Protest Erupts After Wisconsin Police Shoot Man From Behind In Broad Daylight

It is as if they have learned noth­ing or they are demon­strat­ing that they do not care. Either way, this can­not be allowed to go on. Either way what has been hap­pen­ing in the streets since the mur­der of Minneapolis native George Floyd by mem­bers of that city’s police depart­ment has not been work­ing and it is clear that a more caus­tic approach must be adopt­ed to put an end to this lev­el of state-sanc­tioned impunity.

.….…..KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Officers deployed tear gas ear­ly Monday to dis­perse hun­dreds of peo­ple who took to the streets fol­low­ing a police shoot­ing in Kenosha that also drew a harsh rebuke from the gov­er­nor after a video post­ed on social media appeared to show offi­cers shoot at a Black man’s back sev­en times as he leaned into a vehicle.

A per­son was hos­pi­tal­ized in seri­ous con­di­tion fol­low­ing a shoot­ing by offi­cers about 5 p.m. Sunday as offi­cers were respond­ing to a “domes­tic inci­dent,” the Kenosha Police Department said in a news release. Police in the city, which is in the south­east­ern cor­ner of Wisconsin about 40 miles south of Milwaukee and 50 miles north of Chicago, did not pro­vide details about what led to the shoot­ing, but said the per­son was trans­port­ed to a hos­pi­tal in Milwaukee for treatment.

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By late Sunday, mul­ti­ple vehi­cles were set ablaze and win­dows were smashed along city thor­ough­fares as crowds faced off with law enforce­ment. Officers in riot gear stood in lines and SWAT vehi­cles remained on the streets to move peo­ple away from city build­ings despite the dec­la­ra­tion of an overnight cur­few. Tear gas was used to dis­perse groups of peo­ple, accord­ing to reporters at the scene.

In a video post­ed on social media that appeared to show the shoot­ing from across a street, three offi­cers could be seen shout­ing and point­ing their weapons at the man as he walked around the front of a parked SUV. As the man opened the driver’s side door and leaned inside, one offi­cer grabbed his shirt from behind and then fired into the vehi­cle. Seven shots could be heard on the video, though it was unclear if more than one offi­cer fired.

Gov. Tony Evers on Sunday night con­demned the shoot­ing of the man, whom he iden­ti­fied as Jacob Blake, say­ing in a state­ment that “while we do not have all of the details yet, what we know for cer­tain is that he 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.”

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The Wisconsin Department of Justice, which is inves­ti­gat­ing the shoot­ing, did not release any details about the offi­cers who were involved except to say they had been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave.

Following the shoot­ing, social media posts showed neigh­bors gath­er­ing in the sur­round­ing streets and shout­ing at police. Some could be heard chant­i­ng “no jus­tice, no peace” while oth­ers appeared to throw objects at offi­cers and dam­aged police vehicles.

Later Sunday, in a scene that mir­rored the wide­spread protests over the police shoot­ings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and oth­er Black peo­ple, marchers head­ed to the Kenosha County Public Safety Building, which hous­es the police and coun­ty sheriff’s depart­ments. Authorities most­ly blocked off the build­ing, and some offi­cers were posi­tioned on the roof as pro­test­ers marched beside lines of honk­ing cars as they made their way to the building.

Outside the sta­tion, pro­test­ers clashed with offi­cers dressed in riot gear, includ­ing plas­tic face masks, who occa­sion­al­ly used their shields and batons to push peo­ple back.

Meanwhile, Evers indi­cat­ed that he intends to take fur­ther action over the shooting“I have said all along that although we must offer our empa­thy, equal­ly impor­tant is our action,” he said. “In the com­ing days, we will demand just that of elect­ed offi­cials in our state who have failed to rec­og­nize the racism in our state and our coun­try for far too long.”(contributed).