Vox - Protests in Kenosha and nationwide following Jacob Blake’s shootinghttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2020-09-06T14:05:20-04:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/211734102020-09-06T14:05:20-04:002020-09-06T14:05:20-04:00Jacob Blake speaks out about being shot by a police officer: “It’s nothing but pain”
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<img alt="Jacob Blake, in a green hospital gown, lies in his bed, an arm extended as he gestures, speaking." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IpTJohrOYbUBUS1ZxNUMX6fWvmc=/0x0:1749x1312/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67363242/Screen_Shot_2020_09_06_at_1.49.48_PM.0.png" />
<figcaption>Rell Love Jones and Benjamin Crump/Twitter</figcaption>
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<p>Blake made the statement from his hospital bed, where he is still undergoing treatment. </p> <p id="3VNUvk">Reclining in a hospital bed, Jacob Blake addressed being shot seven times by a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer in late August for the first time Saturday night. </p>
<p id="3hwMpF">In a video posted on Twitter by his family’s lawyer, civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, Blake spoke about the constant pain he experiences due to the shooting, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. </p>
<p id="hBxD1J">“I got staples in my back, staples in my damn stomach,” Blake said. “You do not want to have to deal with this shit, man — 24 hours ... it’s nothing but pain.” He added that even basic tasks like eating and sleeping hurt him.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JacobBlake?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#JacobBlake</a> released this powerful video message from his hospital bed today, reminding everyone just how precious life is. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JusticeForJacobBlake?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#JusticeForJacobBlake</a> <a href="https://t.co/87CYlgPDBj">pic.twitter.com/87CYlgPDBj</a></p>— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/AttorneyCrump/status/1302398977938161667?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="cAy0xJ">“There’s a lot more life to live out here, man. Your life — and not only just your life, your legs, something that you need to move around and move forward in life — can be taken from you like this, man,” he said with a snap of his fingers. </p>
<p id="aqTFfM">And he ended the short message by urging his supporters to action in order to ensure they don’t experience his pain firsthand. </p>
<p id="8ZG5C6">“Please, I’m telling you. Change your lives out there,” Blake said. “We can stick together, make some money, make everything easier for our people out there. Because there’s so much time that’s been wasted.”</p>
<p id="GaQ1l9">Blake was shot by white Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey on the evening of August 23. Police were responding to a domestic incident in which a woman said her “boyfriend was present and was not supposed to be on the premises.”</p>
<p id="I7wmmQ">Multiple witnesses have said Blake was trying to break up a verbal dispute between two women. Three officers arrived initially, including Sheskey. </p>
<p id="fH7MQ8">The shooting that followed went viral due to two videos showing officers attempting to force Blake to the ground, and later, Blake attempting to enter a gray van before Sheskey shoots him seven times.</p>
<p id="FPesBK">The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation into Blake’s shooting, which occurred amid ongoing unrest across the country. </p>
<h3 id="jQyh9k">Blake’s shooting — and the recent killings of other Black men — have stoked ongoing protests</h3>
<p id="xJt165">The videos reinvigorated nationwide protests against police brutality, which have been ongoing for months after the killings of Breonna Taylor in Louisville and George Floyd in Minneapolis. </p>
<p id="F9nOmx">Multiple nights of uprisings followed in Kenosha, during which buildings were set on fire and police and protesters clashed. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers called in the state National Guard on the second night. On the third night, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/26/21402951/kyle-rittenhouse-jacob-blake-kenosha">a white teenager</a> who had proclaimed his support for police on social media shot three people, killing two. </p>
<p id="3B9MEU">Protests against police brutality have been unfolding in US cities almost daily since Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in late May. Some of those have turned into full-on uprisings involving conflict between protesters and police, looting, and the burning of buildings and cars. </p>
<p id="CcsY2D">And they continued over Labor Day weekend, quickened by the police killings of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/protests-continue-saturday-in-dc-after-police-fatally-shoot-18-year-old-deon-kay-in-southeast/2020/09/05/f72a910e-eed6-11ea-ab4e-581edb849379_story.html">Deon Kay in Washington, DC</a>, on September 2; <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-04/dijon-kizzee-was-trying-to-find-his-way-relatives-say">Dijon Kizzee</a> in Los Angeles on August 31; and the release of new video of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/daniel-prude-death-rochester-officers-suspended/">Daniel Prude’s</a> killing in Rochester, New York. </p>
<p id="pL4kOk">On Saturday, hundreds protested in Louisville — the city in which Breonna Taylor was killed — ahead of the Kentucky Derby. Counter-protesters <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/breonna-taylor/2020/09/04/breonna-taylor-louisville-protest-updates-kentucky-derby-weekend/3454576001/">came into contact</a> with the protesters near the city’s Metro Hall, leading to tense confrontations, but no violence. Members of both groups were seen carrying firearms. Black Lives Matter protesters marched to Churchill Downs, where the derby was taking place. The evening ended with <a href="https://twitter.com/SamOwensphoto/status/1302413894904815616">outdoor dancing</a> in at least one corner of the city.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Words became blows as militia groups and supporters for BLM, Breonna Taylor faced off. Some people from both sides tried to talk things out — a few shook hands — but one worried woman said ‘Our city has never been divided like this before.’ <a href="https://t.co/p6bYwnPbmm">https://t.co/p6bYwnPbmm</a> <a href="https://t.co/j3xnV0y4rm">pic.twitter.com/j3xnV0y4rm</a></p>— Matt Stone (@mattstonephotog) <a href="https://twitter.com/mattstonephotog/status/1302353961433870337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 5, 2020</a>
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<p id="s16HeS">In Rochester, New York, demonstrators gathered to protest Prude’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/nyregion/daniel-prude-rochester-police.html">death by suffocation</a>. In March, police put a hood over Prude’s head and pressed his face to the ground for two minutes. Around 1,500 people marched Saturday evening, calling for the resignation of city leaders. <a href="https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2020/09/05/daniel-prude-rochester-ny-black-lives-matter-protests-justice-police/5732337002/">They faced off with police</a> outside City Hall, and some reportedly began throwing rocks and fireworks at police officers, who fired tear gas and pepper balls back. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Tear gas dispersed at protesters in Rochester NY, police are pushing and telling everyone to disperse <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/rochesterprotests?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#rochesterprotests</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HappeningNow?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HappeningNow</a> <a href="https://t.co/jtQzFI7krv">pic.twitter.com/jtQzFI7krv</a></p>— @SCOOTERCASTER (FNTV) (@ScooterCasterNY) <a href="https://twitter.com/ScooterCasterNY/status/1302438864318013443?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="FhxfJJ">In Washington, DC, <a href="https://dcist.com/story/20/09/05/deon-kay-shooting-mpd-defund-protests-dc-saturday/">Kay’s aunt addressed protesters</a>, telling them, “The officer that shot Deon, him and Deon had a problem with each other. He never liked Deon or the young boys that be down there on Mellon Street,” and saying her nephew likely spent his final moments “afraid.” Several hundred people marched throughout the city, including near the site of Kay’s death and near the White House, demanding greater transparency from leaders and police reforms.</p>
<p id="VIBp2y">In Portland, Oregon — where a Trump rally led to clashes between the president’s supporters and protesters, as well as the shooting of a right-wing activist — protests began calmly. Later in the evening, a group of around 500 protesters marching toward a police precinct were met with officers who declared it a riot. Police released tear gas and shot rubber bullets, and a protester threw a <a href="https://twitter.com/cbsaustin/status/1302644981539119105?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet">Molotov cocktail</a> which police said hit another demonstrator. </p>
<p id="mjBycN">While the deaths of Taylor, Floyd, Kay, Prude, and others are memorialized by protests, the underlying issue of inequities in policing continue, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/5/21423349/the-black-lives-that-dont-make-headlines-still-matter-dijon-kizzee-breonna-taylor">Vox’s Aaron Ross Coleman</a> has written. Since Taylor was killed in mid-March, at least 83 other Black people have been killed by police, according to data compiled by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/">the Washington Post</a>. Other organizations like <a href="https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/">Mapping Police Violence</a> estimate that number is even higher. </p>
<p id="DVEOxq">And while more white Americans are killed by police annually, Black Americans face an outsized number of deaths compared to their population. Black people are killed by police at twice the rate of white Americans. </p>
<p id="qZsrIc">Almost no police killings result in officers charged with a crime, according to Mapping Police Violence. That’s one thing the massive civil rights movement unfolding across the country seeks to change. </p>
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https://www.vox.com/2020/9/6/21425025/jacob-blake-speaks-out-shot-seven-times-protestsRiley Beggin2020-09-06T11:35:34-04:002020-09-06T11:35:34-04:00The police shooting of Jacob Blake, explained
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<img alt="Three young black men, two of them shirtless, stand together, raising their right fists high into the air. The man on the right is wearing a multicolored shirt with the sleeves pushed up. They are lit by the yellow glow of sodium lights and by the lights of passing cars. A crowd of protesters is clustered behind them." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zq9VojJ1P9UZsR5-OtH8P2ET7sU=/506x0:5839x4000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67288574/GettyImages_1228220292.9.jpg" />
<figcaption>Protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on August 26, 2020, raise their fists at a demonstration against the police shooting of Jacob Blake. | Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Blake’s shooting has inspired intense protests, a professional sports strike, and fiery rhetoric from President Trump. </p> <p id="8HuEak">Amid America’s summer of protests against police brutality and racism, another police shooting of a Black man has gone viral: that of 29-year-old Kenosha, Wisconsin, resident Jacob Blake.</p>
<p id="m2ZYlw">Blake survived the shooting, and <a href="https://twitter.com/AttorneyCrump/status/1302398977938161667?s=20">said in a video</a> taken at the hospital where he is receiving treatment that he has been in “nothing but pain.” </p>
<p id="G0u5Ew">“Your life, and not only just your life, your legs … can be taken from you like this,” Blake said in the video, snapping his fingers.</p>
<p id="KVV6fT">Blake’s father <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/8/25/21400481/jacob-blake-kenosha-police-shooting-riots-evanston">told the Chicago Sun-Times</a> his son is paralyzed from the waist down. <a href="https://www.doj.state.wi.us/news-releases/update-kenosha-officer-involved-shooting-1">Rusten Sheskey</a>, a white officer who is a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department, reportedly shot Blake in the back at close range seven times on August 23. </p>
<p id="QeZstg">The shooting sparked local protests (during which a 17-year-old <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/26/21402951/kyle-rittenhouse-jacob-blake-kenosha">vigilante killed two people</a>), reignited national unrest, prompted professional athletes to strike, and has become a central talking point for Democrats and Republicans as each party attempts to use it as evidence of the other side’s inability to govern.<strong> </strong></p>
<p id="OAvf1i">Now, the FBI has opened a civil rights <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edwi/pr/us-department-justice-confirms-federal-civil-rights-investigation-shooting-mr-jacob">investigation</a> into the shooting, in conjunction with an investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice. And both Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, have <a href="https://www.axios.com/joe-biden-jacob-blake-breonna-taylor-97afff73-ea0c-44b4-8db8-cb4f655300a4.html">called for Blake’s shooter to face criminal charges</a>.</p>
<p id="Ke5ase">Sheskey and the other two officers on the scene — Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek — have been placed on <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/2-more-kenosha-officers-named-in-jacob-blake-shooting/6393257/">administrative leave</a>. Arenas and Sheskey both shot Blake with Tasers before the latter fired on him with a handgun; Meronek was at the scene. But these developments and their impact on Blake and his family have been eclipsed by a national conversation about what Blake’s shooting means, and what the resultant protests say about the state of America. </p>
