The parents of a Wisconsin man fatally shot during protests against police brutality in Kenosha say their son was a hero and expressed disappointment in President Donald Trump and others for allegedly suggesting he “deserved to die.”

Anthony Huber, 26, was one of two men allegedly shot dead by a 17-year-old last month during a protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

State prosecutors have charged 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch, Illinois, with murder in the deaths of Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum. A third man, Gaige P. Grosskreutz, was also wounded in the attack.

Rittenhouse’s lawyer, Pierce Bainbridge, said his client was acting in self-defense when he opened fire with a Smith & Wesson AR-15 style .223 rifle.

“Kyle did nothing wrong,” he said in a statement last month. “He exercised his God-given, Constitutional, common law and statutory law right to self-defense.”

Huber’s parents, John Huber and Karen Bloom, said in a statement released through their lawyers Friday that their son has been maligned by some, including the president.

“We are deeply disappointed that the president, members of the media and others have said that Anthony deserved to die for attempting to protect others from a person who had just killed someone,” they said.

The president, at an Aug. 31 briefing, that Rittenhouse “was trying to get away from them, I guess; it looks like. And he fell, and then they very violently attacked him.”

Huber’s parents said “there was absolutely no justification for Anthony’s murder.”

He was a hero trying to protect others when he was gunned down, they said.

“He sacrificed his own life to protect innocent civilians who were out that night protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake,” they said. “Without his incredible bravery, many others could have been killed or injured.”

Rittenhouse faces charges of first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide.

He is also facing two charges of reckless endangerment, which are also felony counts, and a misdemeanor count of possession of a dangerous weapon under the age of 18.

Prosecutors have said that minutes before midnight, Rittenhouse was being followed and “engaged” by Rosenbaum, a demonstrator, who Rittenhouse allegedly shot before fleeing. Rittenhouse was then confronted nearby by protesters, including Huber, prosecutors said.

The criminal complaint against Rittenhouse gave this account:

“Huber has a skateboard in his right hand. When Huber reaches the defendant it appears that he is reaching for the defendant’s gun with his left hand as the skateboard makes contact with the defendant’s left shoulder. Huber appears to be trying to pull the gun away from the defendant. The defendant rolls towards his left side and as Huber appears to be trying to grab the gun the gun is pointed at Huber’s body. The defendant then fires one round which can be heard on the video. Huber staggers away, taking several steps, then collapses to the ground. Huber subsequently died from this gunshot wound.”

Bainbridge said that someone “bashed” Rittenhouse “over the head with a skateboard” and that Rittenhouse was facing protesters who were trying to disarm him when he opened fire.

“In fear for his life and concerned the crowd would either continue to shoot at him or even use his own weapon against him, Kyle had no choice but to fire multiple rounds towards his immediate attackers, striking two, including one armed attacker,” he said.

Prosecutors said Grosskreutz appeared to have a gun when he approached Rittenhouse. But, they said, Grosskreutz had “his hands in the air” by the time Rittenhouse allegedly fired.

A medical examiner said gunfire to Huber’s chest perforated his heart, aorta, pulmonary artery and right lung.

The New York Times analyzed video from that night that showed police expressing appreciation and offering water to Rittenhouse and other armed men at the demonstration. This took place about 20 minutes after the teen allegedly opened fire, according to the publication.

“It has been disturbing to see videos and other information that has come to light suggesting that local police may have permitted and even encouraged armed vigilantes, including Anthony’s killer, to patrol the streets of Kenosha and threaten civilians with firearms,” Huber’s parents said.

“In America, we celebrate heroes like Anthony who sacrifice for their communities, not armed vigilantes who cause death and chaos in the streets.”

