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The sun is high in the sky and a group walks around the assembled gang at the Tremper High School skate park in Pleasant Prairie.
Hannah Gittings, 23, sits hunched over one of the concrete foundations, wearing a gray knit hat. She talks on the phone with her mother about the ashes of her gunned down boyfriend, who died three days ago.
Since she and her boyfriend were not married, she is not entitled to the remains.
– We hadn’t been together that long, but we were “married” and I said that was enough for me.
Hannah shows the rings on her fingers, both from her boyfriend.
The bones are destroyed after he smashed them into the Kenosha Police Station. He hit and hit with his bare hands, when the pain and anger became impossible to bear..
Scots in Kenosha
• African American Jacob Blake, 29, was shot and killed by police on 23 August. The shooting created a massive wave of unrest in the city: riots, fires and looting.
On Tuesday, two people were shot and killed during a nightly protest, a third was shot.
Since the shooting, 179 people have been arrested in connection with the riots. 102 of the 175 arrested protesters came from other cities.
President Donald Trump will visit Kenosha on Tuesday.
Local representatives have welcomed his visit, but at the same time express their concern that it will lead to further unrest.
Anthony Huber, 26, was one of two men shot to death during a Black Lives Matter rally in Kenosha on Tuesday. A police investigation is still underway into what exactly happened, but according to initial information, a 17-year-old boy shot three people. Some claim it happened in self-defense.
“He ran towards him with his skateboard”
Anthony Huber spotted the shooter and ran towards him to intervene. In his hands he had nothing but his skateboardsays Hannah.
– He told me to stop and then he just ran. I tried to hug him but he refused. That’s how he was, all or nothing.
She talks about the hours they spent together that same day. The couple were by a lake playing with Hannah’s three-year-old daughter.
– It was a special atmosphere. He picked up three stones by the lake and put them in his wallet and said that each one was for us. Then we went home and put all our valuables in a closet in case looters came to our house. We joked that we were going to write on a poster that we were poor so they wouldn’t do anything to us, Hannah says, as tears begin to flow. Again.
She has cried so much the last few days that she doesn’t even realize her cheeks are getting wet.
– We keep joking with each other and I said before leaving that “if we die tonight i’m glad i was married to you, even if it’s just between us and not really. ”
“Torn by pain”
Everywhere in concrete, Hannah has written declarations of love and tributes. Skateboarding was the life of Anthony Huber. A week ago, they planned a future jump.
– What happened now is a total nightmare. As if none of this is really happening.
“I hope you don’t hate me”
More people join the skate park.
Military blade Carole Badoni, 50, of the city of Burlington crosses the lawn and asks where he should leave the candle.
He says he was there the night Anthony died and that he tried to save his life.
– People write online that I made a mistake that did CPR on a gunshot wounded. But what should I do? He had no pulse and his eyes had rolled back. I had to do something. I wanted to come here today, meet Hannah and ask her forgiveness that I didn’t save her life. I hope you don’t hate me.
Carole Badoni and Hannah Grittings come together in a long hug, right next to the pentagram Hannah drew on the floor.
Carole says she is torn between empathy for the police who shot Jacob Blake seven times and the feeling that there must be an end to police brutality.
“Only career politicians the whole package”
Like many others, Carole Badoni says the riots, which have erupted in American cities since May, have now become big politics.
– I don’t trust the Republicans or the Democrats. They are only career politicians, the whole group, who have lived their entire lives without contact with reality. How can someone who makes millions of dollars every year understand what it’s like to live like me?Who makes just $ 15,000 a year and has to live off matching checks and social security contributions?
Politicians only talk about the middle class, he says.
– It’s not about what it’s like for us on the bottom, low-income people who can barely get by.
Before Carole Badoni gets into her car and drives home to Burlington, she watches the young people gathered on the lawn. They are waiting for another night of protests.
– Who is responsible for these children who are on the street and have seen their friends shot to death?
Her schizophrenic son – shot to death
Don Whitehead, 55, with his wife Amy, 52, also wants to see Hannah to mourn the loss.
They wear the ash gray shock of grief and loss on their faces and they say they drove 13 hours from Tennessee to get here. 1.5 years ago, her 18-year-old son was shot and killed.
– He was schizophrenic. We had to go to Seattle and look for him on the streets. He had finally started taking medicine, but stopped and went into a neighbor’s.
The neighbor was armed with a gun.
– The neighbor shot him nine times. We must get rid of these weapons before more people die unnecessarily. We need to engage Democrats so they can change the AR-15 legislation. The United States would need arms legislation reminiscent of Sweden’s.
Amy wipes a tear that flows silently.
– These young people are not allowed to skate in the city, but they are allowed to walk with a semiautomatic rifle around their necks.
17% live in poverty
• Number of inhabitants: 99,944
• According to statistics from the Census Bureau, 17.7% of Kenosha’s population lives in poverty.
• The majority of the population is white (79.5%) and a small proportion is black or African American (11.5%).
The National Guard arrived
Kenosha leaders initially turned down federal aid from President Donald Trump when, but later reached a deal. Armored vehicles came after armored vehicles.
“If I hadn’t insisted on sending in the National Guard, we wouldn’t have had a Kenosha today. We had many deaths and injuries, “the president tweeted on Monday.
It is part of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric – that he introduces law and order into democratically governed cities, over which he believes the Democrats have lost control.
This weekend it became clear that the President had decided to personally travel to Kenosha to meet with both the police and those affected by the unrest. But as the city does its best to prepare for the presidential visit, the riots continue into the nights, despite the curfew.
Armed with swords
Suddenly, a woman starts waving long swords, while yelling curse words. Armed with swords, she approaches the news reporter from one of the major television channels as the camera rolls.
She starts hitting a light pole, as if it’s eerily slow. It resonates throughout the park.
A few minutes later, large cars speed across the park lawn, directly toward the assembled people. Panic builds, before the drivers turn out to be police officers who have come to arrest the woman.
More than 11,000 demonstrations this summer
Anger towards the police has been burning for a long time. This summer, more than 11,000 demonstrations took place in the United States, according to figures from the US Crisis Monitor. Most of the protests have been peaceful; at the same time, the police have intervened during 725 protests between May 24 and August 22.
The sun sets, then the blur comes
Dustin Bose, 41, and his girlfriend Amy Busic, 40, are involved in a sparsely populated police support operation, Back the Blue.
– It is not the peaceful protesters who are destroying and burning. The sun goes down and then the blur comessays Amy Busic.
She is supported by her boyfriend.
– I haven’t slept in five nights because forty neighbors and I have sat on our porches and watched every night, armed with loaded weapons. We are prepared if someone comes to our street.
African-American Nick Dennis begins an argument with white protesters from Back the Blue.
An old man asks:
– There is one thing I don’t understand. If the police stop me and ask me something, I listen. I am not trying to escape or defend myself. Why can’t her brothers do the same?
The answer comes in an instant.
– But you’re not black. Until you have the color of my skin, you cannot understand what it is like.
See also:
Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, shot dead two during a BLM rally.