<p id="oK4QKR">Blake’s shooting, captured on video by a bystander, quickly went viral and further stoked the ongoing national protests against police brutality and for civil rights that began following the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. </p>
<p id="Twvz3E">In Kenosha, protesters were quick to respond to the video. Hours after the shooting took place, demonstrators gathered in downtown Kenosha; in the resulting uprising, buildings and car lots were set on fire and protesters who launched fireworks clashed with police officers in riot gear who fired tear gas. </p>
<p id="V6fWns">Immediately following that uprising, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers called in the <a href="https://www.wpr.org/gov-tony-evers-doubles-national-guard-presence-kenosha">state National Guard</a> to bolster the ranks of local law enforcement and to enforce the <a href="https://www.wisn.com/article/kenosha-curfew-extended-through-at-least-wednesday-morning/33838770">city’s curfew</a>. </p>
<p id="Uazv5y">More National Guard members were deployed during the third night of uprisings — a night that saw armed citizens standing guard outside local businesses. One of those citizens, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse of Illinois, was arrested and charged with murder in the shooting of three people, two of whom died. </p>
<p id="iZPmFB">That shooting, in turn, has led to an even greater National Guard presence — and to Evers accepting a deployment of federal law enforcement officers amid pressure from President Donald Trump to do so. Trump has cast the uprisings in Kenosha and in other cities as symptoms of mismanagement and has attempted to use them to argue that he is the presidential candidate who will bring “<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1300428396493758464?s=20">LAW & ORDER!</a>” to the United States. Democrats like presidential nominee Joe Biden have attempted to place the blame for violence adjacent to uprisings at the feet of the president. </p>
<p id="PBrrgR">Blake’s mother, Julia Jackson, has pleaded for politicians to “fix our country” while condemning the destruction that happened during the early uprisings in Kenosha. “As his mother, please don’t burn up property and cause havoc and tear your own homes down in my son’s name,” she said on <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/08/26/jacob-blake-mother-julia-jackson-message-to-trump-hospital-crump-lemon-bts-vpx.cnn">CNN</a> after the first two nights of protests.</p>
<p id="GyW1Hu">In Kenosha, protesters heeded Jackson’s request but have continued their demonstrations. And across the US, Blake’s shooting has given new urgency to demonstrations in other cities and towns, sharpening the calls of protesters who say Americans must continue to take to the streets to fight the harmful cycle of police brutality and put pressure on lawmakers to defund the police.</p>
<aside id="wxA1P2"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Police reform, defunding, and abolition, explained ","url":"https://www.vox.com/21312191/police-reform-defunding-abolition-black-lives-matter-protests"}]}'></div></aside><h3 id="SvnjgN">Police shot and severely wounded a Black man in broad daylight</h3>
<p id="hsSt21">Police were called to the scene of a domestic incident at 5:11 pm on Sunday in the Wilson Heights neighborhood of Kenosha, according to a police report. The <a href="https://www.doj.state.wi.us/news-releases/update-kenosha-officer-involved-shooting-1">Wisconsin Department of Justice</a> notes the police were called to the neighborhood by a woman who requested assistance because “her boyfriend was present and was not supposed to be on the premises.”</p>
<p id="izUS0E">In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBT14Vo--DE">dispatch audio</a> of the incident, a dispatcher can be heard saying, “Jacob Blake isn’t supposed to be there and he took the complainant’s keys and is refusing to give them back.”</p>
<p id="RKPHkg">Following the shooting, several witnesses told <a href="https://www.kenoshanews.com/news/local/watch-now-blake-in-serious-condition/article_f1adbd13-3a15-5cdd-bd4e-95113ca36de4.html">Kenosha News</a> that Blake was trying to break up a “verbal altercation” between two women just after 5 pm. By 5:15, there were three officers on the scene, with one requesting more officers be sent.</p>
<p id="PTFhQC">Two videos of the officers’ interaction with Blake have emerged. The first, which went viral, depicts Blake’s shooting; the second shows some of what happened in the seconds immediately prior. </p>
<p id="4tWjDk">In that second video, Blake, wearing a white tank top and black shorts, can be seen attempting to stand as two officers struggle to force him to the ground; various bystanders shout throughout. After about 15 seconds, Blake can be seen standing and walking around the front of a gray van. All three officers on the scene have weapons trained on him; two follow him around the van. </p>
<p id="yhtwkq">This is where the first video picks up. Blake can be seen walking around the front of a gray van, coming from the passenger’s side and heading toward the driver’s side. Two officers follow closely behind Blake. </p>
<p id="5rzR27">Both officers have their weapons pointed at Blake’s back. Many people can be heard yelling. As Blake opens the driver-side door, one officer snatches the tail end of Blake’s tank top. It stretches out as Blake attempts to enter the vehicle; seven shots are fired<strong> </strong>at Blake’s back. No other officer opened fire. The van’s horn blares, the officer continues to hold on to Blake’s shirt, and a woman screams at the side of the vehicle where Blake was shot. One of the officers pushes the woman away, and the 19-second video comes to an end. </p>
<p id="L0qQbL">Blake remains hospitalized. The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53909766">bullet damage</a> reportedly forced doctors to remove most of Blake’s colon and small intestines; his kidneys, liver, and arm were also seriously damaged.</p>
<p id="SYY8Vu">A <a href="https://www.doj.state.wi.us/news-releases/update-kenosha-officer-involved-shooting-0">statement</a> from the state Department of Justice notes that officers tried to arrest Blake; following the shooting, Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis said Blake is currently under arrest “for an outstanding warrant for <a href="https://www.uwrf.edu/StudentConductAndCommunityStandards/SexualAssaultAndHarassment/DefinitionsAndWisconsinLaws.cfm">third-degree sexual assault</a>.”</p>
<p id="qxYaYz">It is not clear whether the officers who were called to Wilson Heights were attempting to arrest Blake due to this warrant. It is clear that they first used Tasers to try to apprehend him; the Wisconsin DOJ statement says the nonlethal weapon “was not successful at stopping Blake.”</p>
<p id="kAT3Uf">The police department <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Kenoshapolice/photos/a.10151999394132207/10158490036207207/">said in a statement</a> that Blake received immediate aid and was airlifted to the hospital in Milwaukee. The state attorney general, Josh Kaul, has said Blake noted he had a knife in his possession when the shooting occurred. Officials from the department recovered the knife from the driver-side floorboard of Blake’s vehicle. </p>
<p id="7ScRuK">The Kenosha Police Department does not have body cameras, so the officers were not wearing any at the time of the incident, according to the statement.</p>
<p id="zazyXi">Jacob Blake’s family retained civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who also represents the family of George Floyd. According to a <a href="https://twitter.com/AttorneyCrump/status/1297892142443122690">statement</a> from Crump, Blake was shot by police in front of his three young sons, who were inside the vehicle. </p>
<p id="EIf72h">“We all watched the horrific video of Jacob Blake being shot in the back several times by Kenosha police,” Crump said in the statement. “Even worse, his three sons witnessed their father collapse after being riddled with bullets. Their irresponsible, reckless, and inhumane actions nearly cost the life of a man who was simply trying to do the right thing by intervening in a domestic incident. It’s a miracle he’s still alive.” </p>
<p id="IWRiiW">Meanwhile, both Biden and Harris have called for the officer who shot Blake to face charges. “I think that there should be a thorough investigation and, based on what I’ve seen, it seems that the officer should be charged,” <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/28/kamala-harris-jacob-blake-police-officer-404230">Harris said</a> in an August 28 interview. And when asked on September 2 if he agreed with her, <a href="https://www.axios.com/joe-biden-jacob-blake-breonna-taylor-97afff73-ea0c-44b4-8db8-cb4f655300a4.html">Biden said</a> that “there’s a minimum need to be charged” and “we should let the judicial system work its way.”</p>
<h3 id="jTyfUy">Nights of unrest — and the shooting of three people — in Kenosha</h3>
<p id="LLytke">Protests began the night after Blake was shot on August 23, leading to a number of uprisings and escalating tension with local police. </p>
<p id="b3NIlz">Following the shooting, videos on social media showed protests that included garbage trucks being set on fire, windows of buildings at and near the courthouse being smashed, and crowds clashing with police dressed in riot gear. In response, county officials instituted a curfew, and Wisconsin’s governor began to deploy members of the Wisconsin National Guard to Kenosha. </p>
<p id="xq5O1I">The city grew more tense in the following nights as organized marches outside the Kenosha County Courthouse gave way to uprisings after the 8 pm curfew. Fires burned in much of Kenosha’s Black business district, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-race-usa-wisconsin/arsonists-set-fires-as-wisconsin-city-rages-over-police-shooting-of-black-man-idUSKBN25L0Q9">according to Reuters</a>, and protesters used bats to break traffic signals and signs. When the crowd of people reached 1,000 at a park near the courthouse, police shot small beanbags and used “ear deafening audio” to disperse the people who refused to move, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/25/jacob-blake-kenosha-police-shooting/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-low_mm-kenosha-protest-1240am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans">according to the Washington Post</a>. The unrest has since spread to other cities including <a href="https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime-and-courts/absolutely-horrific-madison-responds-to-kenosha-police-shooting-of-jacob-blake/article_949d4cae-150b-5cd7-9f84-0b9323ffee81.html">Madison</a>, <a href="https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/portland-protesters-rally-for-jacob-blake/283-61546f7b-3359-4ca8-b1d8-2ea0b1c2d237">Portland</a>, <a href="https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/08/25/jacob-blake-protesters-clash-with-officers-outside-lapd-headquarters/">Los Angeles</a>, <a href="https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/08/24/protesters-take-to-downtown-minneapolis-after-jacob-blake-shooting/">Minneapolis</a>, <a href="https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/08/24/new-york-protests-wisconsin-police-shooting-jacob-blake">New York</a>, and <a href="https://komonews.com/news/local/1-arrested-officer-injured-in-overnight-seattle-protest-over-wis-police-shooting">Seattle</a>. </p>
<p id="1iufMb">On August 25, violence erupted at the protests in Kenosha when a group of men with guns who said they were protecting the property clashed with protesters. Online video footage shows that people were chasing after one of the armed men, identified as <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/26/21402951/kyle-rittenhouse-jacob-blake-kenosha">17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse</a>, in an attempt to capture him and seize his AR-15-style rifle. During the chase, Rittenhouse trips and falls to the ground, where he shoots at a few of the people who were following him. After the shooting, he gets up and walks toward law enforcement officials, who do not detain him, despite bystanders screaming that he had just shot people. </p>
<p id="7VlkVJ">Two of three people were fatally hit, with the other taken to the hospital with “serious, but non-life threatening injuries,” <a href="https://twitter.com/KenoshaPolice/status/1298553070729789440">according to the Kenosha Police Department</a>. </p>
<p id="It0iJO">Rittenhouse is a self-proclaimed militia member, has ties to law enforcement as a former member of various law enforcement youth training programs, and was front row at a Trump rally in January. Rittenhouse’s Facebook profile, which is no longer publicly accessible, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/26/21402951/kyle-rittenhouse-jacob-blake-kenosha">revealed</a> that he is a committed Blue Lives Matter supporter: </p>
<blockquote><p id="a2uJiZ">[...] a 2018 post on Rittenhouse’s page shows that he asked his followers to donate to the police advocacy nonprofit organization Humanizing the Badge on his birthday. “I’ve chosen this nonprofit because their mission means a lot to me, and I hope you’ll consider contributing as a way to celebrate with me,” Rittenhouse wrote.</p></blockquote>
<p id="gM6OfQ">In a press conference on the Rittenhouse incident, Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis tried to shift the blame of the shootings onto the protesters and the people who were shot, saying that if protesters had stayed inside, the shootings would perhaps not have taken place. “Everybody involved was out after the curfew. I’m not going to make a great deal of it, but the point is that the curfew is in place to protect. Had persons not been out in violation of that, perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened,” he said.</p>
