Two persons were killed and another wounded early this morning in Kenosha, WI, after a young white man opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon in the middle of the street. The killing was captured on cell phone video, and Kenosha police and other law enforcement say they are looking for the shooter:
"Sheriff David Beth said one victim was shot in the head and the other in the chest, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. A third person was also shot, but the wounds were not believed to life-threatening. [snip]The fact that the police allowed the shooter to walk past them after being told he'd shot people doesn't really surprise us. The parading of these white vigilantes in Kenosha (and previously in Portland and other cities) underlines a dangerously unacceptable tolerance for the extreme right-wing militia types who, for example, have marched into state capitols and otherwise intimidated peaceful marchers. The Trump convention actually celebrated the two St. Louis racists who brandished weapons at Black Lives Matter marchers. Back to Kenosha:
According to witness accounts and video footage, police apparently let the young man responsible for some or all of the shootings walk past them with a rifle over his shoulder as members of the crowd were yelling for him to be arrested because he had shot people."
"The sheriff told the Journal Sentinel that armed people had been patrolling the city’s streets in recent nights, but he did not know if the gunman was among them.When bigot and reckless demagogue Donald "Shithole Countries" Trump tweeted his racist warning "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" he gave his permission to people like the "young white man" who took the lives of two people in Kenosha. Expect more of the same in Trump's American carnage.
'They’re a militia,' Beth said. 'They’re like a vigilante group.'
The FBI said it is assisting in the case.
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. 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 OK?' Barnes said. 'People treat that like it’s some kind of normal activity that people are walking around with assault rifles.'”
UPDATE: They arrested the little bastard. Seventeen- year- old (!) Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch, IL.
The police "appreciated" his presence there:
Cell phone footage shows Kenosha police telling armed insurrectionists, “We appreciate you guys. We really do,” and giving them bottles of water. Shortly after this video was taken, one of these men shot and killed two protesters and wounded another.
pic.twitter.com/ORN31z9IMw— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) August 26, 2020
UPDATE II: Of course, of course he was a Trumper --
NEW: Kyle Howard
Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who was charged with shooting and killing
two people and injuring another in Kenosha during protests for Jacob
Blake appeared in the front row at a Donald Trump rally in January,
BuzzFeed reports.https://t.co/CNM2UZFCCg
—
Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) August
26, 2020
