Special Presentations
May 27, 2025 | By William Osmulski
Policy Issues
Crime & Safety Culture

One Night in Madison, Five Years Ago

It didn’t take long for the George Floyd race riots spread to Madison Wisconsin in 2020.

A Black Lives Matter protest around the Capitol on May 30 quickly transitioned into a months-long riot that simmered all summer. The initial wave of violence destroyed the city’s commercial district on State Street. BLM rioters looted over 75 small businesses, brutally assaulted innocent bystanders, incinerated a police cruiser and stole two police assault rifles.

The police scrambled to recover the missing weapons. Over the next couple of days, they collected dozens of hours of video evidence from social media, aerial drones, and private camcorders. This included a captivating live-streamed and narrated, first-hand account of the entire day by the man who stole the weapons. The MacIver Institute obtained all this footage in an open records request, which it used to produce the documentary “One Night in Madison.”

Here's the true, behind-the-scenes story of what happened that night and why.

Interested in the content of this Article?

Reach out to the MacIver Institute to aquire more information