• In Kenosha, Wis., calls for authorities to protect protesters.
Vigils, vandalism in other cities over Wis. deaths
KENOSHA, Wisconsin – Residents in Kenosha were cleaning up Thursday after four nights of demonstrations over the shooting of Jacob Blake, and attorneys for Blake called for police to protect protesters.
A seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department, Rusten Sheskey, shot Blake in the back seven times on Sunday, the Wisconsin Department of Justice said in its first description of the shooting. The U.S. Department of Justice also confirmed it has opened a civil rights investigation.
Attorneys for Blake’s family released a statement calling for a timely and full investigation into Blake’s shooting, while also demanding authorities protect protesters from “outside vigilante forces” after two people were killed in Kenosha on Tuesday night.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump and co-counsels Patrick Salvi and B’Ivory Lamarr also drew a sharp distinction in how authorities’ interaction with Blake, who was shot multiple times in close range after police were called to a domestic incident, and their response to Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old from Illinois who is accused of fatally shooting two people and wounding a third.
“They shot him seven times in the back in front of his children,” the attorneys’ statement read, referring to Blake.
But when it came to Rittenhouse, “local law enforcement and National Guardsmen allowed him to walk down the street with his assault weapon,” they said.
Video of the scene Tuesday showed the shooter with a gun running toward an intersection where two squad cars and three armored police vehicles are approaching. On the video, someone can be heard yelling, “Hey, he just shot them! Hey, dude right here just shot them!”
The shooter slowed to a walk and raised his hands as he got close to the police vehicles. He waved at one, but it drove by. A second police vehicle also passed him. The shooter approached a parked squad car and then backed away. The video ended there.
Rittenhouse was arrested hours later in Antioch, where he lives, about 20 miles from Kenosha.
Wednesday night was much more peaceful in Kenosha than the night before. But across the country, protests in Oakland, California, were more chaotic as multiple fires were set, businesses vandalized and windows broken.
The Oakland Police Department tweeted that 600 to 700 people took part in the protests and several were arrested. Calling them “violent protesters,” police say they vandalized and set a fire at the Alameda County Superior Court.
In Minneapolis, where three months ago George Floyd was killed as a police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck, unrest sparked violence and store looting that broke out downtown following what authorities said was misinformation about the suicide death of a Black homicide suspect.
The Minneapolis mayor imposed a curfew Wednesday night and requested National Guard help. “What we’re calling for right now is peace,” Mayor Jacob Frey said. “What we’re calling for right now is for people to return to their homes.”
As night fell in Chicago, hundreds of people gathered in Union Park on the city’s West Side for a vigil.
Emcee Jae Rice said the police shooting of Blake hit him deeply because he grew up with Blake in Evanston, Ill.
“It is extremely disheartening to have to gather under these circumstances yet again,” Rice said. “It is extremely disheartening that, even with everyone watching them, the police don’t know how to stop killing black people.”
Political fallout
Wisconsin Lutheran College said Vice President Mike Pence won’t serve as the school’s commencement speaker after “careful consideration of the escalating events in Kenosha.”
The college in Milwaukee said it chose the Rev. Mark Jeske of St. Marcus Lutheran Church as a substitute speaker. The college said the change was a joint decision.
“Vice President Pence understands and supports Wisconsin Lutheran College’s decision to prioritize the safety and well-being of their students and wishes the students well as they celebrate the accomplishment of graduating from college and as they embark on their next journey,” said Devin M. O’Malley, Pence’s spokesman.
Pence condemned what he said were looters and rioters causing chaos in cities across the United States Wednesday night during his address at the Republican National Convention. “The violence must stop,” he said. “Last week, Joe Biden didn’t say one word about the violence and chaos engulfing cities across this country, so let me be clear: the violence must stop – whether in Minneapolis, Portland or Kenosha.”
Pence said he and Trump “always support the right of Americans to peaceful protest, but rioting and looting is not peaceful protest.” He added that those that do engage in illegal activity will be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Symone Sanders, a Biden campaign senior adviser, blasted Pence for saying that the country would fall into lawlessness under Biden.“With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, that violence is happening right now in Donald Trump’s America,” Sanders said. “That division is happening on your watch. You own this. Donald Trump has spent his entire time actively fueling hate and division.”
Sanders accused the administration of trying to benefit from the protests politically.
Contributing: Bart Jansen, Grace Hauck, Chris Bumbaca, Jordan Culver, Steve Gardner, Jim Reineking, Joel Shannon, Heather Tucker and Jeff Zillgitt, JR Radcliffe Gina Barton, Patrick Marley, Devi Shastri, Cary Spivak, Bruce Vielmetti, Sarah Volpenhein, The Associated Press