Two people are dead and a third injured in an overnight shooting in Kenosha, police say
August 26, 2020
(CNN) — Two people were killed and a third was seriously wounded in a shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, late Tuesday during the third night of protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, police said.
Officers responded to reports of multiple gunshot victims around 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, the Kenosha Police Department said in a news release early Wednesday.
The person injured was taken to the hospital with “serious, but non-life threatening injuries,” police said.
An investigation into the shooting is ongoing and the names and ages of the victims are still being determined, according to the release.
Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth told The New York Times his office is investigating whether the shooting resulted from a conflict between demonstrators and a group of men with weapons who were protecting businesses.
CNN has reached out to the Kenosha Police Department and the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office.
The protests come days after police shot Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, multiple times as he tried to enter an SUV with his children in the vehicle.
Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney who represents the family, said police shot Blake after he had tried to break up an argument between two women. Police have not provided any information on what led up to the shooting.
Two Kenosha officers have been placed on administrative leave. The shooting is being investigated by the Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley’s office and the Wisconsin Justice Department’s division of criminal investigation, which plans to present a report to Graveley’s office within 30 days, it said.
Blake remains in the hospital but his family says he is paralyzed from the waist down. A family attorney said it would take a “miracle” for Blake to ever walk again.
Scenes from Tuesday protests
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers declared a state of emergency Tuesday after cars and buildings were set ablaze. Evers also called in 250 members of the National Guard to assist.
Late Tuesday, Anadolu Agency photographer Tayfun Coskun captured a series of images that show a fight between an armed civilian and protesters.
CJ Halliburton was recording on Facebook Live during the protests when he heard gunshots in the distance down the street from where he was standing.
Halliburton ran in the direction of the gunshots with other demonstrators in an attempt to see what had happened. As he inches closer to a gathering crowd, several more gunshots can be heard in the video.
“He shot that guy in the stomach,” Halliburton says in the video.
In the distance, a man can be heard yelling, “I need a medic,” followed by another round of gunshots.
“People are getting shot all around us,” Halliburton says in the video. “People are just getting shot everywhere guys.”
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