<p id="G7Zw7t">At the same press conference, Kenosha Sheriff David G. Beth responded to the concern that police officers did not apprehend Rittenhouse when he walked past them. “I’ve been in a shooting before. In situations that are high stress, you have such incredible tunnel vision. You have no idea what’s outside right here if you’re looking right here,” Beth said, holding his hands up to gesture. </p>
<p id="KPePhD">Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian, meanwhile, said he does not want militia members at protests. “I don’t need more guns on the street, in the community, when we are trying to make sure we keep people safe,” he said. “Law enforcement is trained. They’re the ones who are responsible. They’re the ones we have faith will do their job and make sure it gets done. That is why the curfews are there.”</p>
<p id="2H8r90">On the national level, Republicans are trying to paint the unrest in Kenosha as a preview of Joe Biden’s America, even though the shooter was a Trump supporter and the protests are happening during Trump’s presidency. “Joe Biden would double down on the very policies that are leading to violence in American cities. The hard truth is you will not be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” Vice President Mike Pence said during the Republican National Convention. Trump went on to tell Americans that the protests show “no one will be safe in Biden’s America.”</p>
<p id="6IAVJ9">Biden has rebutted these attacks, saying in a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/31/21409015/joe-biden-trump-election-law-and-order">speech in Pittsburgh</a>, “These are not images of some imagined Joe Biden America of the future — these are images of Donald Trump’s America today. ... He keeps telling you, if he was president, you’d feel safe. Well, he is president — whether he knows it or not.”</p>
<h3 id="2cSyMe">Police violence is not uncommon in Wisconsin</h3>
<p id="4hwsdt">The ongoing protests continued those that began after Floyd’s death and underscored the fact that <a href="https://www.vox.com/21292688/police-killings-data">police shootings</a> of unarmed Black civilians are not new occurrences in Wisconsin, a state in which Black people make up just 6.7 percent of the population. According to the <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2020/05/30/killed-wisconsin-police-incidents-18-controversial-deaths/5288673002/">Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</a>, the Milwaukee region has been home to a number of high-profile police shootings — particularly of Black and Latinx men — in the past two decades, in which officers were not charged. One of the victims, 22-year-old Adam Trammell, died in 2017 after officers from the West Milwaukee Police Department broke down the door of his apartment and repeatedly Tased him as he showered.</p>
<p id="PMBB58">The 2019 police shooting of Ty’Rese West in Racine County, just north of Kenosha County, also <a href="https://www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/police-sergeant-will-not-face-charges-in-fatal-shooting-of-tyrese-west">resulted in no charges against the police</a>. A police sergeant stopped West one evening for not having the proper lights on his bicycle. A struggle ensued after the sergeant thought West had a gun. The incident ended when the sergeant fatally shot West. The death sparked protests across Racine County, and West’s family has not stopped issuing calls for justice. </p>
<p id="CMsIQV">Years of grassroots organizing after the police shooting of 21-year-old Kenosha County resident Michael Bell in 2004 <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/gov-scott-walker-expected-to-sign-police-custody-bill-b99253819z1-256342301.html?_ga=2.91082330.176896616.1598273436-1064976823.1598273436">led to the passing of a Milwaukee law in 2014</a> that prevents police officers from conducting their own investigations of officer-involved shootings. As in Blake’s case, an outside law enforcement body must step in to lead the investigation. </p>
<p id="xdWhMa">But in the wake of George Floyd’s death, criminal justice reform advocates have argued that law doesn’t go far enough, and protesters have demanded state legislators make changes to the criminal justice system. Some local officials across the state responded to these demands by <a href="https://madison.com/ct/news/local/education/local_schools/updated-madison-school-board-votes-unanimously-to-end-police-in-schools-contract/article_ac077373-a518-554f-a7a6-1f2514d989a6.html">terminating school district contracts</a> with police officers. In June, Evers announced a legislative package that included banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants, adding the requirement that officers take deescalation training, and putting $1 million in grants toward community-based anti-violence programs, <a href="https://www.wpr.org/politics-slow-wisconsins-legislature-unlikely-respond-black-lives-matter-movement-until-2021">according to Wisconsin Public Radio</a>. </p>
<p id="tP2sFk">However, lawmakers likely won’t vote on any of the proposals until next year. And the package of bills from the state’s Democratic governor has received <a href="https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/tony-evers-mandela-barnes-call-for-special-session-on-police-reform-bills-following-shooting-of/article_7f3468cf-13ce-5fb6-835f-f21fa60e0132.html">little support</a> from the Republican lawmakers who control the state’s legislature. </p>
<p id="RoDANV">Evers has used Blake’s shooting to call for a renewed focus on race and policing in his state, saying, “We stand against excessive use of force and immediate escalation when engaging with Black Wisconsinites. ... 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.” </p>
<p id="Qr4tiB">But the governor’s statement — and proposed initiatives — have garnered pushback. Pete Deates, president of the union representing Kenosha police officers, denounced the governor’s statement, calling it “wholly irresponsible and not reflective of the hardworking members of the law enforcement community.” Deates asked that people “withhold judgment” about the shooting and let the investigation “play out fairly and impartially.”</p>
<p id="yRB9Ri">Despite this response, protesters in Kenosha and across the country are still demanding systemic change. Michael Bell Sr., the father of shooting victim Michael Bell, told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/us/kenosha-police-shooting.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200824&instance_id=21556&nl=the-morning&regi_id=134495280&section_index=2&section_name=three_more_big_stories&segment_id=36808&te=1&user_id=b5633de9d7fb93c7a80d52f6e514316a">New York Times</a> following the shooting of Blake, “The system is broken. The system here is broken.”</p>
<p id="iu120V"><strong>Correction, August 26:</strong> Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Jacob Blake was fatally shot. </p>
https://www.vox.com/2020/8/24/21399690/jacob-blake-police-shooting-wisconsinFabiola CineasSean CollinsAnna North2020-09-01T14:10:00-04:002020-09-01T14:10:00-04:00Donald Trump is inciting violence
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<img alt="President Donald Trump in shadow." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DTWFqgZbxg4OCaTNXu0YS7Jnnko=/0x0:4000x3000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67337958/858366572.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Trump in 2017. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>“His audience is tens of millions of people. Only a tiny percentage need to act to severely disrupt this country’s politics.”</p> <p id="38jeI1">Back in July, I was emailing with Erica Chenoweth — a professor at Harvard and an expert on protest and political violence around the world — about her take on Trump’s response to the protests for racial justice. One thing she warned about was the emergence of “pro-state/far-right militias who engage in vigilante violence and terrorism, sometimes with coordination or collusion with the state.” </p>
<p id="0yWWy9">This has happened in other times and places — think the Ku Klux Klan’s activities during Reconstruction, or neofascist militias in Italy in the mid-late 20th century. According to Chenoweth, such alliances between political parties and far-right militants sometimes work through escalation. Street fighting tends to increase “the desire for a law-and-order candidate” among certain segments population — and right-wing political factions reap the benefit.</p>
<p id="LccmTJ">In the wake of the shooting deaths of two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and murder charges against a Trump-supporting, self-described militia member, Chenoweth’s warning is chilling — all the more so because of the president’s reaction.</p>
<p id="rNm3k2">Trump has repeatedly refused to condemn the 17-year-old militia member’s behavior, giving a partial and one-sided rendering of the violence that cast it as justifiable self-defense in <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-press-briefing-august-8-31-2020/">a Monday night press conference</a>. “He fell, and then they very violently attacked him,” the president said. “He probably would have been killed.” </p>
<p id="iMn2ps">Over the weekend, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/30/21407435/trump-tweets-deadly-shooting-portland-democrats-national-guard">a convoy of Trump supporters in Portland</a> opened fire on counter-protesters with paintball guns and pepper spray. On Saturday, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1300010374855524352">the president tweeted a video</a> of their behavior with a caption that all-but-openly cheered them on. At the Monday press conference, the president on his defense of this violence — noting that a pro-Trump demonstrator was killed in Portland and framing paintballs, by contrast, as a form of peaceful protest.</p>
<p id="05Mg5R">“Paint is a defensive mechanism; paint is not bullets,” he said. “These people, they protested peacefully.” </p>
<p id="GxKurB">And Tuesday, Trump is visiting Kenosha in person. We know Trump well enough to know that the odds that he keeps to a responsible message border on nil. It seems that stoking conflict and raising the salience of street violence has become a core part of his reelection strategy. According to experts, the risks of violence with Trump’s rhetoric, as he tightens the connection between far-right street thugs and the official Republican Party, could get worse in the coming weeks.</p>
<p id="vzbLyr">“His audience is tens of millions of people. Only a tiny percentage need to act to severely disrupt this country’s politics,” says J.M. Berger, an expert on violent extremism at the VOX-Pol research network (no relation to Vox.com). </p>
<p id="CLziOY">“We don’t seem to have any institutional actors who are willing or able to put the brakes on his rhetoric, so it’s hard to imagine that this won’t get much, much worse by Election Day.”</p>
<p id="0MkERV">Donald Trump has <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/back-trump-comments-perceived-encouraging-violence/story?id=48415766">a very long history of inciting violence</a>. “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell ... I promise you I will pay for the legal fees,” <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/back-trump-comments-perceived-encouraging-violence/story?id=48415766">he told his supporters at a 2016 rally</a>.</p>
<p id="DpqVyx">But we’re going through an especially tense period in American politics, with a high-stakes election in two months and bouts of street violence in several cities. In such an atmosphere, Trump’s habit of engaging in violent rhetoric goes well beyond playing with fire.</p>
<h3 id="gWn5e6">Why we should take the risk of Trump’s rhetoric seriously</h3>
<p id="QTcImF">Judging by his tweets and the programming during the last week’s Republican National Convention, the president appears to genuinely believe that the chaos unfolding on American streets is good for him politically. The more violence there is, the more he can fearmonger about “Democrat-run cities” and “Joe Biden’s America” — distracting from America’s botched response to the Covid-19 virus.</p>
<p id="wefDHT">“He believes this is his way out, given that economic recovery is slow and Covid-19 is never-ending,” says Cas Mudde, a professor at the University of Georgia who studies far-right politics. “Go to the old hit: racially infused authoritarianism.”</p>
<p id="tiAjyr">Remarkably, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kellyanne-conway-chaos-and-violence-is-good-for-trumps-reelection-2020-8">more or less admitted</a> that this is the logic at work. “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order,” she said during a Fox News appearance last week.</p>
<p id="6O3P3i">The rhetoric from leaders seems to really matter. An experiment conducted <a href="https://twitter.com/LilyMasonPhD/status/1300157618791612416">last September</a> by two political scientists, Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe, asked Democratic and Republican partisans about their views on political violence. Some were shown quotes from a party leader (Trump or Biden) condemning such violence before being asked the questions; others were not.</p>
<p id="bVFVy6">The results were striking. When party leaders condemn violence against their opponents, partisans become more likely to oppose it as well. Absent that, strong partisans were considerably more likely than average Americans to condone it. And this finding likely understates the risk of non-condemnation.</p>
<p id="kjK2Sv">“Our survey was among ‘regular’ Americans — I doubt we had any militia members in that sample,” Mason told me.</p>
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<img alt="Otterbein University Prepares For The Fourth Democratic Presidential Debate" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/A3KIeV3gqbe0eXWtiaciJUqyMLQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21845224/1181262711.jpg.jpg">
<cite>Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Pro-Trump demonstrators rally in October.</figcaption>
