Two Dead in Kenosha on Third Night of Unrest After Jacob Blake Shooting

By Peter Beaumont, Guardian UK

26 August 20

Three shot, two fatally, as Wisconsin city rocked by further violence on streets

wo people were shot dead and another injured when at least one gunman opened fire on protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid demonstrations against the police shooting of Jacob Blake three days ago.

David Beth, the county sheriff, said one person was shot in the head and another in the chest shortly before midnight on Tuesday. Another person was shot in the arm. The victims have not been identified.

Beth said people describing themselves as belonging to a militia had been patrolling Kenosha’s streets in recent nights but he did not know if the shooter was involved with such a group.

“They’re a militia,” Beth told reporters. “They’re like a vigilante group.”

Video posted on social media showed chaotic scenes as gunfire rang out, scattering people in the street. One of the victims, a young shirtless white man with a red bandana around his neck, was seen receiving first aid in a car park after being shot in the head.

In another image, a man sits on the ground with his arm almost severed by a gunshot wound.

The third night of protests against against the police shooting of Blake, who was hit at almost point-blank range multiple times in the back, had attracted supporters of Black Lives Matter and armed rival protesters, who had gathered near a petrol station.

Images of the rival group showed heavily armed white men, some wearing body armour.

According to witness reports, the two groups had increasingly clashed as the night wore on, and police fired teargas and rubber bullets at demonstrators near Kenosha’s courthouse.

Social media users posted a series of images including video that appeared to show the same individual at key points during the confrontation, including interacting with police in a tactical vehicle who say they “appreciate” the alleged vigilantes’ help and give them bottled water.

The young white man first appears wearing a baggy light-green T-shirt and dark jeans and a white reversed baseball cap, with other armed people apparently in the vicinity of a site identified as Bert and Rudy’s Auto Service petrol station, where alleged militia members had gathered.

In these pictures, the man, who appears to be in his late teens or early 20s, carries an assault-style rifle, a distinctive black and orange shoulder bag, wearing what appear to be purple nitrile gloves of the kind used by first aiders and hospital staff.

In video footage apparently taken during the first fatal shooting, a series of gunshots can be heard near parked cars.

The footage shows the same individual with the same distinctive bag and gloves appearing holding a weapon and approaching the spot where a young white man without a shirt has fallen with a gunshot wound to the head.

As another man takes off his T-shirt to apply pressure to the wound, the man with the gun turns to leave quickly, apparently talking on a phone.

Other footage, from different angles, then shows what appears to be the same man jogging down a street being pursued by others.

As one pursuer takes a flying kick at him, the man with the gun falls to the ground and another tries to grab his weapon. That man then appears to be shot at close range and also falls to the ground.

The alleged gunman is finally seen heading north towards several police tactical vehicles, with his arms raised as the tactical vehicles drive by him.

Other clips, which appear to have been filmed before the shootings, show him interacting with local police, who at one stage tell him not to approach, but at another talk to him and other armed men.

Beth said the initial investigation into the shooting was focused on the group of men with guns outside the petrol station.

Commenting on calls to deputise citizens to help police the protests, Beth said: “I’ve had people saying: ‘Why don’t you deputise citizens? This is why you don’t deputise citizens with guns to protect Kenosha.”

Journalists and others on the scene in Kenosha said that from the beginning of the protests on Tuesday armed men had been in evidence, amid claims that some had responded to calls on social media to turn out.

One man with a handgun, interviewed by the Washington Post, said he had come after a call on Facebook to protect the city.

“Ain’t nothing being done. We’re the only ones,” said Joe, 29, who said he was a US Marine veteran. “Three thousand of us are armed and ready,” he added.

The shootings came as hundreds of people again defied a curfew on Tuesday in Kenosha, where destruction marred protests the previous night as fires were set and businesses vandalised.

There were 34 fires associated with that unrest, with 30 businesses destroyed or damaged along with an unknown number of residences, the Kenosha fire chief, Charles Leipzig, told the Kenosha News.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the shootings took place in an area between 63rd Street and Sheridan Road, near the Froedtert South hospital.

While police said they were looking for one individual with a “long gun”, footage appeared to reveal the sound of shots coming from more than one location with voices suggesting the shooter may have been in a vehicle.

Adding to the febrile atmosphere were some posts suggesting that rightwing militia members, or “boogaloo” types, had intended to confront the protests.

“I feel very confident we’ll have him in a very short time,” Beth said.

Kenosha has been rocked by protests since Sunday, when police shot Blake in the back as he walked away from two officers and opened his car door, according to a bystander video that went viral. Three of his young sons were in the vehicle, witnesses said.

Blake, 29, was left paralysed and “fighting for his life”, his family and lawyers said on Tuesday, hours before the latest round of civil unrest in the lakefront town.

The Wisconsin governor, Tony Evers, had called for calm on Tuesday, while also declaring a state of emergency under which he doubled the national guard deployment in Kenosha to 250.

The night before crowds destroyed dozens of buildings and set more than 30 fires downtown.

Blake’s mother, Julia Jackson, said the damage in Kenosha did not reflect what her family wanted and if her son could see it he would be unhappy.

She said the first thing her son said to her when she saw him was he was sorry. “He said: ‘I don’t want to be a burden on you guys’,” Jackson said. “‘I want to be with my children, and I don’t think I’ll walk again’.”

Three of Blake’s sons, aged three, five and eight, were in the car at the time of the shooting, Benjamin Crump, the family’s attorney, said. It was the eight-year-old’s birthday, he added.