Arsonists set fires as Wisconsin city rages over police shooting of Black man

[August 25, 2020]  By Stephen Maturen

KENOSHA, Wis. (Reuters) - Arsonists set buildings ablaze and torched much of the Black business district in a second night of unrest in the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, triggered by the wounding of a Black man shot in the back by officers as his three young sons looked on.

Smoke billowed over central Kenosha after police in riot gear clashed with protesters who defied a dusk-to-dawn curfew on Monday night and into Tuesday morning, blocks away from where police gunned down Jacob Blake on Sunday.

Blake, 29, survived the shooting, which was captured on video, and was in stable condition following surgery, his father said.

But the incident, the latest in a litany of cases to focus attention on police treatment of African Americans, unleashed outrage in the lakefront city of Kenosha about 40 miles (65 km) south of Milwaukee.

The shooting occurred three months after the death of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis who was pinned to the street under the knee of a white police officer, sparking nationwide protests against police brutality and racism in the United States.

Unrest flared again elsewhere in the country on Monday.

Police in Portland, Oregon, the scene of weeks of protests that have sometimes turned violent, declared a riot late on Monday and arrested many demonstrators after fires were lit at the offices of the police association.

President Donald Trump's administration last month deployed federal forces to Portland to crack down on the protests.

FIRES, BASEBALL BATS

Black Lives Matter activists are demanding the immediate firing or arrest of the Kenosha officers, who have been placed on administrative leave.

Hours into the curfew, the mostly peaceful demonstration turned violent. Commercial and government buildings were set ablaze, along with vehicles in car dealership lots.

Police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and smoke bombs to disperse the crowd, which grew to several hundred, according to protester Porche Bennett, 31, of Kenosha.

Fires destroyed much of the Black business district, Bennett said, adding that the instigators she saw were white.

"It's people from out of town doing this. We've been shopping there since we were kids and they set it on fire," Bennett said.

A man walks by an armoured vehicle as B&L Office Furniture burns in the background as protests turn to fires after a Black man, identified as Jacob Blake, was shot several times by police last night in Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S. August 24, 2020. REUTERS/Stephen Maturen

Social media images showed both white and Black agitators. Black men swinging baseball bats broke traffic signals and street lamps. White and Black men with bats bashed in the headlights and windshields of a row of cars.

One white man riding a skateboard doused a government truck with an accelerant and set it on fire. Heavily armed white civilians stood guard in front of one business to protect it from vandals.

Kenosha, a city of 100,000 people, is nearly 12 percent Black and about 67 percent white, according to U.S. Census data.

One large group of protesters skirmished in front of the courthouse with sheriff's deputies firing tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd. Demonstrators hurled water bottles and firecrackers at the police.

At least one man was injured, shown on social media bleeding from the head as civilians administered aid.

The first night of clashes on Sunday prompted Governor Tony Evers to order in National Guard troops to help maintain order.

Evers has condemned excessive use of police force and called for a special legislative session next week to consider police reforms, saying: "We must offer our empathy. We must see the trauma, fear and exhaustion of being Black in our state and our country."

Video of the shooting taken by an onlooker showed Blake walking toward the driver's side of a gray SUV followed by two officers with their guns drawn at his back. Seven gunshots are heard as Blake, who appears unarmed, opens the car door, one officer tugging at his shirt.

It was not known whether officers saw something inside the vehicle that prompted them to shoot.

His three young sons were inside the car, family attorney Ben Crump said.

(Reporting by Stephen Maturen in Kenosha, Wis.; Additional reporting by Nathan Layne, Daniel Trotta and Trevor Hunnicutt; Writing by Steve Gorman and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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