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<p id="IxXtUw">Biden seems to understand the risks here. In his speech on Monday, he forcefully condemned the violence that has erupted amid largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in places like Kenosha. “Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. It’s lawlessness — plain and simple,” <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/31/21409015/joe-biden-trump-election-law-and-order">he said</a>. </p>
<p id="4WdMWs">But there’s an asymmetry here. <a href="https://apnews.com/20b9b86dba5c480bad759a3bd34cd875">Early data on arrests</a> during this summer’s protests suggests that the looters and vandals aren’t political activists, as the right suggests, but tend to be people with criminal records exploiting the situation. Even those avowedly left-wing groups that do engage in street violence, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/8/21277320/antifa-anti-fascist-explained">like antifa</a>, are not supporters of the Democratic Party — in fact, they tend to be <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/8/25/16189064/protests-george-floyd-antifa-president-trump">anarchists and far-leftists who disdain the liberal establishment</a>.</p>
<p id="K8UX9v">By contrast, many of the far-right militant groups taking to the streets, including the one that the militia member charged with murder belonged to, tend to either support Trump openly or share some of his ideas. They don’t exactly act on Trump’s orders: the president isn’t that overt, and these groups don’t report to him in such a direct way. </p>
<p id="jQpnCH">Instead, you have loose coalitions of right-leaning armed groups — like <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/159174/oath-keepers-militias-trump-fascism">the Oathkeepers</a> — who take Trump’s decision to play footsie with violence as a permission structure to keep doing what they’re doing, or even to escalate. Berger, the extremism scholar, calls this “generalized incitement” — and worries that it has significant potential to make things worse.</p>
<p id="d7WNtu">“It’s not necessarily a situation where he has a very cohesive cadre of followers who will be violent in a strategic way, but his words land in a variety of communities that are primed for violence,” Berger says. “Some who act may not necessarily be supporters of Trump per se, but may be more inclined to act in an atmosphere of chaos. Some of them will be supporters, though, and that could be very problematic depending on the numbers.”</p>
<p id="nwVLfO">I’ve heard this kind of concern from experts before, when I’ve done investigations into violent internet subcultures like <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/4/16/18287446/incel-definition-reddit">incels</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/11/20882005/accelerationism-white-supremacy-christchurch">neo-Nazi accelerationists</a>. In these communities, message boards and chatrooms lionize mass killers — often walking right up to the line of actually calling for people to imitate them without crossing the line into outright criminal incitement to violence. </p>
<p id="tAFgtR">Most of these people are just keyboard warriors, aimlessly venting their bigotry online. But the concern among experts is that one isolated person will take what they read on these websites too seriously, to see a post about how “someone should do something” about feminists or Jews and decide that they are going to be that someone.</p>
<p id="DLz0eJ">“It’s great that a lot of these guys aren’t violent,” Stephanie Carvin, a political scientist who studies terrorism at Canada’s Carleton University, told me during a conversation about incels. “But if they’re glorifying someone who was violent ... a very small percentage of these individuals may feel more justified in acting.”</p>
<p id="EdSDwb">The audiences for these sites are necessarily limited. But President Trump has the world’s biggest bullhorn: his not-so-subtle support for political violence goes out to hundreds of millions rather than thousands. Even if a much smaller percentage of Trump’s audience has any inclination to turn to violence, the huge numbers at work here make the risk unacceptably high.</p>
<p id="NAOUdg">Put differently: The president is acting less like a political leader than like a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitposting">shitposter-in-chief</a>. And the consequences could go beyond what any of us are comfortable anticipating.</p>
<p id="UfQTy3"></p>
https://www.vox.com/2020/9/1/21409037/trump-protest-riots-kenosha-violence-incitementZack Beauchamp2020-08-28T19:49:07-04:002020-08-28T19:49:07-04:00Facebook banned violent militia groups. We still found plenty of them on its platform.
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/c5wjr7S2amWuYgtSUjjYx0hgOxI=/0x0:2848x2136/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67312029/1162213873.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Protesters belonging to a group that calls itself the Three Percenters attend an alt-right rally on August 17, 2019, in Portland, Oregon. | Stephanie Keith/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The company removed at least four of these groups and pages after Recode flagged them for posts about shooting BLM protesters.</p> <p id="Vr7rsr">Just last week, Facebook finally banned militia groups and pages that advocate for violence on its platform. But Recode’s quick Facebook search for “militia” groups and pages on Friday surfaced more than a dozen results for national and local militia groups, most of them private, with many of them openly calling for violence against protesters.</p>
<p id="qN40ko">Two of these groups that Recode accessed had a combined 25,000 members and included posts where members encouraged and celebrated shooting people involved in recent Black Lives Matter protests. Some groups did not contain “militia” in the title but still encouraged members to take up arms. One page, called the “The III% Organization,” contained overtly racist and violent posts, such as a meme comparing BLM protesters to dogs and joking about running them over with a car. </p>
<p id="N8tV8f">After Recode flagged seven of these groups and pages to Facebook, the company took down four of them for violating its policies, and said it independently took down another. </p>
<p id="us3rWu">Militia groups that organize on Facebook are under particular scrutiny this week after a 17-year-old self-identified militia member was arrested on suspicion of killing two people protesting <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/24/21399690/jacob-blake-police-shooting-wisconsin">the police shooting of Jacob Blake</a> in Kenosha, Wisconsin. </p>
<p id="vfq8lm">In the aftermath of that shooting, Facebook has faced sharp criticism, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employees-slam-zuckerberg-kenosha-militia-shooting">including from its own employees</a>, for initially failing to remove a Kenosha militia page <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/8/26/21403361/facebook-kenosha-militia-page-event-complaints-jacob-blake-shooting-protests">despite prior complaints from at least two Facebook users</a> about the <a href="https://medium.com/dfrlab/armed-militias-mobilize-on-social-media-hours-before-deadly-kenosha-shooting-1ee5925a035f">group inciting violence</a>. The company eventually took the page and an associated event down, but only after the alleged shooter killed two protesters and injured another on Tuesday night. Facebook said the suspect was not a member of the Kenosha militia page in question. </p>
<p id="o8bDlx">Many <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/7/21316681/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-civil-rights-hate-speech-stop-hate-for-profit">civil rights groups leaders</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/6/1/21277108/facebook-employees-protest-mark-zuckerberg-trump-looting-shooting-george-floyd-fact-check">employees</a>, and politicians <a href="https://twitter.com/rashadrobinson/status/1299139382289616896">have long accused</a> the company of not doing enough to <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/8/7/21358079/facebook-sexism-algorithms-discrimination">stop the spread of violent rhetoric</a> on its platform.</p>
<p id="upsipg">The social media giant’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a company meeting Thursday that the initial decision to not take down the Kenosha militia group’s page was a mistake, according to internal remarks <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employees-slam-zuckerberg-kenosha-militia-shooting">first reported by BuzzFeed News</a>, which the company later posted publicly. Zuckerberg said the company is working to take down any posts praising the alleged shooter, and that it’s all part of Facebook’s recently expanded policy against dangerous groups and threats. </p>
<div class="c-float-right"><div id="LLVCNn"><div data-anthem-component="aside:8836877"></div></div></div>
<p id="8VBl3m">While the militia groups Recode found on Friday represented a small fraction of Facebook’s some 2.7 billion users, their continued presence on the platform despite its new policies signals how big a challenge it is for Facebook to stop people from using its platform to organize violence and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/9/21318896/facebook-civil-rights-audit-hate-speech-failed-zuckerberg-white-nationalism-sheryl-sandberg">amplify hate speech</a>. While Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms have adopted stricter guidelines over the years on violent speech, they’ve struggled to catch harmful content in real time, while balancing concerns about limiting free speech online with strict enforcement.</p>
<p id="ikORnm">“The continued presence of these militia Facebook groups and the concerning content that they contain represent multiple layers of failure on the part of Facebook to adhere to its own policies that it repeatedly pushes in press releases and statements to media,” said Katie Paul, director of tech watchdog group Tech Transparency Project, which has been researching some of these militia groups. </p>
<p id="BxmxO2">A spokesperson for Facebook issued the following statement to Recode, in part: </p>
<blockquote><p id="L8b9vL">The shootings in Kenosha have been painful for everyone, especially our black community. Mark addressed this at yesterday’s weekly company Q&A ... We launched [the dangerous individuals and organizations] policy last week and we’re still scaling up our enforcement of it by a team of specialists on our Dangerous Organizations team.</p></blockquote>
<p id="EnEIkz">Under pressure, Facebook recently expanded its policies against violent individuals and organizations to restrict the influence of domestic militia groups and conspiracy groups like QAnon. While Facebook doesn’t have a blanket ban on militia groups that don’t overtly call for violence, it removed hundreds of them last week for advocating violence, and says it is continuing to take down groups and pages which do so. </p>
<p id="BwWVFm">The militia Facebook groups and pages Recode reviewed on Friday advocate for US citizens to take up arms to counter what they describe as worsening lawlessness in the country, with many members aggrieved by property damage that’s occurred during protests for racial justice in cities across the US. </p>
<p id="Gt6Ruc">While <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/6/2/21278113/looting-george-floyd-protests-social-unrest">many of the protests across the United States in recent months have been peaceful</a>, there has been significant damage to buildings in <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-insurance-bill-for-damage-and-looting-during-protests-over-george-floyds-death-will-be-at-least-25-million-and-thats-just-in-minnesota-2020-06-04">some areas, such as Minnesota</a>, where insurance claims have been filed for tens of millions of dollars. The Kenosha protest shooting demonstrates how militia attempts to guard buildings from such damage can result in escalating conflict — and ultimately, lives lost. </p>
<p id="jc58mA">One private Facebook group called “United States Militia” had over 12,000 members and was active on Facebook until Recode flagged it to Facebook on Friday afternoon. Its description stated, in part, “Citizens are the militia” and that “we the people” “prepare for the worst and rejoice on the best ... with the blood of patriot’s and tyrants.” Recode reviewed comments from within the private group from screenshots provided by the Tech Transparency Project.</p>
<p id="4DOisJ">In response to one “United States Militia” member post about people <a href="https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/nation-world/kenosha-car-dealership-civil-unrest/67-bfa2c2bc-f298-46e5-a785-04f697102bc9">setting fire to a car dealership</a> during protests this week, one user responded that self-designated “patriots” should “shoot first and ask questions later.” Another posted in response, “Time for shoot to kill these asswipes!”</p>
<p id="qAxLxl">On another Facebook page called “Virginia Militia,” which had over 13,000 members until it disappeared from Facebook on Friday afternoon, more than 100 users commented in support of the alleged Kenosha shooter, arguing his violence was justified. This was a clear violation of Facebook’s stance against any praise of the suspected shooter. </p>
<p id="rbNJN2">One commenter went so far as to advise other members to evade law enforcement if they are involved in a similar shooting. “I believe we should all take this as a sign,” wrote the user. “If you’re forced into a shootout, and you survive. Do not wait for police, do not turn yourself in. Grab your survival bag and go ghost. Get in contact with a trusted patriot and hide out.” Sixteen members of the group reacted with a thumbs-up. </p>
<p id="M0kLFm">Recode also found several other groups and pages on Facebook that organize members for coordinated armed action, but that omit the word “militia” in their names or descriptions. </p>
