Authorities identify officer who they say shot Jacob Blake
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A white, 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, about 15 miles from Kenosha, was taken into custody in Illinois on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide in the attack Tuesday that was largely captured on cellphone 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 Gov. Tony Evers authorized the deployment of 500 members of the National Guard to Kenosha, doubling the number of troops. The governor’s office said he is working with other states to bring in additional National Guard members and law officers. Authorities also announced a 7 p.m. curfew, an hour earlier than the night before.
“A senseless tragedy like this
cannot happen again,” the governor, a Democrat, said in a statement. “I
again ask those who choose to exercise their First Amendment rights
please do so peacefully and safely, as so many did last night. I also
ask the individuals who are not there to exercise those rights to please
stay home and let local first responders, law enforcement and members
of the Wisconsin National Guard do their jobs.”
In Washington, the
Justice Department said it is sending in more than 200 federal agents
from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives in response to the unrest. The White House said
up to 2,000 National Guard troops would be made available.
And in Orlando, Florida, the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks didn’t take the floor for their playoff game against
the Magic. It was later announced that all three NBA playoff games
scheduled for Wednesday were postponed, with players around the league
choosing to boycott in their strongest statement yet against racial
injustice.
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.”
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 gunman
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 slip away, Sheriff David Beth depicted 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.
Rittenhouse was assigned a public defender in Illinois
for a hearing 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
Rittenhouse’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 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
that militia members or armed vigilantes had been patrolling Kenosha’s
streets in recent nights, but he did not know if the gunman 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 heard saying to the group over a loudspeaker.
Before
the shooting, the conservative website The Daily Caller conducted a
video interview with 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 man said. “And part of my job is to
also help people. If there is somebody hurt, I’m running into harm’s
way. That’s why I have my rifle — because I can protect myself,
obviously. But I also have my med kit.”
Sam Dirks, 22, from
Milwaukee, said he had seen the 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,” Dirks said.
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. 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 OK?” Barnes said. “People treat
that like it’s some kind of normal activity that people are walking
around with assault rifles.”
In Wisconsin, 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 again as members of the 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 fire multiple
rounds, and that dispersed people near him.”
“The rifle was being jerked around in all directions while it was being fired,” Rosas said.
Blake,
29, was shot in the back seven times on Sunday as he leaned into his
SUV, three of his children seated inside. Kenosha police have said
little about what happened other than that they were responding to a
domestic dispute.
The officer who shot Blake was identified by
state authorities as Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha
Police Department. Sheskey shot Blake while holding onto his shirt
after officers first unsuccessfully used a Taser, the Wisconsin Justice
Department said.
State agents later recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of the vehicle, authorities said.
No charges were announced, and state officials continue to investigate.
On
Tuesday, Ben Crump, the lawyer for Blake’s family, said it would “take a
miracle” for Blake to walk again. He called for the officer who opened
fire to be arrested and for the others involved to lose their jobs.
The
shooting was captured on cellphone video and ignited new protests in
the U.S. three months after the death of George Floyd under the knee of a
Minneapolis police officer touched off a nationwide reckoning over
racial injustice.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden posted a video saying he had spoken with Blake’s parents and other family members.
“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.”
Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin. Associated Press reporters Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee, Jeff Baenen and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis, Don Babwin in Chicago and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed, as did news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York.