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Joe and Jill Biden will visit Kenosha tomorrow for a ‘community meeting’ two days after Donald Trump thanked cops and called rioters ‘domestic terrorists’

• Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden will travel to Kenosha, Wiscsonsin on Thursday 
• The former vice president will ‘hold a community meeting in Kenosha to bring together Americans to heal and address the challenges we face’ 
• Biden had hinted Monday in Pittsburgh that he was mulling a trip to Wisconsin in the aftermath of the police shooting of Jacob Blake 
• President Donald Trump traveled to Kenosha on Tuesday to survey damage and meet with law enforcement 
• There, he called rioters ‘domestic terrorists’ and referred to police who have killed black Americans as ‘bad apples,’ or suggesting they ‘choked’  

By Nikki Schwab, Senior U.s. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com and Shawn Cohen In Kenosha, Wisconsin, For Dailymail.com

Published: 11:17 EDT, 2 September 2020 | Updated: 13:47 EDT, 2 September 2020

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The old metal gumball machine is still there – standing in a corner near the door. It’s scorched and some of its plastic is melted but it’s still standing there. But very little else inside what was The Good Taste Ice Cream Shoppe in Kenosha is recognizable as the blackened remains of the roof, walls, tables, chairs, and other fixtures are scattered about in heaps of charred wood and twisted and scorched metal.

It’s one of several shops on this busy commercial strip on 22nd Avenue in Kenosha’s mostly Black Uptown neighborhood that were burned to the ground or severely damaged during a few nights of rioting last week in Kenosha.

The fires also destroyed second floor apartments above some of these shops; dozens of residents lost nearly everything and are now homeless.

As residents of this city of 100,000 along the shores of Lake Michigan between Chicago and Milwaukee clean up the damage, they lament the violence and destruction that left this and other swaths of their city damaged or destroyed. But many said they understand the anger and frustration that led to it.

The shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday, Aug. 23, set off a series of protests that gave way to violence for three straight nights. Downtown Kenosha, storefronts and vehicles were damaged. A used car dealership, a furniture store and the state parole office were burned to the ground. But the destruction was much greater in Kenosha’s Uptown area.

Walking down 22nd Ave. with his young son, Kenneth Smith, 42, takes in the damage in disbelief.

“It’s sad, it’s really sad. There’s no other word for it but just sad, man,” Smith said. “To look at it like this and to see it how it was just a week ago, it’s sad.”

Smith ticked off the businesses he’d once patronized that are now damaged or destroyed: The Mexican ice cream shop called The Good Taste. A men’s clothing store called Trends. Uptown Pantry, the convenience store.

“I think people were just looking for a little justice, you know?” Smith said, referencing the police shooting of Jacob Blake on August 23. But says he doesn’t believe anyone local would have torched those shops, “because why would they? You know, you got a lot of people in this area that eat in the Uptown area. I don’t see ’em burning down a place that they spend money at on a regular basis.”

“This is one of the ways that – unfortunately – people know how to take out their anger, because peaceful protests since the ’60s have not evidently been too effective,” says Eric Vines, 58, who was walking down the block surveying the damage with his brother, both of whom were born and raised in Kenosha. “I’m not saying this is the proper way to do it, but it’s gotten a lot of attention.”

Since the fires, a stream of volunteers, many of them white, have come to Uptown to help clean the area and install plywood. On this day, the volunteers were painting the plywood, mostly with generic inoffensive messages like “Peace and Love” and “Kenosha Strong.” Some include Bible verses and messages of faith.

Asked whether he thought the volunteers came to 22nd Avenue often before all this, Vines, who is Black, laughed.

“Obviously and evidently, we can look around and see that, no. The [answer] is no,” he says. “But it’s just unity, that’s what it is. It’s people having empathy and love for each other. That’s what this is. And I appreciate that.”

“I don’t even know how long it will take all this to come back, or if it will. I hope it does,” Vines says.

Keye Voigt, a public insurance adjuster, was working inside a salon on 22nd Avenue. He said he’s working for multiple businesses in Kenosha, many of whom he guessed may not reopen.

“Covid crushed them. Kenosha’s having its own issues, obviously. With the current state of affairs, a lot of these businesses aren’t going to make it,” he said.

One of Voigt’s clients had been offered just $5000 by the insurance company, he said. Another’s claim had been denied entirely because the insurance company said the fires fell under a policy exemption for acts of terrorism. The city of Kenosha has not yet released an estimate of the total damage, but Voigt guessed it would be in the tens of millions of dollars.

