(Reuters) - Hundreds of students marched to the state Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, on Monday as protests over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer gained momentum.
Around 2,000 mostly teenaged students, including some from Sun Prairie High School, the alma mater of Tony Robinson, the 19-year-old who was shot and killed on Friday, protested inside the rotunda of the Capitol amid a minimal police presence.
Robinson's death was the latest in a string of police shootings across the country that have intensified concerns of racial bias in law enforcement."There is an indifference between people and police. We all need to come together," said Ali Asafford, 15, after leaving class at Madison's East High School.
He and other marchers said they had parental and teacher support to attend the demonstration where marchers chanted "we want justice now," and "black lives matter" as they left the Capitol and marched down State Street.
Officer Matt Kenny, who shot Robinson, is on paid administrative leave while the Wisconsin Department of Justice investigates the shooting.
Police Chief Michael Koval and Mayor Paul Soglin pledged transparency in communicating results of the investigation.
Koval prayed with Robinson's grandmother outside her home over the weekend, and reiterated apologies on Monday.
"Reconciliation cannot begin without my stating 'I am sorry,' and I don't think I can say this enough. I am sorry. I hope that, with time, Tony's family and friends can search their hearts to render some measure of forgiveness," Koval wrote in his blog.
Koval's efforts to be transparent, apologetic and light-handed with protesters come after months of heightened attention to police use of deadly force, from New York to Los Angeles, to rural Washington state. The police shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last year set off weeks of sometimes violent protests.
Early demonstrations in Ferguson were accompanied by looting and the police response to them was criticized as heavy-handed. That, and a long delay in releasing the name of the officer who shot Brown, fueled outrage over the shooting.
Madison police said they were making efforts to protect protesters and that they were allowed to shut downtown streets during the march. A string of demonstrations and vigils since Friday's shooting have so far been peaceful.
"We anticipate people will be angry, but we try to work with people who are demonstrating so they can exercise their first-amendment rights and we keep them safe as best we can," said Madison Police public information officer Joel DeSpain.
Madison, a city of 240,000 people about 80 miles (130 km) west of Milwaukee, has a mostly white population that is 7 percent African-American, U.S. Census figures show.
On Friday night, Kenny, 45, responded to reports of a battery and a man dodging cars in traffic. Kenny followed the suspect into an apartment, where he was struck in the head, according to Koval, and then shot the unarmed teen. Robinson died later in a local hospital.
Kenny, a 12-year veteran of the Madison Police Department, was exonerated in 2007 after he shot and killed a 48-year-old man who pointed a gun at officers and refused to drop his weapon. The suspect's gun was later determined to be a replica, not a real weapon.
Wisconsin court records show that Robinson pleaded guilty to armed robbery last year and received a probated six-month sentence.
Wisconsin has its own history of controversial officer-involved deaths: a police officer shot dead an unarmed Madison man in 2012, a man suffocated in the back of a police car in Milwaukee in 2011, and an officer shot to death a Kenosha man in 2004.
Concern over those incidents led to a bill signed into law last April requiring independent investigators under the direction of the state Department of Justice to probe shootings involving police.
The bill had bipartisan support in the Republican-led legislature as well as the statewide police organization, the Wisconsin Professional Police Association.
(Additional reporting and writing by Fiona Ortiz in Chicago; Additional reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Alan Crosby)
