased without effect, and was armed with a knife, which he admitted possessing after it was recovered from the vehicle. Officers reported he turned toward them with the knife while moving toward an SUV containing children. He was shot. The district attorney later determined the force was justified.
None of that complexity slowed the rush to judgment. The left and its media allies immediately framed Blake as a victim of racial murder. Riots followed. Buildings burned. Businesses were destroyed. Parts of Kenosha still carry the scars. NBC News has even rebranded those events as a mere “civil rights rally” in recent coverage — Orwellian gaslighting of the highest order. The majority of the destruction occurred in small businesses and private residences, many of them minority- and immigrant-owned. In total, more than 100 buildings were damaged, leaving at least 40 businesses completely destroyed and resulting in $50 million in damages.
The incident in Madison is identical. A knife-wielding subject. Resistance. An injured or threatened officer. Incomplete information. And Democrats racing to brand the police as executioners before the facts are in. Hong’s rhetoric is the same reckless preemptive condemnation provided by Mandela Barnes that helped set Kenosha on fire. Former Gov. Scott Walker noted the contrast correctly – Gov. Tony Evers at least called for peaceful, respectful protest and process this time around (undoubtedly after learning his lesson from Kenosha). Hong went straight to “execution.”
A small but telling parallel. Ahead of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Columbus, Ohio officers assisting with security fatally shot a man armed with a knife roughly a mile from the convention site. The officers were later cleared. The left’s outrage machine did not ignite a multi-day riot that time either because the political calendar and the target city did not suit the narrative.
Now observe the selective restraint. Madison is a far-left stronghold, a university town beloved by progressive activists, Antifa, and Democratic Socialists. It is their city. Burning it ahead of a pivotal midterm election would be self-sabotage. Democrats already face internal fractures between DSA-aligned candidates like Hong and the establishment, awkward endorsements, and a statewide electorate that is not looking kindly on socialist governance. So, the Antifa/BLM crowd largely follows orders and refrains from rioting, for now.
Kenosha was different. It was expendable. Working-class small businesses and homeowners paid the price. The left has no problem torching cities that do not fully belong to them. When the damage would hit their own base or complicate a difficult election map, suddenly restraint appears.
For the left, this is not about justice. It’s about power and narrative control. Jump to conclusions. Label officers executioners. Ignore the knife. Ignore the injured officer. Ignore the sequence of events. Ignore a warrant or prior allegations. Ignore the resistance and the threat. Demand the ACLU get involved because cops are racists. The “abolish the police” and “defund” crowd has spent years treating every use of force as presumptive murder and every officer as a potential executioner.
That rhetoric endangers the public and demoralizes the people who actually show up when a knife is pulled. It disincentivizes new recruits from joining our police agencies because they do not feel supported by Wisconsin’s political leadership. Police are not the enemy. Criminals who arm themselves and attack officers are. Any politician or activist who continues to blur that line is undermining the basic law and order that keeps cities from burning. Wisconsinites are burned out from this insanity. Enough.
