Tag Archives: Tony Evers

Trump visits Kenosha, not to urge racial healing but to back police

By Jeff Mason

KENOSHA, Wis. (Reuters) – President Donald Trump defied requests to stay away and visited Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, not to urge racial healing after a white officer shot a Black man in the back but to express support for law enforcement in a city rocked by civil unrest.

With the United States polarized over issues of racial injustice and police use of force, Trump is appealing to his base of white supporters with a “law and order” message as opinion polls show him cutting into the lead of his Democratic rival, former vice president Joe Biden.

Meanwhile Trump has largely overlooked the racial wounds caused by police use of force and played down the more than 180,000 U.S. deaths from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Republican president also threatened to send more federal officers into cities governed by Democratic mayors even if local officials objected, saying, “At some point … we’ll just have to do it ourselves.”

Trump did not visit Jacob Blake, who was paralyzed from the waist down after a white police officer fired at his back seven times on Aug. 23. He did not meet Blake’s family either, but did meet with his mother’s pastors.

He promised instead to rebuild Kenosha and provide more federal spending to Wisconsin, a political battleground state that Trump won narrowly in 2016 and badly needs to keep in his column as he seeks re-election on Nov. 3.

The president visited a burned-out furniture store that was destroyed in the upheaval and then a makeshift command center to praise National Guard troops who were called in to reinforce local police after several nights of peaceful protests gave way to looting, arson and gunfire.

“These are not acts of peaceful protest, but really domestic terror,” Trump told local business leaders in a high school gym.

Peaceful demonstrators have complained that violent agitators, often white, have hijacked their protests with property damage. But many have also sharply criticized the police, saying the United States needs to completely rethink its law enforcement practices.

“To stop the political violence, we must also confront the radical ideology. … We have to condemn the dangerous anti-police rhetoric,” Trump said, adding that without his help Kenosha would have “burned to the ground.”

APPEAL TO ‘CHANGE THE HEARTS’

The visit was not completely without empathy. While Trump dodged questions about systemic racism and problems in policing, he did say that he felt “terribly for anybody who goes through that,” referring to the police shooting, and that he was honored to meet with the co-pastors of Blake’s mother, the only two Black people at Trump’s round-table.

Pastor James Ward appealed for greater efforts to “change the hearts of people” and bring healing and peace to the community, while his wife and co-pastor Sharon Ward said, “I think it’s important to have Black people at the table to help solve the problem.”

The state’s Democratic governor and the city’s Democratic mayor both had urged Trump not to visit so as to avoid inflaming tensions and allow citizens to heal. But when he showed up, the president pledged $1 million in federal support to Kenosha law enforcement, $4 million to small businesses, and $42 million to public safety statewide, contrasting that with leftist calls to “defund the police.”

Much of the country has rallied to the side of civil rights since George Floyd, a Black man, died on May 25 after a white police officer knelt on his neck. The country was reckoning with that case when Blake was shot as he entered his car on Aug. 23.

Kenosha has become one of the flash-point cities where anti-racist demonstrators have clashed with Trump supporters who have converged on protest sites, sometimes openly carrying arms while vowing to protect property from looters.

A 17-year-old Trump supporter has been charged with killing two people and wounding another with a semi-automatic rifle in Kenosha. Trump defended the white teenager, who faces six criminal counts, and declined to condemn violence from his supporters.

But in Portland, Oregon, site of three months of nightly protests that have often turned violent, a Trump supporter was shot dead on Saturday and the president lamented that “they executed a man in the street.”

The president took credit for restoring peace in Kenosha since National Guard and federal law enforcement reinforcements were sent in. Although Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers called in more National Guard troops on his own authority, Trump did send in about 200 federal law enforcement officials.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Additonal reporting by Andrea Shalal and Phil Stewart; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Howard Goller)

Wisconsin investigators say knife found at scene of police shooting of Jacob Blake

By Brendan McDermid and Stephen Maturen

KENOSHA, Wis. (Reuters) – Investigators of a shooting by a white police officer that left a Black man, Jacob Blake Jr., paralyzed and the town of Kenosha, Wisconsin, torn by civil strife found a knife belonging to Blake at the scene of the confrontation, the state attorney general said on Wednesday.

