There’s been a second night of unrest in the Wisconsin city of Kenosha, with police again firing tear gas at hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters who defied a curfew to demand racial justice over the shooting of Jacob Blake.
Local media kenoshanews.com described “loud and chaotic” scenes outside the Kenosha Public Safety Building on Monday afternoon when Mayor John Antaramian tried to address the crowd.
They say Antaramian left the crowd to head into the building to deliver his press conference, but some of the protesters, angry that Antaramian would not address them and they were not allowed into the press conference, attempted to block the mayor’s entry.
Police officers guarding that entrance to the Public Safety Building and protesters then got into a scuffle, and an entrance door was broken off its hinges. At that point, officers wearing riot gear jumped outside the entrance with batons and pepper sprayed several protesters closest to the entrance.
Antaramian had vowed that “justice is done for everyone” and that all of those involved were entitled to “due process.”
The officers involved have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard practice in a shooting. Authorities have released no further details about the officers.
As the evening progressed the peaceful demonstration became a violent clash. Reuters report that arsonists set several buildings ablaze, including commercial and government buildings, along with vehicles in at least two car dealership lots. Police again fired tear gas, rubber bullets and smoke bombs to disperse the crowd.
Protester Porche Bennett, 31, of Kenosha, told Reuters: “It’s people from out of town doing this. We’ve been shopping there since we were kids and they set it on fire”
As mentioned earlier, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo is expected to break political convention by appearing at the RNC tonight while still serving as the nation’s top ambassador. He is travelling today from Jerusalem to Khartoum, where he will meet with Sudanese prime minister Abdalla Hamdo.
Pompeo has tweeted this morning about the historic nature of his journey – throwing into even sharper relief the partisan nature of appearing at the RNC in the same week.
Secretary Pompeo
(@SecPompeo)Happy to announce that we are on the FIRST official NONSTOP flight from Israel to Sudan! pic.twitter.com/eOXNsBAozC
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