“This is the last thing people need right now, is their building being burned down, their business being destroyed. So I hope it ends,” says Voigt.

The recovery could be especially difficult because Black Kenoshans are already at significant economic disadvantage compared to their white neighbors.

Southeast Wisconsin is by some measures the most racially segregated region of the country, and the economic conditions for Black residents in this region rank among the worst in the country in a number of metrics.

A study published in July by Marc Levine, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, laid out a sobering list of statistics about the status of Black residents in the region in 2020.

“On almost all of the indicators… from poverty to employment to general income trends, to income inequality, incarceration trends, school segregation levels — Black Milwaukee ranked either the worst or next to worst among the nation’s fifty largest metropolitan areas,” Levine says. “And in fact, on most indicators that I’ve looked at, the status of the Black community in Kenosha is actually slightly worse than Milwaukee.”

The median Black household in the Milwaukee area earns just 44% of the median white household. Among the nation’s largest metro areas, Milwaukee has the second-lowest Black home ownership rate. School segregation in the Milwaukee area, measured by how likely Black children are to attend a school where students are 90% non-white, is essentially unchanged since 1965. A white high school dropout has about the same likelihood of having a job as Black high school graduate.

Here in Kenosha, a third of Black residents live below the poverty line, while just 13% of white residents do. A Black worker in Kenosha earns about half that which a white worker earns.

It’s not just that Black Kenoshans are worse off than their white neighbors; it’s that they’re worse off here than almost anywhere else in the country on almost every measure.

“In most communities, there isn’t this uniformity of poor standing on all of these indicators,” Levine says. “The startling thing is how almost uniformly on almost any indicator of consequence that one looks at, [southeast Wisconsin] ranks worst.”

Another startling aspect of the study, Levine says, is how little the trends in Southeast Wisconsin have changed over the years. “In some communities (elsewhere around the country), there have been improvements on a number of indicators,” he says. But not in Milwaukee and the cities of Racine and Kenosha.

Levine points to segregation levels as a key indicator, where even in notoriously segregated cities like Chicago and Boston there have been slight improvements. “Because segregation is the linchpin separating Black Americans in their neighborhoods from economic opportunities. Milwaukee has had only a tiny decline.” says Levine. “And that does make us stand out.”

“It’s very divided and it always has been,” says Tanya McLean, who was born and raised in Kenosha, and she says she found out just how much so when moving back here after college and serving in the military.

“Actually, I was trying to buy a house, and it was an issue,” McLean said. “I was just like, ‘oh, man.’ I was disheartened, and that’s when I realized that this town is completely divided.”

“I mean, all of the poverty is in one spot. So what does that say?” McLean adds. “I mean, the jobs are lacking here. The opportunities are lacking. Something has to change here or this (unrest) is going to continue.”

All of this plus a history of poor relations with Kenosha police have laid the groundwork for the current discontent, Black residents say.

“I do feel that we are marching backwards, people of color are getting pushed backwards, at a rapid rate,” says Lorna Revere, a small business owner in Racine, the city next door to Kenosha.

“I have to admit that right now, my hope for change is only this big,” Revere says, holding her finger and thumb barely a smidge apart. And the reason she says she has very little hope is “because of Trump being in office. I mean, he is inciting hate and people are drinking the kool-aid.”

But Revere says local leaders deserve criticism for the wide racial inequities and racially biased policing, too. At a huge protest march and rally Saturday, she carried a sign calling for the resignations of Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth and the city’s Police Chief Daniel Miskinis.

Beth has a history of racially charged comments. Two years ago, he called five people of color arrested for stealing goods from an area outlet mall “garbage people.”

“We need to build warehouses to put these people into it and lock them away for the rest of their lives,” Beth said at the time of the incident in 2018. “Let’s stop them from truly, at least some of these males, from going out and getting 10 other women pregnant and having small children.”

And both have been criticized by local residents for what they say are “tone deaf” responses to the police shooting of Jacob Blake and the subsequent shooting of three protesters, killing two them, by a 17-year old who was part of self styled local militia.

