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MADISON, Wis. (WMTV), November 12, 2024 – With every piece of information that comes out about a Fitchburg police shooting, the family and friends of the man who died, 28-year-old Kevin Price, have more questions about what really happened.
On the morning of August 12 just before 8 a.m., Dane County 911 Dispatch Center gets a call from someone who says they need help.
Dispatcher: 911, what’s the address of the emergency?
Caller: Hi, someone, there’s an issue though. We have no contact orders, and we saw each other, and he tried to break my neck.
Dispatcher: Where did this happen?
Caller: You know what? Never mind.
The caller hangs up. And the dispatcher calls back. Someone answers but doesn’t say anything. Forty-three seconds of silence, and the person on the other end hangs up again.
Three Fitchburg officers show up to the area. They say a neighbor tells them a couple was fighting inside an apartment on the 800 block of Whispering Pines Way. Call logs show officers force the apartment door open at 9 a.m. Fitchburg police say a man inside charged officers with a knife. Seven minutes later, the call log shows an officer shot that man inside the apartment three times in the chest.
That man now shot by police is taken to SSM Health St. Mary’s emergency room. He dies in the hospital three days later. The man who died was Kevin Price, the same person who made that 911 call for help in the first place.
“You go oh my gosh, he was shot. Oh, but he was the one to call 911,” recounted Price’s friend PJ Chamberlain.
Chamberlain was shocked to learn months after losing his friend that Price was the one to call for help.
“I hear someone who is scared, who feels like he is in trouble of some kind. I hear someone desperate for help. It was important to hear. It was important to know it existed,” says Chamberlain.
Price was an artist and a UW-Madison student who worked at the radio station. Chamberlain recalled Price had a radio show at 7 p.m. on Thursday nights.
“He was a very complex, caring person. He meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but to most people, they knew he was caring, compassionate and creative,” said Chamberlain.
Chamberlain says inconsistencies on the story emerged after two law enforcement agencies described what happened to Price differently.
Fitchburg Police Chief Alfonso Morales did interviews with 15 News hours after the shooting, saying Price was “armed with a weapon and charged at officers.”
According to the Department of Justice’s release, they describe the shooting like this:
“Officers knocked on the door of the residence for an extended period of time before entering. The officers located Kevin D. Price with a knife and Fitchburg Police Sergeant Peter Johnston, with 14 years of law enforcement experience, discharged his weapon, striking Price.”
“There is no statement in here that he came at them with a knife, told him to drop it or that he was menacing or anything,” commented Chamberlain.
Did Price charge officers? Or did he simply have a knife? Chamberlain says the answers to those questions could change the entire narrative. But it’s that deadly call for help that sticks with him most.
“Every time there’s more information that comes out, you feel like you lose that person over and over again, especially that 911 call,” said Chamberlain.
As much as it may hurt, Chamberlain says he is determined to learn even more, urging police to release the body camera footage from that summer day inside the apartment.
“Most if the time, it seems like when footage clears law enforcement of any wrongdoing, they’re pretty quick to release it even if there’s an investigation going on. So it does seem very questionable to me that they have not released it this far out,” questioned Chamberlain.
Without Price here to tell his own story, Chamberlain is determined to help add context to its pages.
“For me the question of, not only what happened to Kevin that day, but what happened to Kevin leading up to that day is important,” said Chamberlain.
Another question that needs answering for Price’s family has to do with what happened to him once he was shot and taken to the hospital. Price’s family says they were not notified he was at the hospital until three days later, when he died. So they say they couldn’t visit him, advocate for his care or even say goodbye.
“I really do believe if the family knew he was there, there could have been a better possibility for a better outcome for Kevin,” commented Chamberlain.
15 Investigates has questioned SSM Health about their policies for emergency contacts. SSM Health’s Communication Manager Lisa Adams says they won’t talk about specific cases because of HIPAA laws, but she did email a statement on their policy.
“In a typical situation, when a patient arrives at our emergency department without a support person, our team asks them if they have anyone they would like us to contact. In the event the patient is unable to respond to questions, we use the emergency contact listed in their medical record,” wrote Adams.
15 Investigates has used open records to request the body camera footage from Fitchburg Police and the DOJ. Both requests have been denied because the agencies say it is an ongoing investigation. It is state law for the DOJ to take over an investigation when officers kill someone.
The Fitchburg Police Department have referred all of 15 Investigates’ questions to the DOJ’s office. We are still waiting to hear back from them.
Story by Elizabeth Wadas
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