<p id="lq8CsW">One such page was called the “The III% Organization” — a reference to the far-right “3 percenters” movement, which advocates for armed militia to promote gun ownership rights and resistance to the US federal government in local affairs. This page also disappeared after Recode flagged it to Facebook.</p>
<p id="RF0th4">A user in the group posted a meme on Wednesday, the morning after two protesters were killed in Kenosha, showing a man standing next to his car, with his hand over his chest and looking visibly relieved, with the caption, “When you think you ran over a dog but it was just a few BLM & Antifa Rioters.”</p>
<p id="7bTlLH">These groups are organizing and spreading their calls to violence in an increasingly polarized political atmosphere. In recent days, major right-wing media figures like Ann Coulter and Fox News host <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ann-coulter-tucker-carlson-and-aubrey-huff-slammed-for-defending-the-teen-suspected-of-killing-two-kenosha-protestors-2020-08-27">Tucker Carlson have attempted</a> to justify vigilante violence at protests.</p>
<p id="J3uYG2">Twitter took down a tweet from Coulter saying she <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-ann-coulter-kenosha-gunman-rittenhouse-20200827-5cwmlr7gefgynn2sgvyekri5ou-story.html">wanted the suspected Kenosha shooter to be president</a> after individuals and groups like civil rights groups Color of Change raised concerns about its glorification of a suspected killer. </p>
<p id="VJKzdG">At the same time, some conservative politicians have been sharply criticized for seemingly threatening state-sponsored violence against civil rights protesters since the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/16/21288380/george-floyd-protests-organizers-black-lives-matter">George Floyd and Breonna Taylor protests</a> began earlier this year.</p>
<p id="2EOkLb">Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has accused President Donald Trump of <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/27/trump-is-rooting-for-more-violence-from-protests-biden-says.html">rooting for violence</a> at recent protests around racial justice in the US. In May, Trump <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/29/21274359/trump-tweet-minneapolis-glorifying-violence">posted on social media</a> that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” about protests in Minnesota against the police killing of George Floyd. In June, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) published a deeply controversial column in the New York Times that the paper eventually said “should not have been published”; it was titled “Send in the Troops” and advocated for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html">bringing military forces to protests</a>.</p>
<p id="eD9SEp">The proliferation of militia groups and violent, partisan rhetoric isn’t just happening on Facebook, and it’s not even necessarily originating there — it’s a complex problem that involves elected officials and right-wing media figures, too. But even if militia groups aren’t contained to Facebook, the platform is making it possible for members to amplify their views. The groups and pages that Facebook only took down after Recode flagged them are a signal that the company has a major challenge ahead if it intends to effectively enforce its new policies prohibiting the propagation of violent views on its platform.</p>
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https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/8/28/21406022/facebook-banned-violent-militia-groups-kenosha-protests-jacob-blake-shooting-kyle-rittenhouseShirin Ghaffary2020-08-27T16:20:00-04:002020-08-27T16:20:00-04:00Why police encouraged a teenager with a gun to patrol Kenosha’s streets
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<img alt="Officers standing behind handheld shields, one that reads “sheriff” and one that reads “police.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QVUuSMYL_s7Sr0HnqXVlzB3xBUI=/328x0:5192x3648/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67305753/1228205745.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during the current protests. | Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Police in Wisconsin told armed militia members that “we appreciate you guys.” Some new research helps us understand the racial roots of their irresponsible behavior.</p> <p id="ujSPct">Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with murder in the shooting deaths of two people during the violent protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, had a run-in with the police earlier in the night — an extremely friendly one.</p>
<p id="E29J6N">In <a href="https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1298839803849515008">footage from about 15 minutes before the shootings</a> pieced together by the New York Times’s Visual Investigations team, you can see Rittenhouse walk up to an armored police vehicle and chat with officers. A police officer pops out of one vehicle’s hatch and tosses bottles to Rittenhouse’s associates, members of an armed militia. “We appreciate you guys, we really do,” the officer says before driving off.</p>
<p id="QlDIXy">The young-looking Rittenhouse is under the legal age for firearm ownership and was carrying an assault rifle, which <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2020/08/26/wisconsin-open-carry-law-kyle-rittenhouse-legally-have-gun-kenosha-protest-shooting-17-year-old/3444231001/">appears to be a misdemeanor under Wisconsin law</a>. Instead of stopping him and asking for proof of age, the police give him water and an attaboy. And when he tried to surrender after the shootings, the police went right by him, even as <a href="https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1298842326853472258">bystanders were telling them</a> that Rittenhouse had shot people.</p>
<p id="v2VfTS">How can we understand this behavior? Why do the police in Kenosha seem perfectly fine with armed militia members patrolling the streets — behavior that, just minutes later, ended with two people dead? Shouldn’t police want to be the only ones with guns?</p>
<p id="HsbvOO"><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/707609">A recent paper</a> by University of Arizona sociologist Jennifer Carlson offers some insight into the police’s behavior. She conducted dozens of hours of interviews about guns with 79 police chiefs in three states — Michigan, California, and Arizona — to try to better understand the way police see armed civilians. </p>
<p id="Xs6gKM">Carlson found that police leaders tended to see armed civilians as allies, maybe even informal deputies — provided they fit a set of racially coded descriptors.</p>
<p id="YSWwQS">“Police chiefs articulated a position of gun populism based on a presumption of racial respectability,” Carlson writes. “‘Good guys with guns’ were marked off as responsible in ways that reflected white, middle-class respectability.”</p>
<p id="MlxUGG">This helps us understand what happened in Wisconsin as not a bug in the code of American policing, but a feature. There’s a reason anti-police violence protesters have been met with crackdowns, while armed anti-lockdown protesters could <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52496514">menace the Michigan Capitol</a> without incident. </p>
<p id="mUgtcq">Police — who are heavily white, heavily male, and overwhelmingly conservative politically — see guns as a scourge when they’re in the wrong hands. But the “wrong hands” tend to be Black and brown ones. When respectable-seeming white people arm themselves, police welcome their intervention — even, or perhaps especially, in a tense situation where the potential for escalation to violence is really high.</p>
<p id="PqPGHl">This is not a new phenomenon; there’s a <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/2900230/the-really-really-racist-history-of-gun-control-in-america/">long history</a> of deeply racialized gun politics in America. In 1967, a group of Black Panthers carried guns in a demonstration outside the California statehouse; shortly thereafter, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed a bill banning open carry of loaded firearms.</p>
<p id="dnBfoE">Carlson’s study illustrates how this racial gun politics operates at the level of the streets as well as the statehouse. Officers have significant discretion in how they choose to react to different situations; <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/7/21293259/police-racism-violence-ideology-george-floyd">this discretion is often used in racist and violent fashion</a>. The way the police seemingly encouraged Rittenhouse’s vigilantism is a microcosm of some of the most fundamental problems in American policing.</p>
<h3 id="UNTGEr">The “gun populism” of American police</h3>
<p id="8JmlxQ">In her research, Carlson distinguishes between two kinds of attitudes police have toward civilian ownership of firearms.</p>
<p id="nhOAaA">The first, “gun militarism,” sees armed individuals as a threat to blue lives. “It favors a state monopoly on legitimate violence, whereby police both <em>protected and expanded</em> their own access to firearms while <em>policed and delimited</em> gun access among the racialized, urban populations targeted by the War on Crime,” she writes.</p>
<p id="hurINw">At other times, the police chiefs she interviewed embraced “gun populism”: the idea that “rather than a threat to stability (as under gun militarism), armed civilians may be imagined as generative of social order.” Gun populism is an “embrace of ‘the people’ and a deep suspicion of elites, especially elite lawmakers who aim to regulate gun access in the United States.” In essence, it’s the National Rifle Association view of gun rights.</p>
<p id="uJLOqT">These two frames might seem contradictory. How can you believe both that widespread gun ownership poses a threat to your officers and oppose regulations that aim to limit it?</p>
<p id="0SHlOs">Typically, officers got around this dilemma by reference to legal and illegal uses of firearms. The chiefs supported throwing the book at armed criminals, believing that anyone who uses a gun in commission of a crime should face serious jail time. But gun ownership itself should be permitted and maybe even encouraged.</p>
<p id="FtPYsF">But here’s the thing: When they talked about gun-wielding criminals, the racialized nature of the language was unmistakable. The criminals they were worried about were described as “urban terrorists,” “gangbangers,” and “illegal immigrants”; their descriptions of respectable gun owners had a very different racial valence.</p>
<p id="LanjH5">“I am not worried about the people who just want an assault weapon for the hell of it, or a military guy who had an M16 and wants one because it reminds him of his old gun,” one California police chief said. “I’m worried about the gangster who brings in guns and then it gets into the hands of people who have hatred for America”</p>
<p id="2S4xjm">This bifurcation, between minority-coded bad guys and presumptively white good guys, led chiefs to take a generally positive view of civilian gun owners who didn’t fit their criminal stereotypes. In Michigan, which borders Wisconsin and has <a href="https://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/state-law/michigan/">similar</a> <a href="https://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/state-law/wisconsin/">gun laws</a>, police chiefs embraced a vision of gun populism that saw civilian gun owners as their allies.</p>
<p id="cmC24F">“Michigan chiefs insisted that even the best-resourced police cannot protect all victims at all times and thus opted to devolve some prerogatives onto private civilians as part of their overall crime-fighting mission,” Carlson writes. “They understood the capacity among civilians for private legitimate violence as supplementing public legitimate violence.”</p>
<p id="BLdRY3">A comment from one Michigan police chief, who works in a majority-white neighborhood, crystallized the sentiment.</p>
<p id="u2tuWQ">“I believe that citizens need to be able to protect themselves. We cannot protect them — we just can’t. It’s impossible,” the chief said. “The government cannot save people from danger. That is just ridiculous. So people should be allowed to defend themselves.”</p>
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<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tBxwCnfqG_-KaosCbs-OHw2EIcU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19955857/1210050182.jpg.jpg">
<cite>Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Armed protesters attending the “Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine” demonstration at the state Capitol in Lansing this April.</figcaption>
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<p id="arEzgR">As with all forms of right-wing populism, however, the real action is in the definition of “the people.” Certain kinds of people tend to be seen as legitimate rights-bearers, as people who presumptively deserve the benefit of the doubt when carrying weapons.</p>
<p id="O3hm3M">Others don’t. And that’s where things get dicey.</p>
<h3 id="X07dae">How “gun populism” helps us understand the police reaction in Wisconsin</h3>
<p id="pi2x4b">In November 2014, Cleveland police officers shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was Black, from point-blank range. The police, who had described Rice as “maybe 20” on the radio, claimed they feared for their life because he was holding a “black revolver.” It was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/us/in-tamir-rice-shooting-in-cleveland-many-errors-by-police-then-a-fatal-one.html">actually a toy gun</a>.</p>
<p id="IX4TGO">The contrast between the treatment of Rice and Rittenhouse couldn’t be clearer. Rice scanned to police as a threat, despite being a child with a toy gun. Rittenhouse, a teenager with an actual rifle, did not.</p>
