The grand finale of the Republican National Convention will reportedly include President Trump delivering his renomination acceptance speech to a rally-sized audience. Continue reading “Rally-Sized Audience Expected To Attend Trump’s RNC Closing Night Speech At WH”
Suspect Arrested After 2 Are Killed At Kenosha Protest
This story was updated at 3:28 p.m. ET.
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A white, 17-year-old police admirer was arrested Wednesday after two people were shot to death during a third straight night of protests in Kenosha over the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake.
Kyle Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, was taken into custody in Illinois on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide. Antioch is about 15 miles from Kenosha.
Two people were killed Tuesday night and a third was wounded in an attack apparently carried out by a young white man who was caught on cellphone video opening fire in the middle of the street with a semi-automatic rifle.
“I just killed somebody,” the gunman could be heard saying at one point during the rampage that erupted just before midnight.
In the wake of the killings, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers authorized the sending of 500 members of the National Guard to Kenosha, doubling the number of troops. The governor’s office said he is working with other states to bring in additional National Guard members and law officers. Authorities also announced a 7 p.m. curfew, an hour earlier than the night before.
“A senseless tragedy like this cannot happen again,” the governor, a Democrat, said in a statement. “I again ask those who choose to exercise their First Amendment rights please do so peacefully and safely, as so many did last night. I also ask the individuals who are not there to exercise those rights to please stay home and let local first responders, law enforcement and members of the Wisconsin National Guard do their jobs.”
In Washington, the Justice Department said it is sending in the FBI and federal marshals in response to the unrest.
The dead were identified only as 26-year-old Silver Lake, Wisconsin, resident and a 36-year-old from Kenosha. The wounded person, a 36-year-old from West Allis, Wisconsin, was expected to survive, police said.
“We were all chanting ‘Black lives matter’ at the gas station and then we heard, boom, boom, and I told my friend, `‘That’s not fireworks,’” 19-year-old protester Devin Scott told the Chicago Tribune. “And then this guy with this huge gun runs by us in the middle of the street and people are yelling, ‘He shot someone! He shot someone!’ And everyone is trying to fight the guy, chasing him and then he started shooting again.”
Scott said he cradled a lifeless victim in his arms, and a woman started performing CPR, but “I don’t think he made it.”
According to witness accounts and video footage, police apparently let the young man responsible for the shootings walk past them with a rifle over his shoulder with his hands in the air as members of the crowd were yelling for him to be arrested because he had shot people.
As for why the gunman was allowed to leave, Sheriff David Beth portrayed a chaotic, high-stress scene, with screaming, chanting, nonstop radio traffic and “people running all over the place” — conditions that can cause “tunnel vision” among law officers.
Rittenhouse, identified in court papers as a lifeguard at a YMCA in Lindenhurst, Illinois, was assigned a public defender in Illinois for a hearing Friday on his transfer to Wisconsin. The public defender’s office had no comment. Under Wisconsin law, anyone 17 or older is treated as an adult in the criminal justice system.
Much of Rittenhouse’s Facebook page is devoted to praising law enforcement, with references to Blue Lives Matter, a movement that supports police. He also can be seen holding an assault rifle.
Other photographs include those of badges of various law enforcement agencies, including the Chicago Police Department. All of the badges have a black line across them — something police officers do with black tape or other material whenever an officer is killed in the line of duty.
In a photograph posted by his mother, he is wearing what appears to be a blue law enforcement uniform as well as the kind of brimmed hat that state troopers wear.
The sheriff told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that armed vigilantes had been patrolling Kenosha’s streets in recent nights, but he did not know if the gunman was among them. However, video taken before the shooting shows police tossing bottled water from an armored vehicle to what appear to be armed civilians walking the streets. And one of them appears to be the gunman.
“We appreciate you being here,” an officer is heard saying to the group over a loudspeaker.
The sheriff later defended officers by saying, “Our deputies would toss water to anybody.”
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is Black, said in an interview with the news program “Democracy Now!” that the shootings were not surprising and that white militias have been ignored for too long.
“How many times across this country do you see armed gunmen, protesting, walking into state Capitols, and everybody just thinks it’s OK?” Barnes said. “People treat that like it’s some kind of normal activity that people are walking around with assault rifles.”
In Wisconsin, it is legal for people 18 and over to openly carry a gun, with no license required.
Witness accounts and video show that the shootings took place in two stages: The gunman first shot someone at a car lot, then jogged away, stumbled and fell in the street, and opened fire again as members of the crowd closed in him.
A witness, Julio Rosas, 24, said that when the gunman stumbled, “two people jumped onto him and there was a struggle for control of his rifle. At that point during the struggle, he just began to fire multiple rounds and that dispersed people near him.”
“The rifle was being jerked around in all directions while it was being fired,” Rosas said.
