Two shot dead in street attack in Wisconsin as teenager arrested
● Vigilante taken into custody after rampage filmed on mobile phone
A white ,17- year-old police admirer has been arrested after two people were shot to death during a third straight night of protests in Kenosha over the police shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake.
Kyle Rittenhouse, from Antioch in Illinois, was taken into custody on suspicion of firstdegree intentional homicide. Antioch is about 15 miles from Kenosha.
Two people were killed Tuesday night and a third was wounded in an attack carried out by a young white man who was caught on mobile phone footage opening fire in the middle of the street with a semi-automatic rifle.
“I just killed somebody,” the gunman could be heard saying at one point during the rampage that erupted just before midnight (6am GMT).
In the wake of the killings, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers authorised the sending of 500 members of the National Guard to Kenosha, doubling the number of troops. The governor’s office said he was working with other states to bring in additional National Guard members and law officers. Authorities also announced a 7pm curfew, an hour earlier than the night before.
“A sense less tragedy like this cannot happen again ,” the governor, a Democrat, said in a statement. “I again ask those who choose to exercise their First Amendment rights please do so peacefully and safely, as so many did last night.
“I also ask the individuals who are not thereto exercise those rights to please stay home and let local first responders, law enforcement and members of the Wisconsin National Guard do their jobs.”
The dead were identified only as 26- year-old Silver Lake, Wisconsin, resident and a 36-year-old from Kenosha. The wounded person, a 36-year- old from West Allis, Wisconsin, was expected to survive, police said.
“We were all chanting ‘black lives matter’ at the gas station and then we heard, boom, boom, and It old my friend ‘that’s not fireworks’,” 19-yearold protester Devin Scott told the Chicago Tribune.
“And then this guy with this huge gun runs by us in the middle of the street and people are yelling ‘he shot someone, he shot someone ’. And everyone is trying to fight the guy, chasing him and then he started shooting again .” Mr Scott said he cradled a lifeless victim in his arms, and a woman started performing CPR, but “I don’t think he made it”.
According to witness accounts and video footage, police apparently let the young man responsible for the shootings walk past them with a rifle over his shoulder with his hands in the air as members of the crowd were yelling for him to be arrested because he had shot people.
As for why the gunman was allowed to leave, Sheriff David Beth portrayed the scene as chaotic, with screaming, chanting, non-stop radio traffic and“people running all over the place”.
“I can picture all kinds of reasons why I wasn’t focusing on people doing that ,” he said. “In situations that are high stress, you have such incredible tunnel vision, you have no idea what’s outside here when you’re looking right here.”
R it ten house, identified in court papers as a lifeguard at a YMCA in Lindenhurst, Illinois, was assigned a public defender in Illinois for a hearing tomorrow on his transfer to Wisconsin. The public defender’s office had no comment. Under Wisconsin law, anyone 17 or older is treated as an adult in the criminal justice system.
Much of Rittenhouse’s Facebook page is devoted to praising law enforcement, with references to Blue Lives Matter, a movement that supports police.
He also can be seen holding an assault rifle.
Other photographs include those of badges of various law enforcement agencies.