Cell phone video recorded before the shooting of the protesters show police officers thanking the white armed men patrolling the streets and giving them water, with one unidentified officer heard saying “We appreciate you guys, we really do.”

“I feel he should step down,” says Carey Norris, referring to Chief Miskinis. Norris is a local entertainer, entrepreneur and community leader who goes by the name DJ Mr. 262. “I feel (Sheriff) David Beth should step down.”

Norris also says the mayor and some city aldermen should resign.

“Not saying they’re not good people, but they’re not in position to handle these types of things,” Norris says.

In the city of Kenosha, Black residents make up just about 12% of the population, and Norris is one of several residents who told NPR that local politicians take the Black community for granted.

“It’s easy for them. They don’t need our vote,” he says. “They don’t need our vote! And that’s the honest truth.”

“Stop asking us about Trump,” Norris told us, even though we hadn’t asked about the president. Instead he urged us to ask him and other Kenosha residents about local officials, from the school board to the aldermen to the mayor’s office.

“Some of them (local voters), they don’t know. They think it just starts and ends with the president,” Norris says. “It doesn’t.”

Many here agree that changing deep-seeded racial inequalities starts at the ballot box (or mailbox) this November. And in a county that President Trump won by just 255 votes four years ago, in a state he unexpectedly and narrowly won, the police shooting of Jacob Brown, and the protests and violence that followed, are likely to influence election results from Kenosha’s city hall to the White House.

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Concern was growing on Sunday that a tense but peaceful situation prevailing in Kenosha for the last four days and nights could be inflamed by a planned visit from Donald Trump this week, in the aftermath of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in the city last Sunday.

Blake, a Black 29-year-old father, was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer in the small Wisconsin city, and his family say he is now paralyzed from the waist down.

There was unrest the following night and then largely peaceful marches spiraled into chaos on Tuesday night when white armed agitators appeared on the streets and, after being praised and given water by police despite being out after curfew, appeared to confront protesters and begin shooting.

A white teenager, Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was seen on video walking away after a man was shot, while others stooped to give the victim medical attention, although he later died.

Then Rittenhouse was seen being chased and, as men tried to stop him, shooting again, then subsequently walking through police lines with an assault rifle around his neck and his hands up, without being apprehended.

He turned himself in in Antioch, Illinois, the following day and has been charged with intentional homicide after the alleged shooting death of two white men , and other charges relating to the assault rifle he was carrying, and another shooting where a man’s arm was severely injured.

Since Tuesday night, marches and rallies in Kenosha have been calm.

On Saturday, Blake’s family spoke at an impassioned, peaceful rally in Kenosha. “We’re not going to stop,” Blake’s father, Jacob Sr, told the crowd. “We’re still suffering because there are two justice systems. There’s one for that white boy [Rittenhouse] that walked down the street and killed two people and blew another man’s arm off. Then there’s one for my son.”

He was also critical of the police. “What gave them the right to think that my son was an animal?” he said.

The US president announced on Saturday a plan to visit Kenosha on Tuesday.

California Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass said on Sunday that she thought the violence that erupted in Kenosha on Tuesday night was “absolutely horrible”, following the police shooting, which was also caught on video.

She said of Rittenhouse: “The idea that we would see that young man with a rifle walking towards the police and they do nothing and he has killed two people, and the head of law enforcement the following day seemed to blame [the deaths] on people being out after curfew … 90% of protests [in Kenosha] have been peaceful,” she said.

The federal government has opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting and, after almost five days of silence, Trump said on Friday that the image of Blake being shot by police “was not a good sight”.

But Bass said of Trump’s plan to travel to Kenosha: “I think this visit has one purpose and one purpose only and that’s to agitate things.”

Trump has been increasingly positioning himself in terms of an election campaign centered on cracking down on unrest, even as he appeared to egg on Trump supporters who drove in a huge procession into Portland, Oregon, on Saturday night and shot paintballs and pepper spray at protesters, buy retweeting video of the incident.

And he tweeted simply “Law and order” on Sunday morning.

