After the Riots: Kenosha police claim they’ve been unfairly villainized
Wisconsin | May 7, 2021
On Aug. 23, 2020, a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake as he scuffled with law enforcement officers in one of several incidents that rocked the nation last summer. Riots that occurred in the ensuing days brought violence, destruction, and the national spotlight to the small Wisconsin city. The Washington Examiner recently went back to Kenosha to find out what has happened in the aftermath.
KENOSHA, WISCONSIN — Reminders of the shooting of Jacob Blake Jr. and the riots that followed are all over Kenosha.
The Dinosaur Discovery Museum in the middle of town still has plywood on all of its windows. The brick wall next to Hidden Treasures on 60th Street still reads “F— you, Rusten Sheskey,” despite numerous attempts to cover it up. Graffiti on side streets and boarded-up storefronts call out “racist” police. Nine months after the small Wisconsin city of fewer than 100,000 residents was thrust into the national spotlight, it is clear that the wound is still raw.
While there have been tensions in the past between police and Kenosha’s minority residents, none has compared to the 2020 shooting of Blake.
Officer Sheskey, a white man, shot Blake, a black man, seven times in the back. No charges were filed against him…
(Excerpts from The Washington Examiner)