District Attorney Eric Toney, the Republican candidate for Attorney General, walked though the Madison intersection encampment on Saturday (called the CRAZ) and declared that it is “violating state statutes” and should “immediately be declared an unlawful assembly.”
Toney, who is the DA in Fond du Lac County, is running against liberal Josh Kaul. Kaul has stayed silent on the CRAZ (Corey Ruiz Autonomous Zone) and previously refused to criticize socialism or Fran Hong’s abolish the police rhetoric. The intersection occupation arose after Ruiz, a felon absconder, was shot and killed after injuring an officer with a knife.
I walked through the Madison neighborhood socialists have taken over, preventing EMS and other vehicles from getting through. Here's what I saw: pic.twitter.com/h3lm23s384
— Eric Toney (@EricJToney) August 1, 2026
Toney walked through the encampment on August 1. “I walked through the Madison neighborhood socialists have taken over, preventing EMS and other vehicles from getting through,” Toney wrote.
“Vehicles have no ability to get through this area, and it’s violating state statute. This should immediately be declared an unlawful assembly and, as attorney general, I would work with the governor and legislature under current law to have the authority to prosecute anybody that refuses to leave this area to make sure we’re protecting businesses and community members that they can move through this area,” added Toney, who was previously named Wisconsin District Attorney of the year.
“So we don’t see what’s happened in Kenosha, in the wake of Jacob Blake, in Minneapolis, in the wake of George Floyd and see damage to the community. We have to make sure we’re protecting everyone in Wisconsin. People have a right to protest but we have to make sure we’re protecting everyone in our community,” he added.
“Nobody has the right to take over a street, deny law enforcement the ability to conduct public safety functions, stop businesses from operating, and stop folks relying on that road for their livelihood during a protest,” Toney wrote previously. “This is a consequence of the dangerous rhetoric of candidates like Francesca Hong and the failure of our Attorney General to speak out against it—Kaul is failing the leadership test with his silence and the people of Madison are suffering as a result.”
Toney’s comments come as the liberal Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway wrote that many of those occupying the intersection are homeless. “The occupation of the intersection is neither a safe nor a sustainable solution for the unhoused or the surrounding community,” she said, but the city has not acted to dismantle it, even though she indicated in a previous statement that residents aren’t able to sleep or move safely through the neighborhood, and that first responders have been impeded.
