Jacob Blake protests: Teen arrested over fatal shootings identified

KENOSHA, Aug 27, 2020, AP. A white 17-year-old boy has been arrested after two people were shot dead during a third straight night of US protests over the police shooting of Black man Jacob Blake, 9News reported.

Kyle Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, about 24km from Kenosha, was taken into custody in Illinois on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide in the attack that was allegedly largely captured on mobile phone video. The shooting left a third person wounded.

“I just killed somebody,” the gunman, carrying a semi-automatic rifle, could be heard saying at one point during the rampage that erupted just before midnight in the city of 100,000 people midway between Milwaukee and Chicago.

In the wake of the killings, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers authorised 500 members of the National Guard to support local law enforcement around Kenosha, doubling the number of troops sent in. The governor’s office said he working other states to bring in additional National Guard troops and law officers.

One victim was shot in the head and the other in the chest, Sheriff David Beth told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A third person suffered gunshot wounds not believed to be life-threatening.

The dead were identified only as a 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 I told my friend, ‘That’s not fireworks,'” 19-year-old 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 as members of the crowd were yelling for him to be arrested because he had shot people.

As for how the gunman managed to slip away, Sheriff David Beth described a chaotic, high-stress scene, with lots of radio traffic and people screaming, chanting and running — conditions he said can cause “tunnel vision” among law officers.

Kyle Rittenhouse was assigned a public defender in Illinois for a hearing on Friday 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 Kyle’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, including the Chicago Police Department. All of the badges 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 enforcement uniform as well as the kind of brimmed hat that state troopers wear.

The sheriff told the Journal Sentinel that armed people had been patrolling the city’s streets in recent nights, but he did not know if the gunman was among them.

“They’re a militia,” Sheriff Beth said. “They’re like a vigilante group.”

The FBI said it is assisting in the case.

Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, who is Black, said in an interview with 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 okay?” Barnes said. “People treat that like it’s some kind of normal activity that people are walking around with assault rifles.”

Witness accounts and video show that the shootings took place in two stages: The gunman first shot someone at a car lot, then jogged away, stumbled and fell in the street, and opened fire again as members of the crowd closed in 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 fire multiple rounds and that dispersed people near him.”

“The rifle was being jerked around in all directions while it was being fired,” Mr Rosas said.
Sam Dirks, 22, from Milwaukee, said he saw the suspected gunman earlier in the evening, and he was yelling at some of the protesters.

“He was definitely very agitated. He was pacing around, just pointing his gun in general. Not necessarily at anyone specifically,” Mr Dirks said.

In other widely circulating video, police can be seen tossing bottled water from an armoured vehicle to what appear to be armed civilians walking the streets. One of the civilians appears to be the gunman who later shot protesters.

“We appreciate you being here,” an officer is heard saying to the group over a loudspeaker.
In Wisconsin, it is legal for people 18 and over to openly carry a gun, with no licence required.

Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, who is Black, said in an interview with 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 okay?” Barnes said. “People treat that like it’s some kind of normal activity that people are walking around with assault rifles.”

Witness accounts and video show that the shootings took place in two stages: The gunman first shot someone at a car lot, then jogged away, stumbled and fell in the street, and opened fire again as members of the crowd closed in 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 fire multiple rounds and that dispersed people near him.”

“The rifle was being jerked around in all directions while it was being fired,” Mr Rosas said.
Sam Dirks, 22, from Milwaukee, said he saw the suspected gunman earlier in the evening, and he was yelling at some of the protesters.

“He was definitely very agitated. He was pacing around, just pointing his gun in general. Not necessarily at anyone specifically,” Mr Dirks said.

In other widely circulating video, police can be seen tossing bottled water from an armoured vehicle to what appear to be armed civilians walking the streets. One of the civilians appears to be the gunman who later shot protesters.

“We appreciate you being here,” an officer is heard saying to the group over a loudspeaker.

In Wisconsin, it is legal for people 18 and over to openly carry a gun, with no licence required.

The shooting was captured on cellphone video and ignited new protests in the US three months after the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer touched off a nationwide reckoning over racial injustice.

Mr Blake’s father, also named Jacob Blake, said police shot his son “seven times, seven times, like he didn’t matter.”

“But my son matters. He’s a human being and he matters,” he said.

Mr Blake’s mother, Julia Jackson, told CBS This Morning in an interview that aired Wednesday that she feels as if she is in a “bad dream” and that it felt “unreal” that her son’s name has been added to the list of Black people who were shot by police.

“Never in a million years did I think we would be here in this place. Him being alive is just a miracle in itself,” she said.

During the latest round of unrest on Tuesday, police fired tear gas for the third straight night to disperse protesters outside Kenosha’s courthouse, where some shook a protective fence and threw water bottles and fireworks at officers. On Monday night, crowds destroyed dozens of buildings and set more than 30 fires downtown.

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