<p id="ZmvntI">Now, Cleveland and Kenosha are different places with different police officers; there are lots of reasons the ending to these two stories wasn’t the same. But there’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/7/21293259/police-racism-violence-ideology-george-floyd">ample reason</a> to believe that the mental shortcuts and stereotypes officers have for what kinds of people with guns are threats really do affect the way they treat people — for whether they default to “gun militarism” or “gun populism” in how they treat an armed civilian. </p>
<p id="2SMVEI">The reasons are rooted in basic human psychology. Police officers work a difficult job for long hours, called upon to handle responsibilities ranging from mental health intervention to spousal dispute resolution. While on shift, they are constantly anxious, searching for the next threat or potential arrest.</p>
<p id="23TIrc">Stress gets to them even off the job; <a href="https://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/05-2018/PTSD.html#:~:text=The%20potential%20long%2Dterm%20effects,the%20U.S.%20experience%20PTSD%20symptoms.">PTSD</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1066480714564381?journalCode=tfja">marital strife</a> are common problems. It’s a kind of negative feedback loop: The job makes them anxious and nervous, which damages their mental health and personal relationships, which raises their overall level of stress and makes the job even more taxing.</p>
<p id="lnZGUF">According to Phillip Atiba Goff, a psychologist at Yale University and the CEO/co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity research organization, it’s hard to overstate how much more likely people are to be racist under these circumstances. When you put people under stress, he said, they tend to make snap judgments rooted in their basic instincts. For police officers, raised in a racist society and socialized in <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/7/21293259/police-racism-violence-ideology-george-floyd">a violent work atmosphere</a>, that makes racist behavior all but inevitable.</p>
<p id="Z6rIhQ">“The mission and practice of policing is not aligned with what we know about how to keep people from acting on the kinds of implicit biases and mental shortcuts,” he says. “You could design a job where that’s not how it works. We have not chosen to do that for policing.”</p>
<p id="XpWbWA">American police have <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/7/21293259/police-racism-violence-ideology-george-floyd">a distinctive culture and ideology</a>: a set of attitudes and biases that shapes the way they treat civilians. “Gun populism” is one part of that ideology. And in Kenosha, it seems to have influenced their decision-making — apparently leading them to encourage an underage gun owner to go into a dangerous situation, with predictable and tragic results.</p>
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https://www.vox.com/2020/8/27/21404117/kenosha-kyle-rittenhouse-police-gun-populismZack Beauchamp2020-08-27T13:30:00-04:002020-08-27T13:30:00-04:00The night the NBA suddenly stopped — and why it matters
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7uUEn_KdrLZLxJt4onQL1phnlT8=/608x0:5472x3648/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67304558/AP_20236029994534.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Los Angeles Lakers’ star players Anthony Davis and LeBron James kneel during the national anthem before Game 3 of the NBA first-round playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers on August 22. | Kim Klement-Pool/AP</figcaption>
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<p>NBA players held an unprecedented protest over racial injustice.</p> <p id="s4KBre">For one night, the NBA suddenly stopped.</p>
<p id="OmPWbM">The Milwaukee Bucks, who were supposed to have a chance Wednesday to clinch their first-round playoff series against the Orlando Magic, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/26/21403179/milwaukee-bucks-nba-protest-jacob-blake">didn’t come out on the court for their 4 pm tip-off</a>. The news soon broke: The Bucks were boycotting the game, believing they should not play given <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/24/21399690/jacob-blake-police-shooting-wisconsin">the recent shooting of Jacob Blake</a> by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Within a matter of hours, the entire Wednesday slate of playoff games had been postponed.</p>
<p id="Dbl911">A summer of racial tension and plague has culminated in some of the world’s best and most famous Black athletes walking out on the job in protest of police violence. The NBA had seemed for the last few weeks like a city on the hill amid the pandemic, its Disney World bubble a success story of no infections and exciting basketball. The playoffs had gotten underway with star players like LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, and Giannis Antetokounmpo all expecting their teams to compete for a league title.</p>
<p id="bKTj5M">But the protests of the spring and summer after George Floyd’s death were never far from mind. Many of the players had returned hoping to use their platform to amplify racial justice protests: “Black Lives Matter” was written on the court. Players wore jerseys with (league-approved) catchphrases like “Equality” and “Say Her Name” and “Vote” printed on the back.</p>
<p id="jiahF8">Then Jacob Blake was shot in the back just 45 minutes from Milwaukee and the Bucks decided they couldn’t play in good conscience. Other teams and other leagues soon came to the same conclusion. The games were off, at least for one night.</p>
<p id="BRimaX">“Over the last few days in our home state of Wisconsin, we have seen the horrendous video of Jacob Blake being shot in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha and the additional shooting of protestors,” Sterling Brown, a Bucks player who was himself the target of aggressive police behavior in the last few years, <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/bucks-demand-action-from-wisconsin-leadership-our-focus-cannot-be-on-basketball-235351507.html">said</a> on behalf of his team. “Despite the overwhelming pleas for change, there have been no actions, so our focus cannot be on basketball.”</p>
<p id="T0vRZh">On Thursday, the New York Times and ESPN reported NBA players <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29752941/nba-players-decide-resume-playoffs">were planning to resume playoffs</a>, citing anonymous sources. The competitive and financial pressure to do so is great. But even one night of protest from the league’s stars was an extraordinary moment not only for sports but for American politics. </p>
<p id="E8thAh">Individual athletes have protested out of political conviction before. And some of them have been ostracized; Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the National Anthem and quickly found himself without a job in the NFL. NBA players have more often been <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/3/17188444/lebron-james-donald-trump-michael-jordan-explained">on the leading edge of athlete activism</a>, supported by a more progressive league office. But there had still never been anything like Wednesday’s walkout.</p>
<p id="QmGy9Y">The players may not have had a specific list of demands, but Black scholars I spoke with said the very fact of the work stoppage itself was historically significant.</p>
<p id="SNSWGn">“This is an unprecedented act of collective protest. There is no precedent in sports history,” Hasan Jeffries, a history professor at Ohio State University, told me in an email. “We have reached an inflection point among Black athletes<strong>.”</strong></p>
<h3 id="AlccY2">What the NBA players accomplished with playoff games walkouts</h3>
<p id="pfJiLW">The NBA walkout was, it would appear, somewhat spontaneous. It became clear something was amiss only when the Bucks did not emerge from their locker room for the start of their game against the Magic. According to <a href="https://twitter.com/MarcJSpears/status/1298803114955472896">Marc Spears of The Undefeated</a>, Magic players didn’t know the Bucks players were planning a walkout for the game. Shams Charania of The Athletic reported that it was George Hill, a Bucks point guard, who first broached the idea of walking out in Milwaukee’s locker room before the game.</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sources: There was some frustration in meeting toward Bucks blindsiding on walk-out plan. Bucks’ George Hill admitted he first sparked conversation pregame to boycott contest, teammates supported.</p>— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1298817462444662789?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2020</a>
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<p id="v6Lb9x">The league office and team owners were also caught off guard by the Bucks’ decision, according to <a href="https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1298729636004798466">ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski</a>. Milwaukee players, who live and work less than an hour from the scenes of the Kenosha, Wisconsin, shootings and protests — and who themselves <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/videos/news/2018/05/23/body-cam-video-shows-sterling-brown-being-tasered-and-arrested-milwaukee-police/639125002/">have experienced police brutality</a> — appear to have felt an urge to act.</p>
<p id="arr39i">They quickly gained the support of their opponents and other teams and, in no time at all, other leagues. The Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder, scheduled to play the next game after Bucks-Magic, soon agreed to boycott their game as well. So did the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers, who were supposed to play the primetime game on Wednesday night.</p>
<p id="ootnBG">Fans who might have thought they were tuning in for pregame analysis were instead greeted by some remarkable television, with retired player and commentator Kenny Smith walking off the <em>Inside the NBA</em> set in solidarity and former All Star-turned-color analyst Chris Webber offering his heartfelt support for the protesting players.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Incredible TV moment as Kenny walks off <a href="https://t.co/CsMTL08x4c">pic.twitter.com/CsMTL08x4c</a></p>— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) <a href="https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1298751570369286145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2020</a>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Every word Chris Webber says here should be listened to. <a href="https://t.co/L2mKUqEHL1">pic.twitter.com/L2mKUqEHL1</a></p>— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) <a href="https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1298755867836321794?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2020</a>
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<p id="3AInzk">The NBA was shut down. And in a matter of hours, the WNBA — where some players like league MVP Maya Moore had already taken dramatic action for racial justice, with Moore <a href="https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/29315369/inside-wnba-legend-maya-moore-extraordinary-quest-justice">sitting out the 2019 season</a> to focus on her activism — shut down too. Several Major League Baseball games were canceled Wednesday night as well, although others were played. The NHL also played its scheduled playoff games.</p>
<p id="GyyqUP">It all happened fast. And so perhaps it is no surprise that the path forward was unclear. The NBA players did not have any comprehensive set of demands. Nobody was sure how long the work stoppage would last or whether the playoffs would resume at all. The players association met Wednesday night to discuss extending the walkout into a full strike, with some teams <a href="https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1298818188935917568">reportedly voting</a> to leave the Disney World bubble and go back home. It was not until a second players meeting on Thursday that the decision to restart the season was reached.</p>
<p id="urXZxm">But that doesn’t mean the NBA players didn’t have any idea what to do with their platform. Bucks players spoke by phone to Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. They also gave a statement urging the Wisconsin legislature to reconvene and consider bills on policing reform.</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">"It is imperative for the Wisconsin State Legislature to reconvene after months of inaction and take up meaningful measures to address issues of police accountability, brutality, and criminal justice reform."<br><br>I couldn’t agree more. Thank you, <a href="https://twitter.com/Bucks?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Bucks</a>. <a href="https://t.co/TvIiVsmuHX">https://t.co/TvIiVsmuHX</a></p>— Governor Tony Evers (@GovEvers) <a href="https://twitter.com/GovEvers/status/1298784414017650688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2020</a>
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<p id="SqZRcZ">By that measure, the NBA walkout is already a success. NBA owners, hugely wealthy and influential people, <a href="https://twitter.com/Steven_Ballmer/status/1298796003043217408">are tweeting their support</a> for police reform. Even the family of Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the owners of the Orlando Magic, put out a statement “condemning bigotry, racial injustice and the unwarranted use of violence by police against people of color.”</p>
<p id="R1STnK">The day after the walkout, the Houston Rockets announced that their arena would be used as an early in-person voting center. Other venues in other cities had already taken the same step, but the timing of the Houston news is impossible to ignore; players were urging their teams’ owners to take concrete action in response to their grievances.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rockets?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Rockets</a> and Harris County just announced that Toyota Center will serve as a Vote Center for the 2020 Election. It will be open to any registered voter in Harris County from Oct. 13-30 and on Nov. 3. Hours of operation will run seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.</p>— Jenny Dial Creech (@jennydialcreech) <a href="https://twitter.com/jennydialcreech/status/1298996552833224707?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2020</a>
