*Via CNN ) – Nineteen-year-old Tony Robinson was not armed when a Madison, Wisconsin, police officer fatally shot him, Police Chief Mike Koval said Saturday.
“We have to be clear about this,” Koval said. “He was unarmed. That’s going to make this all the more complicated for the investigators, the public, to accept, to understand … why deadly force had to be used.”
The officer who killed Robinson, 12-year department veteran Matt Kenny, had used deadly force before, shooting and killing a man in 2007, the chief said.
Kenny was exonerated of any wrongdoing and even received a commendation, the chief said, adding that the incident was “concluded to be a suicide by cop” situation.
Robinson was shot after allegedly assaulting Kenny, who was responding Friday evening to a reported disturbance at a Madison residence, Koval said.
Afterward, protesters in this university town took to the streets and converged on City Hall, chanting “Black lives matter.”
Koval called for calm, while acknowledging the protests are reminiscent of those that followed the deaths of black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York, after confrontations with police.
Police described Robinson as African-American.
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Watch Madison, WIÂ Police Chief Mike Koval speak on the case:
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