In fact, Bass told CNN she thinks “he is going to do everything to disrupt law and order” in order to try to win re-election by sowing division and fear.

The president has been critical of the wave of protests against police brutality and systemic racism that have swept the US since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.

Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have talked extensively with the family of Jacob Blake and strongly condemned the police shooting.

Miles Taylor, former chief of staff to Kirstjen Nielsen, then homeland security secretary, and now adviser to an anti-Trump group, the Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform (Repair), said that while presidential visits can “cool down the rhetoric”, he was concerned.

“My problem is that Donald Trump goes to these places to politicize things…if you go to deliver a unifying message, yes, but I’m skeptical,” he said.

It is unclear whether Trump plans to meet with Blake or his family.

Kenosha is the latest US city where protests against racism and excessive use of force by police are occurring. In addition to police reforms, the mostly white midwestern community needs to address the fundamental disadvantages Black people face in Kenosha, according to Verona King, a former president of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter.

While about 13% of whites live in poverty in Kenosha, more than a third of Black residents are impoverished. Kenosha also lacks racial equality in housing, health care, education and within the justice system, King said.

“We want to address the systemic racism that is running rampant in all of these areas,” she said.

While most of the protests in Kenosha have been peaceful, there was some initial damage to property and businesses in the city.

“We are not the last community that this will happen to,” one resident, Vickie Kwasny, said as she looked at dozens of torched cars in a parking lot near her home. “I hope we can heal. We have a lot of cleaning up to do.”

Chenesse Brown, a 31-year-old teacher, handed out water and snacks as she held her two-month old godson during a march on Saturday.

“This morning … everything caught up to me and I just sat on the foot of my bed and cried. Because this is not the Kenosha that we know,” she said. “It’s surreal, overwhelming and saddening, but then I come out and see this and it reminds that … we have our faith and our hope.“

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The mayor of Kenosha, Wis., is resisting calls for the police chief and sheriff to resign in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting.

Mayor John Antaramian is backing Police Chief Daniel Miskinis, despite controversial comments by Miskinis suggesting that people out after curfew are to blame for a shooting that left two protesters dead and another wounded.

JACOB BLAKE NO LONGER HANDCUFFED TO BED

“The curfew’s in place to protect,” Miskinis told reporters just hours after the Wednesday incident, which occurred during protests over the police shooting of Blake, a 29-year-old Black man.

If people hadn’t violated the curfew, “perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened,” the chief said.

Miskinis walked back the comments Friday, claiming they were “misconstrued” and expressed sympathy for the deaths of Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum.

The responsibility for their deaths “rests solely on the person who did that, not on the victims of this crime,” Miskinis said.

The alleged shooter, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, faces multiple criminal charges, including first-degree homicide.

Antaramian defended law enforcement officials Friday, saying “everyone is doing the best they can” in the face of days of rioting.

On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union demanded that Miskinis and Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth be fired following the Blake shooting, which was captured in a video that has since gone viral.

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The cellphone video shows Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey and another officer following Blake with their guns drawn as he walked around the front of a parked SUV following a reported domestic dispute.

According to police officials, the officers were sent there because of a complaint that Blake was attempting to steal the caller’s keys and vehicle. Officials said officers were aware that Blake had an open warrant for felony sexual assault before they arrived.

Blake had a knife in the vehicle, according to authorities. Officers shot him in the back seven times. He is now paralyzed, his family says.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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August 28, 2020 6:58 PM

Associated Press

Posted: August 28, 2020 6:58 PM

Updated: August 28, 2020 8:11 PM

MADISON, Wis. — The Kenosha police union has offered the most detailed accounting to date on officers’ perspective about what happened prior to Jacob Blake being shot seven times in the back.

Blake’s shooting sparked nationwide protests and civil unrest after a video of the incident circulated throughout social media.

The footage captured from a bystander shows an officer with a gun drawn while walking behind Blake as he walks around a parked SUV, with a second officer closely behind the two.

The state Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation later identified the officer who shot Blake as Rusten Sheskey, who has served with Kenosha police for seven years. Officers Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek were also at the scene, but only Sheskey fired at Blake.