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<p id="mkvuIF">Black activism has always been characterized by a multi-faceted approach. Regular people who boycotted the Montgomery, Alabama, bus system during the civil rights era were doing their part. Black celebrities who focus the media’s attention on issues of racial justice[ are playing a different role.</p>
<p id="M2qSTk">“The way Black politics have worked is that there is not one special tactic. There is a utilization of multiple tactics to be successful,” Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey, a Georgia State University professor who studies Black politics and culture, told me. “The news cycle went off to discuss other things ... Even if it’s a one-time tactic, they are showing their solidarity and bringing the media attention to express they are fed up.”</p>
<h3 id="et4B0v">Black athletes often use their platforms to protest for racial justice — but never quite like this</h3>
<p id="VSYAgh">Black celebrities, and athletes specifically, have a long history of protest. It reflects the “linked fate” Black Americans feel with one another, Bonnette-Bailey told me, regardless of their wealth or status.</p>
<p id="5xFC6q">“Black people share a group conscious, a linked fate,” she said. “What happens to other Black people matters to me.”</p>
<p id="Ysb08p">Many Black individual athletes have put their careers on their line over the years to show support for civil rights and racial justice. At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, two Black American sprinters raised a fist on the medal ceremony platform. It was the summer of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and protests over the Vietnam War. The US athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, had been politically active in their private lives but wanted to use the moment in the public spotlight earned through their athletic success to express their support for human rights.</p>
<p id="qLcj4V">And they paid a real price: US Olympic officials, under pressure from the International Olympic Committee, banned Smith and Carlos for supposedly “politicizing” the event, as Smithsonian magazine <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/articles/olympic-athletes-who-took-a-stand-593920/#y5HSFO8gwwgwGu8L.99">recounted in 2008</a>. They came home to death threats; Carlos’s wife later committed suicide and he blames in part the pressure from his notoriety.</p>
<p id="uOh98k">The NBA, as the league for some of the best known individual Black athletes and with an outsized place in Black culture compared to football or baseball, has always been a forum for Black activism. Elgin Baylor, a star rookie for the Lakers in 1959, <a href="https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/kanawha_valley/in-1959-elgin-baylor-took-a-stand-for-dignity-at-civic-center/article_f01b2ea6-b2d6-5e0e-bdef-3175cb7d81f1.html">boycotted a game</a> in his rookie season after a hotel in West Virginia told the team’s Black players could not stay in the same accommodations as white players. It was something that had happened before, earlier that season. Bill Russell, the leader of legendary 1960s Boston Celtics teams, and some of his black teammates <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/black-athletes-and-the-civil-rights-movement/#fnref-48214-1">also sat out a game</a> in 1961 after they were also turned away from a hotel while on a road trip.</p>
<p id="zBDzig">And today, professional Black athlete of today are not immune from the same kind of discrimination just because they are successful on the court or the field. Brown <a href="https://theundefeated.com/features/bucks-guard-sterling-brown-milwaukee-police/">was arrested and tasered</a> by some of the city’s police officers in January 2018, after putting his hands in his sweatshirt. He had been stopped in the first place for parking in a handicapped spot before running into a convenience store. New York City agreed to pay then-Atlanta Hawks forward Thabo Sefolosha $4 million in 2017 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/nyregion/thabo-sefolosha-ny-atlanta-false-arrest-suit.html">in a settlement over his wrongful arrest and the use of excessive force</a> by the arresting police officers.</p>
<p id="BNmBu9">After Eric Garner died in a chokehold by a NYPD officer, NBA players <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/12010612/nba-stars-making-statement-wearing-breathe-shirts">wore shirts with “I Can’t Breathe” printed on them</a>. At the 2016 ESPY awards, top players like James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony <a href="https://www.espn.com/espys/2016/story/_/id/17060953/espys-carmelo-anthony-chris-paul-dwyane-wade-lebron-james-call-athletes-promote-change">appeared in all black</a> to speak about the needs for reform after a summer of shootings and racial tension. <a href="https://www.si.com/nba/2017/12/05/lebron-james-donald-trump-tweet-most-retweeted-2017">James</a>, the face of the league, has parried with <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/8/4/17650982/trump-lebron-james-tweet-don-lemon">Donald Trump</a> on Twitter since the latter became president, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/us/politics/lebron-james-poll-workers.html">is investing millions of dollars</a> to support voting rights for Black Americans and to hire poll workers for the 2020 election. When Fox News host Laura Ingraham <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/19/587097707/laura-ingraham-told-lebron-james-to-shutup-and-dribble-he-went-to-the-hoop">insisted</a> James “shut up and dribble,” her words became a rallying cry for players who insisted that they would do no such thing.</p>
<p id="VMvXWT">But there had never been a moment of NBA activism quite like this. The players were reportedly <a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2045972-nba-players-were-to-boycott-tuesdays-games-if-donald-sterling-wasnt-banned">ready to walk out of playoff games in 2014</a>, after leaked audio of then-Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling making racist comments was released. But the league intervened, banned Sterling from the NBA for life and ordered him to sell the team, thus avoiding the players feeling they needed to walk off to force change.</p>
<p id="yKT0Yj">To have the entire league shut down now, in the middle of the playoffs meant to salvage a season derailed by Covid-19, is a sign of how seriously the players take the issues they are protesting.</p>
<p id="WyQFnQ">“For teams to stand down speaks to the seriousness of their commitment, especially during the playoffs, ‘enough is enough’ is the message,” Jeffries said. “‘We will not entertain while we die.’”</p>
<h3 id="ibkBRl">The walkout could have serious consequences for the NBA and its players</h3>
<p id="x5RDUM">Covid-19 combined with the recent spate of police shootings to make playing untenable for the NBA’s players — and yet the pandemic may have also, oddly enough, help facilitate such an unusual show of solidarity from star athletes to protesters in the streets.</p>
<p id="Nv36Jw">The unrest after George Floyd’s killing had already unsettled the league. Some players <a href="https://theathletic.com/1866845/2020/06/12/sources-reveal-details-of-call-among-80-nba-players-led-by-kyrie-irving/">wondered</a> whether the NBA should resume its season at all, given how important this moment seemed to be for Black activism. Could they do more good at home than on the court?</p>
<p id="np1zC6">Ultimately, the decision was made to set up the Disney World bubble and finish the season, in no small part because of the money the league and its players would lose otherwise and because of the platform some players and coaches believed they would have to speak out on political causes they support. Some gestures were made by the league to support those desires, such as the custom jerseys with social justice messaging.</p>
<p id="NHKpAz">But no one could have imagined, when play resumed in July after having been suspended in March, that the players would use their platform to stage a walkout meant to direct the country and the world’s eyes back to the problem of racial injustice. With the players living together in Disney World hotels for weeks on end, there was clearly a lot of chatter within teams about how to respond after the news of Jacob Blake being shot by police. Some players started to talk about going home. They settled for now on sitting out at least one game. </p>
<p id="zC8QGf">But that decision did not come without risks. The players were technically violating league rules by refusing to play, an action that is supposed to result in in financial penalties. But nobody is sure the league would actually try to fine players for protesting on behalf of racial justice.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">There is “failure to appear” language in the Operations Manual.<br><br>- forfeiture of the game <br>- up to $5M fine<br><br>That doesn’t mean it will be applied in the case of Milwaukee boycotting G5.<br><br>Like everything this year, we are dealing with situations that have never happened before.</p>— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) <a href="https://twitter.com/BobbyMarks42/status/1298716800515883014?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2020</a>
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<p id="UUh3Xa">If the entire season would have been canceled, the league would have lost millions upon millions of dollars in TV revenue. The NBA already lost money by canceling games in the spring, and it may struggle to regain its financial footing for a while, because fans do not appear likely to be attending games in arenas any time soon. Those revenue losses will inform the league salary cap, and by extension, the pay for players, going forward. That is one of the factors players were forced to consider as they debated whether to resume play or not.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">ESPN Sources: Among themes in meeting: NBPA explained financial implications of ending season, including possible lockout next year. Chris Paul on leaving meeting unified; CJ McCollum on needing a plan of action. Doc Rivers on using platform, voting, holding police accountable.</p>— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) <a href="https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1298820984640876544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 27, 2020</a>
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<p id="CQ2ZEO">On-court legacies were at stake in the decision whether or not to play. LeBron James is 35 and, with three titles already won, has precious few seasons left to match Michael Jordan’s six. The Bucks are currently championship contenders, with Antetokounmpo the reigning MVP, but the whispers have already begun about whether he would leave without the team having more playoff success. The Los Angeles Clippers and Houston Rockets entered the bubble with title aspirations of their own. The Toronto Raptors hoped for an opportunity to defend their 2019 championship.</p>
<p id="mHhAHw">And in a hyperpolarized political moment, the players could risk alienating fans through their political activism. The Athletic’s Ethan Strauss <a href="https://theathletic.com/1997343/2020/08/17/strauss-why-the-nba-has-a-serious-viewership-problem-it-needs-to-fix/">has reported</a> on the NBA’s deteriorating TV ratings over the last decade and he posits at least part of the explanation is fans who do not share the players’ politics have tuned out. Top Trump White House officials, like Jared Kushner and Marc Short, were dismissive of the players’ protest; Short <a href="https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1298984405050912771">called it</a> “absurd and silly.”</p>
<p id="g3ub5B">Some people may also be perturbed by what they perceive as inconsistencies in the NBA politics; the league and its players <a href="https://www.vox.com/videos/2019/11/11/20959250/china-nba-houston-rockets-hong-kong">were notably reluctant to criticize China’s policies toward Hong Kong</a> at the beginning of this season. Because of the wavering support at home, the league has invested billions of dollars in establishing a presence in China but that requires cooperation with the Chinese government, which has cracked down on civil rights in Hong Kong and is <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/8/15/17684226/uighur-china-camps-united-nations">holding millions of Muslim Uighur people in detention camps</a>.</p>
<p id="8xNVtF">So this is a fraught moment for the NBA, in more ways than one. But if the players’ goal was forcing a conversation about racial justice and police reform, they have succeeded.</p>
<p id="FPi2vj">“In one fundamental way, it’s already successful in terms of politicizing the athletes themselves. I strongly suspect that we will see more social justice activism from them, not less, and more from other people drawing inspiration and courage from them. And from a social justice perspective, that is a major victory,” Jeffries said. “It’s up to us, as a society, and not them to make change beyond that.”</p>
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<p id="mI1wzA"><strong>New goal: 25,000 </strong></p>
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<p id="Xi8uNx"></p>
https://www.vox.com/2020/8/27/21403891/nba-playoff-games-boycott-bucks-lakers-jacob-blakeDylan Scott2020-08-26T20:57:47-04:002020-08-26T20:57:47-04:00Facebook initially failed to remove a Kenosha militia page despite complaints
