Fatal Kenosha shootings followed social media calls for vigilantes to ‘take up arms’
Tuesday’s deadly shootings in Kenosha were preceded by Facebook and Reddit posts urging armed vigilantes to travel to the Wisconsin city to protect businesses amid protests after the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Researchers at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Lab found that about 13 hours prior to the shootings that left two dead and one injured, a since-removed “Kenosha Guard” page on Facebook asked whether members were willing to “take up arms and defend out (sic) City tonight from the evil thugs,” according to a DFRLAB blog post Wednesday.
A since-deleted event dubbed
“Armed Citizens to Protect our Lives and Property” also circulated on the page, racking up over 300 RSVPS. Another 2,300 responded that they were interested in attending.
That event was then circulated by Infowars, known for promoting conspiracy theories, which received upward of 1,000 interactions on Facebook, according to internet monitoring tool Crowdtangle. Including more than 270 shares, more than 103,000 people saw the Infowars post.
Shortly thereafter, the Facebook group STAND UP KENOSHA!!!! TONIGHT WE COME TOGETHER was created, stating that people “need to protect our children, buildings and neighbors!!! we can’t sit back and watch OUR HOME burn down!!!” The group has since been deleted.
On Reddit, similar messages began circulating, with a since-removed post in the r/kenosha Subreddit saying, “Is it time for the rest of us to come together and stop these out of towners from coming in and burning our city town.”
In an even more disturbing post also deleted from the Subreddit, a user addressed “ALL NON-WHITES AND DEGENERATES OF KENOSHA,” warning that they had “until sundown and to pack up your belongings and leave the area, after that anything that happens to you or your children will be your fault!”
Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, Illinois, was arrested Wednesday and charged with first-degree intentional homicide for the slayings of a 26-yearold Silver Lake, Wis. resident and a 36-year-old Kenosha resident.
A third victim was shot and sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
“We’ve designated this shooting as a mass murder and have removed the shooter’s accounts from Facebook and Instagram,” Facebook said Wednesday in a statement to the New York Daily News.
Despite deactivating the “Kenosha Guard” page, the social media giant said it had not “found evidence on Facebook that suggests the shooter followed the Kenosha Guard Page or that he was invited on the Event Page they organized.”
That said, both the page and event violated the site’s new policy about militia organizations, leading to their removal.
Blake, a 29-year-old unarmed Black man, was walking toward his vehicle in Kenosha on Sunday when a white officer shot him seven times in front of his children.