DCI said Sheskey and the other officers were originally sent to a home on the 2800 block of 40th Street after a woman reported that her boyfriend was there when he was not supposed to be on the premises.

The attorney says DCI’s public accounting of the event to date is “riddled with incomplete information and omits important details.”

According to the police union’s statement, the caller told officials Blake tried to steal her keys and vehicle. The statement said officers were also made aware of Blake’s open warrant for third-degree sexual assault prior to arriving.

An attorney for the Kenosha Professional Police Association on Friday said that Blake was armed with a knife and fought with officers, putting one of them in a headlock. The statement also mentioned Blake was not breaking up a fight between two women when police arrived, which is what bystanders had told police.

In the video, Blake opens the driver’s side door and leans in as the first officer grabs Blake’s shirt and shoots him seven times in the back.

DCI conducted an investigation after the shooting and said Blake admitted he was possessing a knife, which was recovered from the driver’s side floorboard of his vehicle. No other weapons were found in the car.

Blake was immediately taken to Froedtert Hospital hospital in Wauwatosa. His family and attorneys say he’s paralyzed from the waist down.

COPYRIGHT 2020 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.

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Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with homicide in the killing of two people at protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, earlier this week, will remain in custody in Illinois after a judge agreed to delay a hearing on his extradition to Wisconsin.

Rittenhouse faces a first-degree intentional homicide charge and five other charges for shooting three people, two fatally, during unrest Tuesday night in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake.

Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey shot Blake, a Black man, seven times in the back on Sunday, which has left Blake paralyzed from the waist down.

Rittenhouse did not appear for the hearing Friday in Lake County Circuit Court.Another hearing on the status of his extradition has been set for Sept. 25.

The hearing comes after Kenosha saw a calmer night on Thursday, with volunteers cleaning up after nights of arson and vandalism and a prayer service held along Lake Michigan.

“We’re still in the thick of many challenges but there will be a coming together around a table in coming days,” Kenosha County Executive Jim Kreuser said.

Here’s what we know Friday:

Kyle Rittenhouse to remain in Illinois 

In a less than 10 minute hearing livestreamed Friday, a public defenders for Rittenhouse requested to waive his presence at the hearing and for more time so that he could hire his own legal team.

“We also arranged for him to have a phone call with his mother this morning,” an attorney for Rittenhouse, Jennifer Snyder, said during the proceedings.

Rittenhouse, from Antioch, Illinois, is facing six charges in Wisconsin, the most serious of which is first-degree intentional homicide. Under Wisconsin law, Rittenhouse is charged as an adult, and he would face life in prison if convicted of the first-degree intentional homicide charge.

Rittenhouse also faces charges of first-degree reckless homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, two counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety and one count of possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18.

Videos shared on social media show various angles of how Rittenhouse used an AR-15-style rifle to shoot and kill Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and injure Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, shortly before midnight.

Visual timeline: Violence in Kenosha after police shooting of Jacob Blake

In some of the video, Rittenhouse, who is white, is seen walking toward police vehicles after the shootings with his hands up in an apparent surrender, but police drive past him. He was arrested Wednesday in Antioch.

Rittenhouse told a reporter before the shooting he had come to Kenosha from his home in Antioch to defend property during the unrest. 

Jacob Blake’s father: My son is ‘a human being’ but ‘has not been afforded the rights of a human’

In an interview with CNN on Friday morning, Jacob Blake, Sr., opened up about his son’s recovery and described “two justice systems” in which his son was shot as he walked away from police while Rittenhouse was not arrested after fatally shooting two people.

“He’s a person. He’s a human being. He’s not an animal.” Blake told CNN. “But my son has not been afforded the rights of a human.”

Blake told the Chicago Sun Times Thursday that his son was handcuffed to his hospital bed, even though he’s paralyzed from the waist down. 

Blake has tried not to tell his son about the unrest in Kenosha. He has gotten good news, though, Blake said.