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<figcaption>Armed civilians on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, during protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake. | Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Once again, the company is facing criticism for letting people incite violence on its platform.</p> <p id="jYpgjG">Facebook didn’t take heed when its users sounded the alarm about a militia group issuing a “call to arms” on its platform. That call to arms came before the violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday night, which left two people dead and one injured, according to a new report. A man who has been arrested as a suspect in the shooting reportedly <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/26/kyle-rittenhouse-charged-kenosha-protest-shootings-militia/5634532002/">self-identified as a militia member</a>, though he was not a follower of the Facebook page users had flagged.</p>
<p id="LbFq37">Before the shooting, at least two Facebook users flagged a page called “Kenosha Guard” for inciting violence, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/26/21403004/facebook-kenosha-militia-groups-shooting-blm-protest">according to The Verge.</a> But the company told users that the page did not meet the company’s criteria for removal. On Wednesday morning, after violence at the protests already broke out — and armed militia groups took to the streets — Facebook ended up taking down the page for violating its policies on dangerous groups.</p>
<p id="UtepEP">Just last week, Facebook <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/8/19/21376166/facebook-qanon-take-down-groups-conspiracy-theory">expanded its Dangerous Individuals and Organizations</a> policy to include domestic militia groups that encourage violence. But in spite of those recent efforts, it seems that some of the content and groups the company has deemed dangerous under this new policy are still slipping through the cracks. </p>
<p id="DxKPnD">Facebook told Recode that it may have rejected users’ requests to take down the Kenosha Guard militia page because those requests weren’t initially routed to the right team. Once Facebook’s newly formed specialized team working on identifying dangerous militia groups looked at the group, the company said it took the page and a corresponding event down.</p>
<p id="RuTuXY">Facebook also said the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/26/21402951/kyle-rittenhouse-jacob-blake-kenosha">shooting suspect, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse</a>, was not a member of the Kenosha Guard Facebook page or invited to the associated event. The company says it has removed Rittenhouse’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram. </p>
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<p id="wKy4ip">“At this time, we have not found evidence on Facebook that suggests the shooter followed the Kenosha Guard Page or that he was invited on the Event Page they organized,” said a spokesperson for Facebook. “However, the Kenosha Guard Page and their Event Page violated our new policy addressing militia organizations and have been removed on that basis.”</p>
<p id="5zPUPz">Regardless of Facebook’s eventual removal of the militia group, some groups are criticizing the company for not taking action sooner — saying the situation is part of a larger pattern of not responding quickly enough to calls to violence on its platform.</p>
<p id="U6iBId">“This crisis of hate-fueled violence requires immediate, drastic action from Facebook and all other platforms on which these groups gather,” said Rashad Robinson, president of the civil rights group Color of Change, in a statement to Recode. “Facebook’s superficial policy changes mean nothing when they aren’t enforced.”</p>
<p id="ruUP1s">This week, demonstrators in Kenosha have taken to the streets to protest the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/24/21399690/jacob-blake-police-shooting-wisconsin">police shooting of Jacob Blake</a>, a 29-year-old Black man who witnesses at the scene said was unarmed and was simply trying to break up a dispute. Tensions have increased at these protests as armed militia who say they support the police have showed up to counter protesters.</p>
<p id="2DW6rY">Facebook has struggled many times in recent years with how to deal with extremists and other groups associated with violence, who often use its platform to organize and build out their groups. </p>
<p id="WKL06H">Back in 2017, <a href="https://observer.com/2017/08/charlottesville-facebook-removes-racist-pages/">Facebook was criticized for letting the white supremacist Unite the Right Rally</a>, which resulted in three deaths and dozens of injuries, keep its event page online for a month before it was taken down the day before the event. More recently, members of the far-right Boogaloo movement have attempted to organize violent insurrections against members of the US government on Facebook, such as <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/how-boogaloo-members-used-facebook-to-plot-an-alleged-murder/">plotting the murder of a federal agent</a> in Oakland, California. </p>
<p id="xO4032">In the past few months, Facebook has expanded its policies to restrict dangerous groups even if they are not overt terrorist organizations, including domestic militias, members of the Boogaloo movement, and supporters of the conspiracy theory QAnon. </p>
<p id="ZWV1qn">But Facebook’s delay in taking down the Kenosha Guard page shows that enforcing its new policies will be complicated and imperfect — after all, these groups have built themselves in part by using its platform. </p>
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<p id="mI1wzA"><strong>New goal: 25,000 </strong></p>
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https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/8/26/21403361/facebook-kenosha-militia-page-event-complaints-jacob-blake-shooting-protestsShirin Ghaffary2020-08-26T18:43:14-04:002020-08-26T18:43:14-04:0017-year-old charged with murder in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shootings
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<figcaption>Law enforcement stands patrol in the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin on August 25, 2020 amid protests in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake. | Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The self-identified militia member is suspected of fatally shooting two people and injuring a third during a night of protests.</p> <p id="k77jqZ">Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/26/kyle-rittenhouse-charged-kenosha-protest-shootings-militia/5634532002/">self-identified militia member</a>, has been arrested and charged with murder in the fatal shooting of at least two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse is also suspected of injuring another person at the Tuesday evening protests over the police shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake. </p>
<p id="gCIkS2">Rittenhouse, who has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide, left Wisconsin after the shooting and was arrested in his hometown of Antioch, Illinois, a town 30 minutes away from Kenosha.</p>
<p id="qLD55J">According to video on social media, Rittenhouse was one of several armed men who said they were guarding a gas station in downtown Kenosha on Tuesday night. (Wisconsin is an open carry state, but those who carry guns in public must be at least 18.) The scene at the gas station became tense as the armed men clashed with protesters, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/us/kenosha-shooting-protests-jacob-blake.html">according to the New York Times</a>. Video of the incident shows a man, alleged to be Rittenhouse, running down the street with an AR-15-style rifle as he’s pursued by others attempting to apprehend him. Rittenhouse falls to the ground, then turns around and begins shooting at the people trying to disarm him. </p>
<p id="S0YUzx">After the shooting, the man with the rifle walks away from the scene toward law enforcement in armored vehicles, according to <a href="https://www.kenoshanews.com/news/local/watch-now-update-antioch-police-announce-17-year-old-arrested-in-shooting/article_2a4aa8fa-76f1-56fa-ae69-e0be3e107f2d.html#tracking-source=home-breaking">a video viewed by Kenosha News</a>. In the video, a bystander frantically yells to the officers that the man with the rifle shot someone. “Hey, he just shot them,” the man screams. However, law enforcement officials drive directly past the man with the gun. </p>
<p id="MDSaI9">According to a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Kenoshapolice/photos/a.10151999394132207/10158495494572207/">press release</a> from the Kenosha police, the shots were fired at 11:45 pm. The gunshot victim who did not die was taken to a hospital with “serious, but non-life threatening injuries.” At a Wednesday afternoon press conference, police officers did not release the names of the victims but said that a 26-year-old Silver Lake resident and a 36-year-old Kenosha resident died; a 26-year-old West Allis resident was injured. Police said the investigation, being led by the Kenosha police and the FBI, has not yet determined whether both deaths are connected to Rittenhouse. </p>
<p id="cFCC9F">The shootings took place during the third night of unrest in Kenosha, where Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has declared a state of emergency and called in the National Guard to enforce the city’s curfew. On Monday, he called in 125 members; by Tuesday, that number grew to 250. On Wednesday, Evers said that 500 members of the Wisconsin National Guard would be deployed in Kenosha that evening. </p>
<p id="5lv1aN">Evers responded to the shootings on Wednesday afternoon. “My heart breaks for the families and loved ones of the two individuals who lost their lives and the individual who was injured last night in Kenosha. We as a state are mourning this tragedy,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/GovEvers/status/1298688268246986754">tweeted</a>. “I want to be very clear: we should not tolerate violence against any person. I’m grateful there has already been swift action to arrest one person involved. The individual or individuals whose actions resulted in this tragic loss of life must be held accountable.”</p>
<h3 id="SKgrg3">What we know about the shooting suspect</h3>
<p id="1hkdPz">According to <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/kyle-rittenhouse-17-year-old-suspect-charged-with-murder-after-two-killed-at-kenosha-protest?ref=scroll">the Daily Beast</a>, Rittenhouse is a committed police supporter. His Facebook page, which is no longer publicly accessible, displayed “numerous photos with Blue Lives Matter-style pro-police slogans and imagery, as well as of an Armalite rifle similar to the one he appears to have been photographed carrying in Kenosha.” </p>
<p id="K06NaM">In addition, a 2018 post on Rittenhouse’s page shows that he asked his followers to donate to the police advocacy nonprofit organization Humanizing the Badge on his birthday. “I’ve chosen this nonprofit because their mission means a lot to me, and I hope you’ll consider contributing as a way to celebrate with me,” Rittenhouse wrote. </p>
<p id="gqsDSo">The 17-year-old was also in the front row at a Trump rally earlier this year, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/kenosha-suspect-kyle-rittenhouse-trump-rally">according to BuzzFeed</a>. On January 30, Rittenhouse posted a TikTok video from the Des Moines, Iowa, rally, which showed that he was seated to the left of the president just feet away. </p>
<p id="nhpLpk">His social media accounts also show that he’s an avid Trump supporter and connected to law enforcement in real life as a former member of the Lindenhurst, Grayslake, Hainesville Police Department’s Public Safety Cadet Program, a program that trains young people interested in law enforcement careers. Other social media posts viewed by BuzzFeed show that Rittenhouse had access to at least two types of guns, an AR-15-style rifle and what he identifies as a 12-gauge shotgun in one video. </p>
<p id="gM6OfQ">In a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Kenosha Sheriff David G. Beth said he received a call from someone on Tuesday requesting that the police department “deputize citizens who have guns to come out and patrol the city of Kenosha.” Beth said he believes Rittenhouse was part of the group of armed men who wanted the department to deputize them. </p>
<p id="G7Zw7t">Beth also responded to the concern that police officers did not apprehend Rittenhouse when he walked past them. “I’ve been in a shooting before. In situations that are high-stress, you have such incredible tunnel vision. You have no idea what’s outside right here if you’re looking right here,” Beth said holding his hands up to gesture. </p>
<p id="JgOHnv">At the press conference, a reporter also asked why law enforcement officials were throwing water bottles out of Bearcats to the armed men, seemingly encouraging their presence, as seen in a viral video. “Our deputies would toss a water to anybody,” Beth responded. And to a question about whether the militia increased the tension on the streets Tuesday night, Beth said, “To some people it may have been calming. To me it’s not.”</p>
<p id="KPePhD">Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian, meanwhile, said that he does not want militia members to show up. “I don’t need more guns on the street, in the community when we are trying to make sure we keep people safe,” he said. “Law enforcement is trained. They’re the ones who are responsible. They’re the ones we have faith will do their job and make sure it gets done. That is why the curfews are there.”</p>
<p id="2H8r90">On Wednesday afternoon, President Trump expressed a desire to bring “law and order” to Wisconsin and “not stand for looting, arson, violence, and lawlessness on American streets.” He has not spoken publicly about the police shooting of Blake. </p>
<p id="e7MXrB">Kenosha officials were expecting another night of unrest after the 7 pm curfew following Rittenhouse’s arrest and as Blake, who is reportedly paralyzed from the waist down, is treated for injuries to his spine and kidneys at a Milwaukee hospital. </p>
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https://www.vox.com/2020/8/26/21402951/kyle-rittenhouse-jacob-blake-kenoshaFabiola Cineas