A man is shot in the arm during a protest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wis.BRENDAN GUTENSCHWAGER/Reuters
The Wisconsin officer who shot a Black man, Jacob Blake seven times in the back has been identified as a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department, the state Department of Justice said Wednesday.
Officer Rusten Sheskey shot Mr. Blake, 29, while holding onto his shirt after officers first unsuccessfully used a taser and as Blake leaned into his vehicle during an incident Sunday evening, the agency’s news release said.
State agents later recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of the vehicle, the release said. A search of the vehicle located no additional weapons.
No charges were announced and the state Department of Investigation was continuing to investigate.
The shooting set off three nights of unrest in the city midway between Milwaukee and Chicago. Two people were killed Tuesday night and a third was wounded in an attack apparently carried out by a young white man who was caught on cellphone video opening fire in the 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 erupted just before midnight.
A white, 17-year-old police admirer was arrested Wednesday in connection with the shooting. Kyle Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Ill., was taken into custody in Illinois on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide. Antioch is about 24 kilometres from Kenosha.
In the wake of the killings, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers authorized the sending 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 the FBI and federal marshals in response to the unrest.
The dead were identified only as 26-year-old Silver Lake, Wis., resident and a 36-year-old from Kenosha. The wounded person, a 36-year-old from West Allis, Wis., 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 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 that happened, Sheriff David Beth portrayed a chaotic, high-stress scene, with screaming, chanting, nonstop radio traffic and “people running all over the place” – conditions that he said can cause “tunnel vision” among law officers.
Mr. 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 Mr. 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 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 armoured 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.
The sheriff later defended officers by saying, “Our deputies would toss water to anybody.”
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?” Mr. 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 licence 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, 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 had seen 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.
Mr. Blake was shot, apparently in the back, 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. They have not said whether Mr. Blake was armed, and they have not disclosed the race of the three officers on the scene.
On Tuesday, Ben Crump, the lawyer for Mr. Blake’s family, said it would “take a miracle” for Mr. 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 Mr. Blake’s parents and other family members.
“What I saw on that video makes me sick,” Mr. Biden said. “Once again, a Black man, Jacob Blake, has been shot by the police in broad daylight, with the whole world watching.”
Our Morning Update and Evening Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.