New demonstrations against police violence in Kenosha: more than 1,000 soldiers on the ground



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Protesters and police have clashed in Kenosha, Wisconsin, several nights a week. Friday was a tense calm in the city. Today new large-scale demonstrations are expected and more than a thousand soldiers of the National Guard have been summoned to the city.

– It’s gone so far that I don’t go out after dark. “Somewhere in the crowd, there may be a guy who wants to kill black people,” Macari Gosa, 27, who works at a convenience store, told Reuters.

The demonstrations began after a white police officer last Sunday shot African American Jacob Blake in the back with multiple shots. He survived, but is seriously injured and paralyzed from the waist down. He was shackled to the hospital bed with handcuffs, sparking much criticism, and it was removed on Friday. Blake is a crime suspect and an arrest warrant was issued when he was shot. On May 3, he is said to have broken into his ex-girlfriend’s home and committed some kind of sexual abuse against her, the news agency writes. According to the woman, he also stole her car and credit card.

The police union says that Blake was armed with a knife and resisted arrest. The union stands up for the police and says Blake had several opportunities to cooperate before the shooting fell.

Blake’s attorney, Ben Crump, says his client was not armed or provoked by the police.

For the past three days, the situation has been relatively peaceful and calm in the city, writes the Independent’s envoy. But the protests on several occasions degenerated into riots. The protesters threw stones and firecrackers at the police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Police say they have made around 50 arrests and are criticized for how they treat protesters.

Cars have been set on fire during the Kenosha riots.

Cars have been set on fire during the Kenosha riots.

Photo: Scott Olson / Getty

Adelina Akindes says that she was arrested and locked in a packed cell on Wednesday when she was heading to the demonstration with a shield in her hand. The police forced her to lie on the ground and handcuffed her. Now she is suspected of violating the curfew.

– They wanted to scare us. They wanted to use us to set an example, he tells the newspaper.

African American Isaac Wallner offers similar criticisms. He says the police are kinder to the city’s armed white male militia groups than they are to him.

– The police do not respect civil rights. It has been free for them to do whatever they want.

On Tuesday, two were shot people died and a third were injured. The alleged shooter is a 17-year-old young man who in a film of the incident is seen leaving the crime scene when the police arrive.

The teenager is a suspect in several different crimes, including murder. He reportedly turned himself in to police near his home in Illinois, near the Wisconsin border. One of his lawyers says he acted in self-defense.

According to prosecutors, one of the victims followed a 17-year-old into an alley, where he threw a plastic bag at him and attempted to take his semi-automatic rifle from him, the Denver Post reports. In connection with this, he was shot in the groin and back, among other things.

The second victim was shot in the chest according to the indictment when he tried to take the rifle from the 17-year-old.

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