“The thing that made him smile was the Milwaukee Bucks. That made him smile,” Blake said. The Bucks were the first of several pro sports teams this week to sit out their games in the wake of the shooting as they demanded justice for Blake and the officer responsible be held accountable. Blake said the team sent his son a signed jersey, too.

Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris also spoke with Blake’s family for almost an hour, Blake said. “They were so comforting that you almost forgot how the situation as playing out,” Blake said. President Donald Trump has not reached out to his family, Blake said.

Moving forward, Blake said his grandchildren, who were in the car that his son was walking toward when police shot him, will have to deal with emotional distress of seeing the violence that happened to their father.

“Pop pop, why did they shoot my daddy in the back?” Blake said his eldest grandson asked him.

Calm night Thursday in Kenosha

After violent unrest earlier in the week, Kenosha was calmer Thursday night. 

More than 200 people prayed at Harbor Park along Lake Michigan. The pastors who organized the event said they wanted the city to be known for its love of God, not the violence that has plagued its streets in the last week.

Earlier in the day, Kreuser and Mayor John Antaramian pledged to take on the challenges of racial inequality at the root of the protests.

“Unity becomes one of the main aspects of what has to happen in this community, and that unity is only going to happen if all of us work together,” Antaramian said.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson appeared at a news conference and said the different treatment of Blake and Rittenhouse by police fit a pattern.

‘We really just need prayers’: Jacob Blake’s mother says son would be ‘unpleased’ with destruction in Kenosha

“We demand justice in the country,” the civil rights icon said.

Attorneys representing Blake and his family also drew a sharp distinction between the two cases. 

“They shot him seven times in the back in front of his children,” the attorneys statement read, referring to Blake. 

But when it came to Rittenhouse, “local law enforcement and National Guardsmen allowed him to walk down the street with his assault weapon,” said civil rights attorney Ben Crump and co-counsels Patrick Salvi and B’Ivory Lamarr.

The protest have drawn national attention, and President Donald Trump said earlier this week “federal law enforcement and the National Guard” will be sent to Kenosha to restore law and order.

On Thursday, Gov. Tony Evers announced National Guard troops from Arizona, Michigan and Alabama will arrive to assist Wisconsin’s troops at his request. Evers already had sent more than 500 Wisconsin guard members to Kenosha this week.

A small group continued to protest in downtown Kenosha after curfew Thursday, which went into effect at 7 p.m.

Protesters made their way through the streets with stops at Library Park and the Civic Center Park. Livestreams from people on the scene showed some arrests of protesters. It also showed people waiting for friends who were arrested earlier to be released. 

Close to midnight a group of less than 50 protesters remained.

Protesters outside the White House make themselves heard inside as Trump delivers RNC speech

Raucous protesters chanted and banged drums near the White House as more than a thousand guests of the president were gathered inside in advance of President Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. 

Shortly before 10:30 p.m., while Ivanka Trump was in the middle of her speech to introduce her father, protesters began using bullhorns, whistles and bells while chanting “Black Lives Matter.”

The crowds — chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “No justice, no peace!” — were gathered between the White House and National Mall and in Black Lives Matter Plaza, the epicenter of the protests earlier this year over racial injustice amid the death of George Floyd and others at the hands of law enforcement.

During his speech, Trump mentioned the Kenosha protests and and recent unrest in other cities.

“In the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, New York and many others,” he said.

Thousands to March on Washington for racial justice

Thousands of people are expected to gather in Washington to demand changes to law enforcement and voting rights as America reels from police killings of Black people this year that fueled protests across the country. 

The march, organized in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minnpeapolis, is led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network, marking the 57th anniversary of the historic March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech. 

March on Washington 2020: What to expect, how to stay safe amid the coronavirus pandemic

“The reason why George Floyd laying there with that knee on his neck resonated with so many African-Americans is because we have all had a knee on our neck,” Sharpton told USA TODAY. “What we are saying is that these two laws represent taking some of the knee off but the systemic racism is going to take more than two laws.”

Contributing: Matthew Brown, Maureen Groppe, David Jackson, Nicquel Terry Ellis and N’dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY; Sarah Hauer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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