What experts say can be learned by analyzing body cam footage from Fitchburg police shooting of Kevin Price
MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - It’s been more than five months since a 28-year-old Fitchburg man was shot by police during a wellness check. After reviewing dozens of pages of police reports and almost an hour of body camera footage, experts say analyzing the body camera footage now could protect citizens and keep officers safer in the future.
Just before 8 a.m. on August 12, 2024, the Dane County District Attorney’s Office recounted how someone called 911 saying someone tried to break his neck and he saw someone who he had a no contact order with. The caller said never mind and hung up. Officials tried to call back, and someone answered but didn’t say anything. We now know that caller was Kevin Price.
Three Fitchburg officers showed up to an apartment on the 800 block of Whispering Pines Way. Once inside the home, officers spoke to someone who told them a man, identified has Kevin Price, had a knife. The Dane Co. DA reports officers asked Price to come out and they asked him if he had a knife. Price said he did have one, and officers reportedly asked him to drop it. He didn’t, and police fired three times.
The report indicates Price was hit multiple times in the chest before he fell back. Officials took Price to the hospital, where he died three days later.
“A knife is a dangerous weapon and poses a grave danger of great bodily harm and/or death to an individual,” explained DA Ismael Ozanne on why he decided not to charge the Fitchburg officer who fired. “A person who is armed with a knife who does not follow directions to drop the weapon and stop as directed by police may pose a threat of great bodily harm and/or death to officers.”
Price’s family previously told WMTV 15 Investigates that they reviewed the body camera footage, calling it “sad and disturbing.”
“I don’t think any of this had to happen this way,” said UW-Madison professor John Gross.
Gross extensively researches and writes about police use of force. He said this body camera footage raises serious questions, specifically when officers clear Price’s house and find him hiding in the closet with a knife.
“The officers have put themselves in close proximity to someone who they think might have a knife,” said Gross. “They have eliminated their ability to retreat. So when the individual comes out and they say drop the knife and he doesn’t, that becomes a predicate for them to use deadly force because they can say he wasn’t dropping the knife he took a step towards me, I had no place to go. From my perspective the better tactical decision would have been to not enter the room. The better decision would have been to try to communicate with him from the doorway from the room, to talk to him to try to convince him to come out.”
Former Madison Police Chief Noble Wray has traveled the country working with the United States Justice Department, implementing 21st century policing recommendations. Many of those suggestions included using body cameras. While Chief Wray didn’t comment on the specifics of Price’s case, he explained the pros and cons of officers wearing body cameras and what we can and can’t learn from the footage.
“So cameras, in and of itself, it’s an excellent forensic tool, an excellent investigative tool. It’s good in many ways just like DNA just like fingerprints, you name it,” explained Wray.
But Wray said there are problems with looking at body camera footage in isolation.
“All of these things an officer is thinking about moment by moment in a split second,” said Wray. “If you catch one segment of an incident, it may lead someone to believe something more or less happened. It only has a certain perspective, lighting is important, who is there, measurements, all those things are critically important. It’s just like having five people at a scene and everyone has their own perspective.”
He said other factors, like the subject’s state of mind or the nature of the police call, need to be considered, too.
“Cameras are important, they are a critical tool. But they are part of a larger picture,” explained Wray.
While analyzing the video captured the day Price was shot won’t bring him back, both experts agree reviewing incidents like this could help keep citizens and officers safer in the future.
“You can make decisions about, not only from a criminal justice standpoint, did the officer or citizen do it, you can also look at it from a standpoint of research, training, how can we improve policing overall,” said Wray.
“In my mind I think, is what the police are doing, it’s not intentional, they didn’t go in there intending to kill the individual, but is it negligent? Is it potentially reckless conduct? In my mind it could be if we have a conversation not about what police are trained to do, but what police should be trained to do. And that’s the bigger conversation that instances like this should prompt between a prosecutor and a police force,” said Gross.
Captain Ed Hartwick from the Fitchburg Police Department tells 15 Investigates the department, per their use of force policy, is doing an assessment of the shooting. In that process they look at things like policy and equipment and the surrounding circumstances. Hartwick says that process is still ongoing.
15 Investigates reached out to DA Ozanne three separate times to ask if he is doing a critical incident review on Price’s case. That’s where different parties get together to discuss what happened and if any changes need to be made to police responses. We have not heard back.
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