Two Are Dead in Shootings at Jacob Blake Demonstrations, Police Say

Two people lost their lives during demonstrations into the Jacob Blake police shooting in Kenosha, and a third was seriously injured, police confirmed in the early morning hours of August 26.

The complex sequence of events involved multiple shooting scenes and possibly multiple suspects, Wisconsin Right Now learned from eyewitness interviews at the scene. Graphic videos captured one of the shootings as people chased down a man in a green shirt. Witnesses say he was struck with a skateboard. Videos captured bursts of gunfire breaking out at different moments.

Here’s what Kenosha police say:

“On August 25, 2020 at about 11:45 p.m. Kenosha Police, along with assisting agencies, responded to the area of 63rd Street and Sheridan Road for reports of shots being fired and multiple gunshot victims,” Kenosha police wrote in a news release.

“The shooting resulted in two fatalities and a third gunshot victim was transported to a hospital with serious, but non-life threatening injuries. The shooting investigation is active an ongoing. No further details regarding the shooting will be released at this time. The names, ages and cities of residence for the victims are still being determined.”

See our live stream from the crime scene, which was recorded about an hour after the shootings.

One video captured a man who was shot in the head. It’s very disturbing, so be forewarned.

Kenosha police said the state Department of Justice was investigating the shooting; that agency is also investigating the Blake police shooting, but the police were not involved in the shootings that occurred on August 25.

Police Had Pushed Demonstrators Back From the Courthouse Park

What happened leading up to the shootings? At first, compared to the night before, the evening seemed relatively calm. There were some eruptions of violence when rioters tossed fireworks and water bottles at police in riot gear who stood behind a fence guarding the courthouse. Eventually, police utility vehicles and officers moved the crowd out of the park. Pepper spray was deployed.

However, the crowds then began milling around down the the street. Sheridan was the site of multiple arson fires the night before. Now it contained a gas station where people congregated.

Wisconsin Right Now observed a group of white men with long guns enter the area. See our live stream on that. It’s not clear whether any members of that group were part of the shootings, though.

Here’s our live streams on the earlier situation at the courthouse.

Witnesses tell Wisconsin Right Now that there was an initial shooting because a counter demonstrator associated with “All Lives Matter” beliefs argued with Black Lives Matter demonstrators about them starting fires. Shooting broke out, and a man in a green shirt was then chased by the crowd down the street. He fell and gunfire broke out, videos show. Witnesses believe there was more than one shooter, and scanner traffic bears that out as police were looking for a “third suspect” at one point.

One video showed the man in a green shirt walking with police.

“Down at the end of the block, there’s another victim.,” a man says in one of the videos.

Graphic Videos Captured One of the Shootings

In a video by CJ TV, the shooting breaks out around 7 minutes into the video. A man’s arm was shot.

“Those are gunshots down there,” the narrator says and starts running.

Then, the man in a green shirt runs down the middle of the street carrying a long gun. “They’re going to beat him up,” someone says. More gunshots erupt.

“Oh sh*t he just shot that guy in the stomach,” the narrator says. “Sh*t, people are getting shot all around us.”

“They’re going to beat him up,” someone says. More gunshots erupt. “I didn’t f*cking do it,” someone shouts.

One live stream by Andrew Mercado captures him saying, “People are just shooting. Oh my God,” Mercado says.

“Oh my f*cking Christ God, he says. “Oh sh*t, that’s gunshots. They’re shooting.”

“Somebody’s hurt,” a man shouts.

“People down, shots are fired.”

Rosas, the TownHall reporter, described a series of conflicts between armed citizens and demonstrators.

He reported that “rioters are getting into confrontations with armed citizens who are out here to prevent looting and destruction to businesses.”

“A person with the red shirt was arguing,” Delreno Jackson, who told Wisconsin Right Now he witnessed the shooting, said in an interview at the scene. “His friend tried to stop him because he saw the gun on his waist. A shooting broke out.” He said that a garbage can was thrown after the initial shooter was upset that Black Lives Matter protesters were lighting a fire. The initial shooter threw a garbage can to stop it, Jackson said.

“He got to running. Everyone was chasing him. More shots rang out. At that point I went alongside the house, and I ducked,” he said of one of the shooters. He said there were multiple shooters.

The people shooting “had a helmet, a vest, a gun strap, a gun on the waist, and stuff like that,” he said. “They were whites shooting, I believe.” He did see a member of the group with an All Lives Matter shirt at one point. Jackson is from Chicago and lives in Racine and came to Kenosha for the “Movement.”

“They were trying to save stuff, be like a Superman,” he said of that group. He had already heard that “two had died. One got shot in the head.” One of the shooters “was running. I believe he had fell… he ducked and then got to shooting around in circles.”

He said he was “scared. I didn’t know what to do. I was just ducking and trying not to get in the middle of it so I wouldn’t get shot.” He described it as “crazy,” saying it happened “too fast” and “everybody had guns.”