The incident sparked three nights of civil unrest that has included a wave of arson, widespread vandalism and a separate shooting that claimed two lives in Kenosha, a city of about 100,000 residents on Lake Michigan, 40 miles (60 km) south of Milwaukee.

In the first official details of Sunday’s shooting released by the Wisconsin Justice Department, which is probing the incident, Attorney General Josh Kaul said the knife was recovered from the driver-side front floorboard of the car Blake was leaning into when he was shot in the back.

Kaul also told a news conference that Blake, during the course of the investigation, had “admitted that he had a knife in his possession.”

Blake’s lawyer responded in a statement that his client posed no threat to police and disputed that he was in possession of a knife.

Kaul did not describe the knife or say whether it had anything to do with why the officer, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha police department identified as Rusten Sheskey, had opened fire on Blake.

Kaul’s briefing came shortly before the U.S. Justice Department announced it had opened a federal civil rights inquiry into the shooting, to be conducted by the FBI in cooperation with Wisconsin authorities.

In a separate development hours earlier, a teenager was arrested and charged with shooting three people, two of whom died, during Tuesday night’s protests in Kenosha.

Video footage from that incident showed a white gunman, armed with an assault-style rifle, firing at protesters who tried to subdue him, and then calmly walking away from the scene, hands in the air – his rifle hanging in front of him – as several police vehicles drive by without stopping him.

Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes said on MSNBC the suspect, later identified as Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, Illinois, was apparently a militia group member who “decided to be a vigilante and take the law into his own hands and mow down innocent protesters.”

Bracing for a fourth night of possible upheavals on Wednesday, Governor Tony Evers said he was doubling the National Guard force he had ordered deployed to 500 troops, and a dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed an hour earlier.

About 200 protesters defied the curfew for hours after dark as they marched peacefully through city streets, chanting, “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace,” while law enforcement kept a low profile. No counter-demonstrators or armed militia figures were present.

National Guard soldiers were seen taking a dinner break behind the county courthouse, surrounded by barricades and heavy fencing erected around several downtown public buildings the previous day.

PREAMBLE TO SHOOTING

By Kaul’s account of events leading to the Blake shooting, city police confronted Blake when they were called to the home of a woman who reported that her boyfriend was present “and was not supposed to be on the premises.”

The location he gave for the residence corresponds with the address of the woman identified in media reports as Blake’s fiance, Laquisha Booker.

During the incident, Kaul said, police tried to arrest Blake, using a Taser stun gun in a failed attempt to subdue him.

Blake, according to the attorney general, then walked around his vehicle, opened the driver-side door and leaned forward, as officer Sheskey, clutching Blake’s shirt, fired his weapon seven times at Blake’s back.

Kaul said no other police officers fired their weapons. The officers involved have been placed on administrative leave.

Bystanders captured the encounter in video footage that has since gone viral, unleashing public outrage at the latest in a long series of instances in which police have been accused of using indiscriminate lethal force against African Americans.

Kaul said police in Kenosha are not equipped with body cameras.

A lawyer for Blake’s family, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, issued a statement late Wednesday saying Blake “did nothing to provoke police” and was “only intending to get his children out of a volatile situation” at the time.

“Witnesses confirm that he was not in possession of a knife and didn’t threaten officers in any way,” he added.

Three of Blake’s young sons – aged 3, 5 and 8 – were in the vehicle at the time and witnessed their father being gunned down, Crump said. Blake has a total of six children.

Neither Crump nor law enforcement officials have mentioned court records showing that an arrest warrant was filed against Blake in July by Kenosha’s district attorney for three domestic abuse-related charges – criminal trespass, disorderly conduct and third-degree sexual assault, a felony.

Crump has declined to respond to Reuters queries about those records, which list Blake’s address as the same street number where Booker is reported to reside.

