Protests erupt in Kenosha for second night after police shooting

Demonstrators took to the streets of Kenosha, Wis., for a second consecutive night Monday to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Hundreds of protesters defied a citywide curfew, with police firing tear gas at demonstrators around 8:30 p.m., half an hour after the order took effect, The Associated Press reported. Demonstrators confronted police and lit several fires, according to the AP, which added that a garbage truck in the vicinity of the courthouse was set ablaze.

Cell phone footage that circulated widely over the weekend shows police shooting Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, multiple times, seemingly in the back, as he leaned into an SUV containing his three children. Blake remains hospitalized in serious condition. The three officers involved have been placed on paid leave, which is standard procedure following a police shooting.

Raysean White, who filmed the shooting, said he saw an altercation with Blake and three officers and heard one of them shout “Drop the knife!” before shots were fired, but said he never saw Blake holding a knife.

Gov. Tony Evers (D) has also said he has not seen any evidence Blake was armed, but stressed that an investigation is ongoing. Evers said that even as the probe is ongoing, “what we know for certain is that [Blake] is not the first Black man or person to have been shot or injured or mercilessly killed at the hands of individuals in law enforcement in our state or our country.”

Kenosha police union President Pete Deates blasted Evers’s statement as “wholly irresponsible” and said “the video currently circulating does not capture all the intricacies of a highly dynamic incident,” according to the AP.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said on Monday that the officers who shot Blake “must be held accountable.

“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.