A network of openly communist and socialist organizations helped coordinate the Madison, Wisconsin, protests that followed the fatal police shooting of homeless man Corey Ruiz, mobilizing activists from around the country while a taxpayer-funded nonprofit at the center of it all pulled in millions in government grants.
Police shot and killed Ruiz on July 22 after officers responded to reports of theft. Authorities said Ruiz fled on a bicycle, and when officers caught up with him, he pulled a knife and injured one officer during a struggle. A second officer then fired the fatal shot. All four officers involved were placed on administrative leave, and the Wisconsin Department of Justice opened an investigation. Madison police declined to publicly identify any of the officers.
Within hours, a constellation of left-wing groups, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Freedom Inc., the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and allied organizations, began coordinating protests that would consume the city for weeks. Fox News Digital reported that these groups used social media to mobilize supporters, organize demonstrations, and pressure elected officials through coordinated phone and email campaigns.
An encampment sprang up at the intersection where Ruiz was shot and swelled over nearly two weeks. It grew to include dozens of tents, four portable toilets, food distribution areas, and memorial displays. Protesters installed a raised-fist sculpture brought from George Floyd Square in Minneapolis and hung signs reading "Defund the Police" and "Arrest the Killer Cop."
Tom Beck, a Madison resident and retiree who has lived in the city for about 12 years, told Fox News Digital the city's inaction 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 called the encampment "an embarrassment." Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway defended the city's response, saying officials first offered shelter and hotel accommodations before ordering the site cleared. She cited public safety concerns and the encampment's impact on nearby businesses and the surrounding neighborhood.
City crews dismantled the encampment on a Tuesday morning, clearing flowers, candles, and memorial items from the intersection. The response was immediate. The Party for Socialism and Liberation's Madison chapter posted an Instagram video of the clearance and urged supporters to attend an evening demonstration outside Madison City Hall. Freedom Inc. accused the mayor of "sending armed militia to raid the memorial site."
On Monday night, before the encampment was cleared, Freedom Inc. had organized what it called a "mass mobilization." Protesters climbed Madison City Hall and hung a banner reading "Arrest the Killer Cop." Local outlet WKOW reported that protesters threw balloons filled with red liquid at the building.
After the Tuesday clearance, the situation escalated further. Overnight, protesters allegedly threw projectiles at city workers, set five street fires, and clashed with officers. Madison police reported at least 22 arrests. Officers also recovered a handgun from a juvenile protester arrested on unrelated charges.
By Wednesday morning, Freedom Inc. and the Party for Socialism and Liberation jointly called supporters to protest outside the Dane County Courthouse. Freedom Inc. 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 that bail claim.
The far-left pattern of escalation, from protest to property damage to confrontation with law enforcement, has played out repeatedly in American cities. A similar dynamic unfolded outside a Manhattan ICE facility, where a man armed with incendiary devices set fire to the building in what prosecutors described as a politically motivated attack.
The organizations behind the Madison demonstrations are not grassroots neighborhood groups. They are structured, funded, and ideologically explicit.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation, which Fox News Digital described as "openly communist," served as a key organizer. The group's Instagram posts referred to the officer who shot Ruiz as a "killer cop... still walking free. Still on the streets. Still getting paid." After the encampment was cleared, PSL posted: "You can destroy a memorial, but you cannot destroy a movement."
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a self-described "Marxist-Leninist political organization," publicly backed the protests. Its Wisconsin chapter collaborated with Freedom Inc. and Madison Students for a Democratic Society on protest materials. Its national social media accounts shared footage and updates from the Madison demonstrations.
Fight Back! News, which jointly published Instagram posts with Freedom Inc. highlighting organizing at the encampment, states on its own website that some of its writers and staff are members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. A joint post from Fight Back! News and Freedom Inc. described individuals and organizations traveling to Madison from "around the country" to "help organize on the ground." The post highlighted a four-day educational series and a postcard-writing campaign demanding the officer's arrest, defunding the police, and expanding "community control of policing."
The Washington Examiner reported that at least a dozen leftist and socialist organizations coordinated the protest encampment, which the outlet described as modeled after Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. The Examiner identified participants who included activists previously arrested at anti-ICE protests and a woman who boasted about her role in the 2020 burning of a Minneapolis police precinct, telling those at the Madison site: "I was there when your police station [was] burning and we were rioting."
Freedom Inc., the Madison-based nonprofit at the center of the organizing effort, advocates abolishing police, defunding law enforcement, and broad criminal justice reforms. In a pinned Instagram post from February, the group called to "Abolish Police," defund police and ICE, end deportations, and close jails, prisons, and ICE detention centers. The post declared 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."
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, Freedom Inc. reported about $4.2 million in revenue, with approximately $1.13 million coming from government grants. The Washington Examiner reported that between 2021 and 2024, the group received over $4.8 million in government funds total.
That a nonprofit collecting millions in taxpayer dollars openly calls for abolishing the very law enforcement agencies funded by those same taxpayers is a contradiction worth examining. The group's Instagram declared: "Our only enemy is the state", a striking statement from an organization sustained by state money.
Concerns about socialist and communist influence within the broader progressive movement are not limited to street protests. Even veteran Democratic strategists like Donna Brazile have warned that the party risks being defined by its most radical elements if mainstream leaders fail to draw clear lines.
Fox News Digital previously identified the Party for Socialism and Liberation as "a key organizer of nationwide protest movements within the broader activist ecosystem surrounding organizations funded by Marxist tech entrepreneur Neville Roy Singham." Singham lives in Shanghai. An earlier Fox News Digital investigation documented roughly $285 million flowing from Singham into a global network of nonprofits, activist organizations, and media operations. A House panel has subpoenaed three left-wing groups in a probe of $39 million tied to Singham.
Fox News Digital reached out to both Freedom Inc. and the Party for Socialism and Liberation for comment. Neither group responded.
State Rep. Francesca Hong, who is running for governor of Wisconsin, appeared at the memorial site shortly after Ruiz's death. Hong has previously called for "abolishing the police." Fox News Digital noted she does not appear to be affiliated with any of the organizations behind the protest coordination.
The involvement of radical political activism in public protests is not new, but the Madison case stands out for the speed and coordination with which avowedly Marxist-Leninist groups seized on a local police encounter and turned it into a multi-week occupation backed by national resources.
Protesters drew parallels between Ruiz's death and the 2020 death of George Floyd while he was being restrained by Minneapolis police. But the circumstances differ in critical ways: authorities say Ruiz pulled a knife and injured an officer. The Wisconsin Department of Justice investigation remains ongoing, and no charges have been announced against the officer who fired.
When openly communist organizations can mobilize activists from across the country, occupy city streets for weeks, and bail out arrested protesters by the dozens, all while collecting millions in government grants, taxpayers deserve to know exactly who is running the show and where the money goes.
