Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway called out protesters for continuing to block roads on Sunday and demanded that they stop their “occupation,” but did not announce any action to force their dispersal. The city’s fire department must now take emergency vehicles “around the encampment, potentially adding minutes to a call,” Madison Councilman Alder Evers said Sunday.

“There is real harm being done to local businesses and residents in the Marquette Neighborhood,” the mayor said Sunday. “We are hearing from neighbors who are losing income and even jobs, and who will not be able to make rent. We are hearing from employees who are being laid off and businesses that are on the verge of closing permanently.”

Rhodes-Conway noted that the so-called Corey Ruiz autonomous zone resembles Seattle Black Lives Matter rioters’ Capitol Hill autonomous zone, or CHAZ, which resulted in shooting and deaths after its occupants kicked out police.

The mayor’s office did not provide comment in response to a Washington Examiner inquiry.

The funding

Several posts ask supporters to donate for supplies at the protest zone, such as food and clothing, using a Venmo account belonging to Feeding the Youth leader Jazzman Brown. Her group got its start providing food for anti-police protesters after George Floyd‘s 2020 death in Minnesota and helping them travel to Washington, D.C., demonstrations, according to media outlet Madison365.

Brown claims to have known Ruiz personally and organized a candlelight vigil in Madison on the encampment’s second day.

“Please let me know if out of state protesters need support with travel or hotel expenses!” Brown wrote in a Facebook post that day.

Activists claim they will compensate workers whose lives they are disrupting. Madison Worker Cooperatives, whose stated mission is to “build the solidarity economy,” also opened an online fundraiser through which employees “negatively impacted by the ongoing demonstrations” can apply for funds.

The funding is for “employees only,” not business owners, as long as they show proof of lost wages, Madison Worker Cooperatives said in a Saturday Instagram post. The group is coordinating the fundraiser with the Williamson-Marquette Business Alliance, which promised to match up to $5,000 in donations.

Familiar faces

In addition to Brown, other veteran protesters described participating in the Madison encampment.

50501 Movement member Emily Phillips posted footage of her comrades blocking Madison’s roads with tents, wood, construction cones, and other items. She previously joined protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New Jersey’s Delaney Hall and Minnesota earlier this year, according to media reports and her public comments.

Phillips was arrested outside St. Paul’s Cities Church during a January anti-ICE protest that disrupted a church service and led to federal charges for dozens involved, MPR News reported. Phillips’s local misdemeanor charges were dropped.

The activist also claimed to have personally worked alongside Minnesota protesters who now face federal charges alleging an antifa-linked conspiracy to harm and impede ICE agents.

“Stay safe, f*** ICE, and have a great day,” she told her audience last week in an Instagram video announcing she was traveling to Madison.

The 50501 Movement also posted a video purportedly from the autonomous zone featuring a woman who described participating in 2020 Black Lives Matter riots. “Six years ago, I was a big, big, big part of the organizing of the protests after George Floyd passed away, and I am a comrade of yours, Minnesota,” said the woman, identified as Ebony.

“I was there when your police station [was] burning and we were rioting,” she said, apparently referring to when the mobs burned down a Minneapolis police precinct in 2020. She also gave a shoutout to allies in Washington, D.C., mentioning how “we all got trapped on Black Lives Matter Drive.”

Another group spreading Brown’s donation instructions is Supply the Siege, created in May to support Minnesota’s anti-ICE demonstrators, its website and Instagram account show. “Whether during civil unrest or simply neighbors helping neighbors, we will be there,” the website says.

Tax-funded charity makes ‘demands’

Protesters are petitioning the city for policy changes written on postcards in tandem with Ruiz’s family and the nonprofit Freedom Inc., according to on-site coverage from Freedom Road Socialist Organization’s media arm, “Fight Back! News.” The demands include arresting the police officer who killed Ruiz, defunding the police, and more “community control” over law enforcement.

Images from other protest participants show a Freedom Inc. tent and its “abolish police” signage in the protest zone. “Freedom Inc. has set up a tent to carry out a four-day educational series where they will discuss in detail their demands to get justice for Corey and create change in Madison,” the Freedom Road Socialist Organization said Thursday. Madison Trans Resistance Action Committee also told activists to follow Freedom Inc.’s lead on demonstrations.

“Our only enemy is the state,” Freedom Inc. said in a Saturday post. “The state murders us in the street. The state occupies our neighborhoods through policing. The state separates families through deportation. The state abandons our communities while funding punishment over care.”

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“Our responsibility is to build political clarity, deepen our relationships, organize our communities, and build institutions that answer to the people instead of the state,” the nonprofit group continued.

Freedom Inc. reported more than $4.8 million in government funds between 2021 and 2024 on tax filings.