17-Year-Old Arrested for Shooting Two Protesters
Thursday, August 27th, 2020 -- 9:51 AM
-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. 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 in the city of 100,000 midway between Milwaukee and Chicago. 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, though protesters ignored it again Wednesday. Protesters marched past the intersection where two people were shot Tuesday night, stopping to gather around the spot where one person was shot, and to pray and lay flowers. Evers, a Democrat, issued a statement asking those who wanted to exercise their First Amendment rights to "please do so peacefully and safely" and urging others to "please stay home and let local first responders, law enforcement and members of the Wisconsin National Guard do their jobs. A senseless tragedy like this cannot happen again," Evers said. As of early Thursday, the protests were mostly peaceful, in contrast to the violent clashes that marked earlier nights of protests.
There were no groups patrolling with long guns as they had on previous nights, and protesters stayed away from a courthouse that had been the site of standoffs with law enforcement. 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. 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 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. 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. On Wednesday, three days after the shooting, state authorities identified the officer who shot Blake 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, the department said. The man who said he made the widely circulated cellphone video of Blake's shooting has said he heard officers yell, "Drop the knife! Drop the knife!" before the gunfire erupted. He said he didn't see a knife in Blake's hands. State authorities did not say Blake threatened anyone with the knife. 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. State officials have announced no charges.
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