A majority of the people who were arrested last week in Kenosha, Wisconsin, were from out of town.
The Kenosha Police Department said in a statement Sunday that officers arrested 175 people during a week of civil unrest that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake, and 102 of those people taken into custody listed addresses outside of Kenosha.
Arrest numbers include people from 44 different cities, the police department said. Sixty-nine people were arrested for curfew violations, and 34 more were arrested for curfew violations in addition to other charges “ranging from carrying concealed weapons, burglary and possession of controlled substances,” the department added.
Protests and riots began in the city of roughly 100,000 after Blake, a 29-year-old black man, was grievously injured on Aug. 23 during an arrest in Kenosha. A viral video showed him getting shot by an officer, later identified as Rusten Sheskey, when he started to reach inside his car.
Blake told officers he had a knife in his car, which investigators found on the driver’s side floorboard of his vehicle. His three children were in the car at the time of the shooting. Blake’s family says he is now paralyzed from the waist down.
Prior to the shooting, Blake had been accused of breaking into a woman’s home and sexually assaulting her before stealing her vehicle on May 3, according to a criminal complaint. The charges against him are still pending despite his condition.
Wisconsin authorities are investigating the shooting of Blake and the FBI is conducting a civil rights inquiry. Sheskey and the other officers involved in the Blake incident have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
The violence in Kenosha reached a crescendo Tuesday night when two people were fatally shot and another was injured. The alleged gunman, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, has been arrested and charged in the shooting. His lawyers claim he was acting in self-defense.
President Trump is expected to visit with law enforcement in Kenosha on Tuesday. He also plans to survey the damage from the riots.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Ever wrote to Trump over the weekend asking to reconsider the trip, saying, “I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state. I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.”
