UWPD Arrests Man for Battery

• Incident date: September 10, 2015, 2:20 pm
• Incident type: Battery
• Location/address: East Campus Mall

On Thursday, September 10 at approximately 2:20 p.m. the Madison Police Department was made aware of a male subject throwing punches and acting odd in the area of State Street and N. Park Street.  The subject attempted to hit the person twice who was calling 9-1-1.  The subject was following the caller down Park Street toward Grainger Hall on the UW Madison Campus. Both the Madison Police Department and UW—Madison Police Department sent officers to the area in an attempt to locate the subject.

At approximately 2:45 p.m., the UW-Madison Police Department received a report from a UW-Madison student who said he was struck by a male subject matching the description of the earlier call.  The second call was in the area of the Education Sciences Building (1025 W. Johnson Street.). The victim provided an excellent description of the suspect and last direction of travel.

Based on the description the suspect, Ezekiel Golden, 47, was located at the intersection of Johnson Street and East Campus Mall. Officers observed Golden stopping traffic and hitting vehicle hoods with his hands. He left the intersection and went to East Campus Mall, where dozens of students were going to and from classes.

As an officer approached Golden, he became physically and verbally aggressive — stating he was going to hurt the officer; the officer retreated.  Officers tried to calm Golden down verbally — he refused to listen and was warned about being Tasered. Golden did not follow commands, did not stop, and continued to advance on the officer. Another officer then deployed his Taser. Golden was taken into custody — he refused medical treatment at the scene, but was transported to a hospital as a precaution.

Golden was arrested and booked into the Dane County Jail on battery charges.

UWPD is familiar with Golden — he has a long history of violence and aggression, especially towards law enforcement.  Also in the past several weeks, officers were aware that Golden had been involved in many different strange encounters including walking into traffic attacking vehicles and was not taking his prescribed medication.  Officers believed based on this information that Golden may have been in a state of mental health crisis.