Kenosha Police Chief Blames Deadly Shooting On Protesters
During a Wednesday news conference, Police Chief Daniel Miskinis addressed the shooting where two people were shot and killed on a night of protests for Jacob Blake. While speaking to reporters, Miskinis appeared to shift the blame on protestors by saying the deadly incident may not have happened if demonstrators and the accused gunman had obeyed the city’s newly imposed 8 p.m. curfew.
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“Everybody involved was out after the curfew,” Chief Daniel Miskinis said when asked about the two killed and one injured by a teenage member of a vigilante militia group protecting businesses. “The point is, the curfew is in place to protect. Had persons not been out involved in violation of that, perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened,” he said, adding that “The result of it is two people dead.”
At Wednesday’s conference, Miskinis also emphasized that police were not responsible for the fatal shooting that killed a 26-year-old and a 36-year-old. “This is not a police action,” he said. “This is not the action, I believe, of those who set out to do protests. It is the persons who were involved after the legal time, involved in illegal activity, that brought violence to this community,” The New York Post reports. His comments didn’t come much of a shock since videos from the shooting showed law enforcement thanking the heavily armed militia just minutes before the shooting occurred.
Police later identified the suspect on Wednesday as 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse. He was arrested in Grayslake, Illinois — about 10 miles from Antioch and 30 miles from Kenosha — Police Chief Phillip L. Perlini said, adding that the suspect in the shooting was a former Public Safety Cadet.
Rittenhouse was charged with first-degree intentional homicide, Antioch Police said in a news release.
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DISGUSTING: The Kenosha police chief blames the victims who were murdered by a white supremacist last night, stating that "had persons not been out in violation of [the curfew]m perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened." pic.twitter.com/5IOJk0kJPt
— African American Policy Forum (@AAPolicyForum) August 26, 2020
RELATED: UPDATE: Kenosha ‘Vigilante’ Shooter Arrested And Booked For Homicide