According to Crump, Blake was struck by four of the seven gunshot rounds fired at him on Sunday. Bullets shattered some of his vertebrae, leaving Blake paralyzed from the waist down, possibly permanently, his lawyers said. He also suffered wounds to his stomach, intestines, kidney and liver and will require multiple operations to recover, they said.

Kaul said his department’s division of criminal investigations plans to issue a full report on the incident to prosecutors in 30 days, and that no other details were immediately available.

Blake’s family and protesters have demanded the officers involved in the shooting be immediately fired and prosecuted.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne, Maria Caspani and Jonathan Allen; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Bill Berkrot, Aurora Ellis, Lincoln Feast and William Mallard)

Police shoot Black man in the back in Wisconsin city, sparking unrest

By Nathan Layne and Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – Police shot a Black man in the back multiple times in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as his three sons watched on Sunday, his family’s lawyer said, sparking a night of sometimes-violent unrest and prompting the governor to call a special legislative session to address problems with law enforcement.

The man, 29-year-old Jacob Blake, was rushed to a hospital after the shooting late on Sunday afternoon. Blake’s father told NBC News on Monday that his son was out of surgery and in stable condition.

A video circulating on social media showed Blake walking toward the driver’s side of a gray SUV followed by two officers with their guns drawn at his back. Seven gunshot sounds can be heard as Blake, who appears to be unarmed, opens the car door.

It was unknown whether the officers saw something inside the vehicle to justify deadly force. It was also not clear whether one or both officers fired their weapons.

Crowds gathered at the scene, set fires and threw bricks and Molotov cocktails at police, prompting authorities to impose a curfew through early Monday morning. Kenosha County announced on Twitter that its courthouse and administration building would be closed due to damage from the unrest.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, issued a statement condemning the “excessive use of force and immediate escalation when engaging with Black Wisconsinites” and called a special session next Monday for state legislators to take up bills to improve police accountability introduced a few months ago.

In a public address Evers singled out Republican lawmakers, who he said he had not heeded calls from the public for action.

“We must rise to this movement and this moment and meet it with our empathy, our humanity and a fierce commitment to disrupt the cycle of systemic racism and bias that devastates Black families and communities,” Evers said.

Pete Deates, president of the city’s police union, the Kenosha Professional Police Association, said Evers was “wholly irresponsible” for rushing to judgment and asked the public to wait until all facts are known.

The shooting occurred three months after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, in Minneapolis police custody sparked nationwide protests against police brutality and structural racism in the United States.

“And this morning, the nation wakes up yet again with grief and outrage that yet another Black American is a victim of excessive force,” Biden said in a statement. “These shots pierce the soul of our nation.”

CROWDS MARCH

Social media posts showed crowds marching on Sunday evening down streets in Kenosha, a city of around 100,000 people on Lake Michigan about 65 miles (100 km) north of Chicago, and activists said more demonstrations were planned for Monday night.

“This city is not going to stop burning itself down until they (protesters) know that this officer has been fired,” said Whitney Cabal, one of the leaders of the Black Lives Matter chapter in Kenosha. “There was no reason for seven shots to be fired into this man’s back while he had three kids in the car.”

The shooting occurred around 5 p.m. as officers were responding to what they termed a “domestic incident.” The victim was immediately taken to a hospital by the police, according to a Kenosha Police Department statement. Police gave no further explanation as to what led to the shooting.

Ben Crump, who said the Blake family had retained him and who has represented George Floyd’s family, said in a statement that Blake had been trying to de-escalate a domestic incident when the officers first shot him with a taser gun.

“As he was walking away to check on his children, police fired their weapons several times into his back at point blank range. Blake’s three sons were only a few feet away and witnessed police shoot their father,” Crump said.

The officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave while the investigation is underway, the Wisconsin Department of Justice said early on Monday, which is standard procedure in an officer-involved shooting.

(additional reporting by Ann Maria Shibu in Bengaluru and Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Jonathan Oatis)