A network of openly communist and socialist organizations helped orchestrate nearly two weeks of protests, an encampment, and street clashes in Madison, Wisconsin, after police fatally shot a man during a confrontation, raising fresh questions about who funds and directs these movements.
Corey Ruiz was killed on July 22 after Madison police officers responded to reports of theft. Ruiz fled on a bicycle, and when officers caught up with him, he allegedly pulled a knife and injured one officer during a struggle. A second officer shot and killed him. All four officers involved remain on administrative leave while the Wisconsin Department of Justice investigates.
Within hours of the shooting, a coalition that included the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Freedom Inc., the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and allied groups began mobilizing. What followed, a sprawling tent encampment, coordinated social media campaigns, a "mass mobilization" at City Hall, and overnight clashes that produced at least 22 arrests and five street fires, bore the hallmarks of a well-organized operation, not a spontaneous outpouring of grief. A Fox News Digital investigation traced the organizing effort and its institutional roots.
On the day Ruiz was killed, Freedom Inc. published a joint Instagram post with the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and its Milwaukee chapter demanding "Justice for Corey Ruiz" and "Community Control of the Police Now!" State Rep. Francesca Hong, who has previously called for abolishing the police and is now running for governor, appeared at the memorial site shortly after Ruiz's death, though she does not appear affiliated with any of the named groups.
Over the following days, the encampment grew to include dozens of tents and four portable toilets. Organizers brought a raised-fist sculpture from Minneapolis' George Floyd Square. A joint post from Freedom Inc. and Fight Back! News described activists traveling from "around the country" to "help organize on the ground" and promoted a four-day educational series and a postcard-writing campaign demanding the officer's arrest, defunding the police, and expanding civilian oversight.
Fight Back! News states on its own website that some of its writers and staff belong to the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a Marxist-Leninist political group that publicly backed the Madison protests. That organization has appeared alongside the Party for Socialism and Liberation in previous reporting on protest movements from Minneapolis to Los Angeles.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation's Madison chapter, described as openly communist, used social media to brand the officer who fired the fatal shot a "killer cop," identifying him by name. The group urged followers to "take the streets" and pressured elected officials through coordinated phone and email campaigns demanding the officer's arrest.
On Monday night, Freedom Inc. organized what it called a "mass mobilization" outside Madison City Hall. Protesters climbed the building, hung a banner reading "Arrest the Killer Cop," and threw balloons filled with red liquid at the facade, local media outlet WKOW reported.
By Tuesday morning, city crews moved in and dismantled the encampment, clearing flowers, candles, and memorial items from the intersection where Ruiz was shot. Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway defended the decision, saying officials had first offered shelter and hotel accommodations before clearing the site, citing public safety concerns and the encampment's impact on nearby businesses.
Freedom Inc. responded by accusing the mayor of "sending armed militia to raid the memorial site." The Party for Socialism and Liberation posted an Instagram video showing officers clearing the memorial and urged supporters to return that evening for a demonstration outside City Hall. Its caption read: "Killer cop... is still walking free. Still on the streets. Still getting paid." A second line added: "You can destroy a memorial, but you cannot destroy a movement."
Supporters did return. Late Tuesday and into the overnight hours Wednesday, protesters allegedly threw projectiles at city workers, set five street fires, blocked intersections, and clashed with officers. Police made at least 22 arrests and recovered a handgun from a juvenile protester taken into custody on unrelated charges.
Tom Beck, a Madison retiree who has lived in the city for about 12 years, told Fox News Digital the city's leadership let the situation spiral:
"They should have given them maybe 48 hours and then go in there and just push it out of the way. Instead, they let it grow."
Beck added bluntly: "It's just become an embarrassment."
Freedom Inc., the Madison-based nonprofit at the center of the organizing effort, is not a shoestring operation. IRS filings reviewed by Fox News Digital show the group reported roughly $4.9 million in revenue in 2024, including about $1.24 million in government grants. The previous year it pulled in approximately $4.2 million, with about $1.13 million from government sources.
That is a substantial amount of taxpayer money flowing to an organization whose pinned Instagram post from February calls to "Abolish Police," defund police and ICE, end deportations, and close jails, prisons, and ICE detention centers. The post declares that "Police and ICE are tearing families apart, racially profiling our people, criminalizing poverty, and inflicting violence on Black, Brown, immigrant, and working-class communities" and that communities deserve "safety without surveillance" and "care without criminalization."
By Wednesday morning, Freedom Inc. and the Party for Socialism and Liberation jointly called supporters to protest outside the Dane County Courthouse. Freedom Inc. separately claimed on Instagram that it had "bailed out 50 people" from the Dane County Public Safety Building and had "shut down Doty Street directly in front of the jail while working to get people released." Fox News Digital was unable to independently verify the bail claim.
The growing influence of self-described socialist and communist figures in American politics has alarmed observers well beyond Wisconsin. Even veteran Democratic strategist James Carville recently threatened to leave his own party over the rising clout of far-left voices.
The organizations driving the Madison protests do not operate in isolation. An earlier Fox News Digital investigation documented approximately $285 million flowing from Neville Roy Singham, a Marxist tech entrepreneur who lives in Shanghai, into a global network of nonprofits, activist organizations, and media operations. The Party for Socialism and Liberation was previously identified as a key organizer of nationwide protest movements within that ecosystem.
National security experts cited in the investigation described a broader pattern: communist and socialist organizations using local confrontations with law enforcement to build protest movements and advance wider political agendas. The Madison unrest fits that template precisely, a police shooting becomes the catalyst, and within hours a pre-existing organizational infrastructure mobilizes activists, coordinates messaging, and pressures local officials.
Congressional scrutiny of Singham's financial web has intensified in recent months. The House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed three nonprofits over $39 million tied to the Marxist tech tycoon, and a DOJ grand jury has targeted Singham over his alleged funding of U.S. leftist groups.
Neither Freedom Inc. nor the Party for Socialism and Liberation responded to Fox News Digital's requests for comment.
The people left dealing with the consequences were not the organizers who traveled from around the country or the nonprofits pulling in millions. They were the Madison business owners whose storefronts sat behind a growing tent city, the city workers who had projectiles thrown at them, and residents like Tom Beck who watched their elected leaders dither for nearly two weeks.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice investigation into the Ruiz shooting remains open. The four officers involved have not been publicly identified. No charges have been announced. Meanwhile, the organizations behind the protests have already signaled they are not finished, their Wednesday Instagram post ended with a line borrowed from Mao: "Dare to struggle, Dare to win!"
The broader pattern is hard to miss. Across the country, self-described socialists are consolidating political power while allied street organizations, some funded by millions in taxpayer grants, others tied to a Shanghai-based billionaire's sprawling financial network, stand ready to convert the next police encounter into the next occupation.
Madison got a two-week preview of what that infrastructure can produce. The question every city should be asking is why taxpayer dollars are helping to bankroll it.