A 26-year-old Madison woman armed with a semi-automatic handgun was killed by Madison police officers early Sunday at a Far East Side apartment building after she failed to follow commands, police said.
The fatal shooting by police is the second by Madison officers in less than a month and the third in Dane County in that time period.
Two officers fired their service weapons at the woman, who died in the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, Police Chief Mike Koval said. Nobody else was injured.
Koval, speaking late Sunday morning at Nature Valley Conservancy Apartments, said officers were called at about 1:20 a.m. to a domestic dispute at the apartments in the 1100 block of MacArthur Road, south of East Washington Avenue and just east of Stoughton Road.
A man called 911 to say he ran from his apartment after his girlfriend armed herself with a handgun, police said.
When police arrived they had extended "discussions" with the woman, who didn't cooperate, Koval said. A third officer, with specialized crisis negotiation training, was brought in, he said.
"At one point she presented a threat to those officers," who fired, Koval said.
Police spokesman Joel DeSpain said the woman was shot after she "failed to comply with verbal commands."
Koval said police were involved in the incident for about 30 minutes before the shots were fired. He declined to say whether the woman fired at the officers.
The Dane County Medical Examiner's Office will conduct an autopsy and release the name of the victim after family members are notified, Koval said.
The state Division of Criminal Investigation is handling the shooting investigation, Koval said, in compliance with a new state law requiring an outside agency to investigate officer-involved deaths.
Koval said many homicides have roots in domestic violence, and police take such calls very seriously.
"There are so many infinite variables when you go to a domestic disturbance," he said. "They are always a call that necessitates at least two officers, if not
more."
Nancy Albright, 59, who lives upstairs from the apartment where the woman was killed, said she believed the couple moved there in mid-March and she knew the woman only as "Ashley." She said she heard four to six shots early Sunday and could hear many conversations from the apartment below.
"This is an example of a relationship that went bad," Albright said.
Albright described the woman shot by police as "very quiet." Based on what she heard, Albright believed the woman was suicidal, and that drugs and alcohol were involved in the incident. "I prayed for this girl," she said. "What a waste."
There were more questions than answers Sunday.
Koval said he didn't know if alcohol or drugs were involved and declined to comment on whether the woman was mentally ill.
He also declined to talk about the dynamics of the couple's relationship and whether they had a history of police involvement. He also would not say how many shots were fired or where on her body the woman was shot.
The officers involved will be placed on paid leave pending the outcome of the investigation, DeSpain said.
The shooting comes 16 days after another fatal officer-involved shooting on the East Side.
In that May 2 incident, police shot and killed Londrell Johnson, 33, after he allegedly stabbed his neighbor and her daughter to death in the mother's East Washington Avenue apartment. DCI is also investigating that shooting.
A day earlier, a Dane County sheriff's deputy fatally shot Dean A. Caccamo, 50, in his parents' home in the town of Primrose. Caccamo allegedly stabbed a deputy and a lieutenant in the legs while they descended a spiral staircase after finding Caccamo's parents beaten in the home.
The probe into that shooting is being led by police investigators from Madison and Sun Prairie, with assistance from Fitchburg and UW-Madison police.
Authorities say both Johnson and Caccamo had histories of mental illness.
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