White boy, 17, arrested after 2 killed in unrest
A white, KENOSHA, WIS. — 17- year-old police admirer was arrested Wednesday 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, of Antioch, Illinois, was taken into custody in Illinois on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide.
Two people were killed Tuesday and a third was wounded in an attack apparently carried out by a young white man who was caught on cellphone video opening fire inthe 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 eruptedjust before midnight.
In thewake of the killings, Gov. Tony Evers authorized the sending of 500members of the National Guard to Kenosha, doubling the number of troops. The governor’soffice said he isworkingwith other states to bring in additional National Guard members and law officers.
“A senseless tragedy like this cannot happen again,” Evers said in a statement. “I again ask those who choose to exercise their First Amendment rights please do so peace fully and safely, assomanydid last night. I also ask the individuals who are not there to exercise those rights toplease stay home and let local first responders, lawenforcement and members of the Wisconsin National Guard do their jobs .”
InWashington, the Justice Departmentsaid it is sending in the FBI and federal marshals in response to the unrest. The WhiteHouse saidupto2,000 National Guard troops would be made available.
The dead were identified
only as a 26-year-old Silver Lake, Wisconsin, resident and a 36-year-old fromKenosha. Thewounded person, a 36-year-old from West Allis, Wisconsin, was expected to survive, police said.
“We were all chanting` Black livesmatter’ at the gas station and then we heard, boom, boom, and I told my friend, ``That’s not fireworks,’” protester Devin Scott, 19, 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, `Heshotsomeone! He shotsomeone!’ Andeveryone is trying tofight theguy, chasing him and then he started shooting again.”
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 gun man walk past them and leave the scene with a rifle over his shoulder and his hands in the air as members of the
crowd were yelling for him to be arrested because he had shot people.
As for how the gunman managed to leave the scene, Sheriff DavidBeth portrayed a chaotic, high-stress scene, conditions he said can cause “tunnel vision” among law officers.
Rittenhouse was assigned anIllinois public defender for a hearing Friday on his transfer to Wisconsin. Under Wisconsin law, anyone 17 or older is treated as an adult in the criminal justice system.
Much of R it ten house’ s Facebook page is devoted top raising 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, including the Chicago Police Department. Allofthebadges have a black line across them — something police officers typically do with black tape when an officer is killed in the line of duty.
In a photograph posted by his mother, he is wearing what appears to be a blue law officer uniformaswell as the kind of brimmedhat that state troopers wear.
Beth told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that militia members or armed vigilantes had been pat rolling Kenosha, but he did not know if the gun man was among them. However, video taken before the shooting shows police tossing bottled water from an armored vehicle to what appear to be armed civilians walking the streets. And one of them appears to be the gunman.
“We appreciate you being here,” an officer is heardsaying to the group over a loudspeaker.
Before the shooting, the conservative website The Daily Caller interviewed the suspected gunman in front of a boarded-up business.
“So people are getting injured, and our job is to protect this business,” the young mansaid. “Andpartofmyjob is to also help people. If there is somebody hurt, I’ m running intoharm’sway. That’swhy I havemy rifle— because I can protectmyself, obviously. But I also havemy med kit.”
Sam Dirks, 22, from Milwaukee, saidhehad seen the suspected gunman earlier in the evening, and hewas yelling at someof theprotesters. “He was definitely very agitated. He waspacing around, just pointing his gun in general. Not necessarily at anyone specifically,” Dirks said.
Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is Black, said in an interviewwith the news program “Democracy Now!” that the shootings were not surprising and that white militias have been ignored for too long.
“How many times across this country do you see armed gunmen, protesting, walking into state Capitols, and everybody just thinks it’ s OK ?” Barnes said .“People treat that like it’s some kind of normal activity that people are walkingaround with assault rifles .”
InWisconsin, it is legal for people 18 and over to openly carry a gun, with no license required.
Witness accounts and video indicate the shootings took place in two stages: The gunman first shot someone at a car lot, then jogged away, fell in the street, and opened fire as a crowd closed in on him.
A witness, Julio Rosas, 24, said that when the gunman stumbled, “two people jumped onto him and there was a struggle for control of his rifle. At that point during the struggle, he just began to firemultiple rounds, andthat dispersed people near him.”
“The riflewasbeing jerked aroundin all directionswhile itwasbeingfired,” Rosassaid.
Blake, 29, was shot, in the back, onSunday ashe leaned intohisSUV, three of his children seated inside. Kenosha police have not saidwhether Blake was armed.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden posted a video after he spoke with Blake’s parents.
“What I saw on that video makes me sick,” Biden said. “Once again, a Black man, Jacob Blake, has been shot by the police in broad daylight, with the whole world watching.”