What was his name?

It shouldn't be news to anyone who lives here that Madison is made up of many smaller cities - there's the campus that teems with students and empties out each summer, and the Capitol boxed in on the square by banks and law firms and lobbyists. There's white and black Madison, too, and what's frequently touted as one of the most "livable" cities in the US is White Madison. Black Madison is heavily policed, from its public high school hallways to the streets. Black people make up 44% of Madison's inmate population, but only 7% of the city as a whole. Black people are overrepresented among the homeless shivering through another winter on the streets, and three-quarters of black kids are growing up under the poverty line.

On Friday night, in my neighborhood, an unarmed black teenager was shot dead by a police officer. As soon as I read that the shooting had occurred on the 1100 block, I knew who had been killed though I didn't know his name (Tony Robinson), a friendly kid and a fearless skateboarder, recklessly swerving in and out of traffic for the thrills. Every time I saw him -- or heard the screech of brakes -- I worried that I would open the newspaper the next day and find he'd been struck by a car. I didn't expect this. We said hello a few times. It's a friendly street, Willy Street. The last time we interacted, Tony was walking with a younger boy--a little brother, I thought--and the boy tried to show off by vaulting over a snow drift and wiped out spectacularly. I asked if he was OK as he sprung to his feet, clearly unhurt except for his pride, and then we all burst out laughing and Tony merrily gave him a lot of shit. I kept laughing to myself as I kept walking.

Who knows what really happened Friday night, besides the obvious: it shouldn't have ended like this.

On Saturday morning, I went to Willy Street, expecting to find a makeshift memorial, thinking about where I could pick up flowers. Instead, I only found cops and police tape. I stood across the street. After a few minutes, a teenage girl came over to me. "Did you know him?" I said that hadn't really known him, I just knew who he was and that I had walked over because if something was going on, I wanted to be a part of it. K had grown up with him. We hugged. She was headed to a rally at the Madison Police Department and I asked if I could tag along with her and she said yes and so we picked up some of her friends on foot and checked out the bus schedule, and she said if I needed bus fare, she could find $2 for me. She was the most selfless young woman. Over the course of the day, I realized how well she had known Tony. He was one of her best friends.

The rally started at the Madison Police Station downtown and then marched down East Washington, shutting down the outbound lanes, to the spot where Tony died. There were more officers there now, lined up behind police tape, preventing friends of Tony's from laying flowers on the steps of the home where he died. There was still blood splattered horribly all over the porch 20 hours after he'd been shot. I had the opportunity to meet Maria Hamilton, the mother of a young man who was killed by a cop in Milwaukee last year. I had seen her on the news, linking arms with other mothers of young men and boys struck down by cops. I have never seen anyone so deeply sad standing up and speaking out. Grief curls so many people into themselves, and it had unfurled her.

I'm going back to Willy Street in a few minutes. I wanted to share some photos from yesterday's rally and march before I head back out to the streets.

And something I want to remember - the crowd was mixed, about half black and half white, but there were some signs among the white protestors that made me want to send the carriers back to history class, like the spindly white young man, likely a college student, wearing a cakeboard with a bullethole positioned over his heart and the words, "Will I be next?" No. No, you won't. And if Tony Robinson had looked white to the officer rather than looking black, he wouldn't have been last.