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On the third night of protests in Kenosha over the shooting of Jacob Blake, three people were shot. Reporters on the ground in Kenosha alleged that the shooter may have been involved with a local gang that is self-styled as a “militia”. Kenosha police are investigating whether the gunman was allegedly “defending” a gas station from potential looting.
Some reports speculate that the shooting could have been to ward off potential looting. Some protests have escalated into riots, with people ransacking businesses and making out with everything from flat-screen TVs to Kind Bars for calories.
At the time of this writing, two of the people who were shot by the unidentified gunman were killed. A third person sustained bad injuries, but doctors expect him to survive. The shooter does not appear to have been affiliated with police or protesters. As the protests bear on, the city of Kenosha faces civil unrest at a scale it is unfamiliar with.
On August 23, police who were responding to a domestic disturbance call shot Jacob Blake in the back at least seven times. Blake himself was not part of the disturbance directly; he was trying to break up a fight between two women. When police arrived, he seemed content to allow them to handle the situation and walked toward his car. While trying to sit in his driver’s seat, a police officer grabbed his shirt.
A video then shows the officer shooting Blake at least seven times in the back. His head hits the steering wheel and the car horn honks. Thankfully, Blake is alive and in stable condition at the hospital. However, he is suffering from paralysis from his waist down. It is unclear if his paralysis will be permanent.
Outrage over the gratuitous use of violence by the police officers was swift in Kenosha.
The shootings took place after 11:45 PM on Tuesday night, according to official reports. The police do not yet know the ages and names of the victims. Reports from people in the area have held that the shooter was with a group of people styling themselves as a “militia”.
These reports are currently not officially confirmed. However, if true, the accusations are similar in nature to the 2017 Charlottesville protest, when a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of protesters and killed a woman named Heather Heyer.