Sam Dirks, 22, from Milwaukee, said he had seen the suspected gunman earlier in the evening, and he was yelling at some of the protesters.
“He was definitely very agitated. He was pacing around, just pointing his gun in general. Not necessarily at anyone specifically,” Dirks said.
Blake, 29, was shot, apparently in the back, on Sunday as he leaned into his SUV, three of his children seated inside. Kenosha police have said little about what happened other than that they were responding to a domestic dispute. They have not said whether Blake was armed, and they have not disclosed the race of three officers on the scene.
On Tuesday, Ben Crump, the lawyer for Blake’s family, said it would “take a miracle” for Blake to walk again. He called for the officer who opened fire to be arrested and for the others involved to lose their jobs.
The shooting was captured on cellphone video and ignited new protests in the U.S. three months after the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer touched off a nationwide reckoning over racial injustice.
During the unrest in Kenosha since then, protesters destroyed dozens of buildings, set fires and hurled objects at police, who responded with tear gas on three straight nights.
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Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin. Associated Press reporters Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee, Jeff Baenen and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis, Don Babwin in Chicago and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed, as did news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York.
GOP Rep. Mark Walker Says He Was Contacted About Liberty University Job
Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) has said he was contacted by a Liberty University board member about the potential of taking the helm at the evangelical institution following the resignation of Jerry Falwell Jr. on Monday.
The former pastor, who is also vice-chair of the House Republican Conference, had already decided against another run for Congress this year and told Politico that while hadn’t really considered the post, he was not entirely closed off to the idea after he was contacted by a handful of students alumni, and church leaders.
“It’s not something I have considered, but Liberty University is too important to go without strong leadership,” Walker said.
Walker was among the top conservatives who suggested Falwell step down amid a series of scandals, calling his alleged behavior “appalling.”
“I have talked with a board member but my focus is for the Liberty University family to find healing while continuing its mission of developing Christ-centered men and women with the values, knowledge, and skills essential to impact the world,” Walker told Politico.
Earlier this week, Walker accused Democrats during a House Oversight Committee hearing of trying to “cancel” an ally of President Donald Trump, Louis DeJoy, claiming that the postmaster general was not who Democratic members of Congress had “villainized him to be.”
Walker may also be a contender for the Senate seat of Richard Burr (R-NC), who will not seek re-election at the conclusion of his term in 2022.
Trump Jr. Punches Back At Speculation He Was High At RNC: ‘You Have Me Confused With Hunter Biden’
Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday morning managed to throw Hunter Biden under the bus while hitting back at allegations of cocaine use during his RNC speech. Continue reading “Trump Jr. Punches Back At Speculation He Was High At RNC: ‘You Have Me Confused With Hunter Biden’”
Where Things Stand: Graham’s Remarks Are Part Of The Problem
It’s a meme that’s been circulating across social media for months, since George Floyd was murdered by police, sparking a reignited nationwide movement against police brutality and racial injustice: guilty people don’t deserve to be killed by police, either.
House Intel Narrows Trump Financial Record Subpoena To POTUS, Immediate Family
The House Intelligence Committee narrowed its subpoena for President Trump’s financial records on Wednesday, asking for a smaller range of information after the Supreme Court issued criteria last month for the content and purpose of congressional demands.
Continue reading “House Intel Narrows Trump Financial Record Subpoena To POTUS, Immediate Family”
‘Alternate Reality’: Biden Campaign Calls Out RNC’s Rosy View Of COVID Pandemic
The Biden campaign early Wednesday pushed back on the GOP convention’s rosy view of the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed more than 1,100 people in the United States on Tuesday alone.
In a three-minute pre-taped revisionist history lesson, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow repeatedly referred to the coronavirus pandemic in the past tense, suggesting it was a once-in-a-century hurtle that the country has already surmounted.
“It was awful,” Kudlow said, of the COVID-19 crisis that has killed more than 178,000 people in the United States and continues to kill more than 1,000 people per day as it did for five straight days last week. “Health and economic impacts were tragic. Hardship and heartbreak were everywhere,” he said.
“But presidential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the COVID virus.”
Kudlow is not unfamiliar with the kind of head-in-sand oblivion that he spewed on Tuesday. He had also famously asserted in late February that the coronavirus pandemic had been contained “pretty close to airtight,” and months later defended those claims to CNN anchor Jake Tapper in May, suggesting — as the coronavirus tore across the United States — that his winter remarks had been factual at the time.
Communications director for the Biden campaign, Kate Bedingfield, pushed back on what she called an the RNC’s “delusion” amid months of “utter mismanagement” of the pandemic by Trump in a statement issued Wednesday.
“President Trump’s RNC is an alternate reality,” Bedingfield said. “In this delusion, thousands of Americans didn’t die in the last week from COVID-19, nor have millions of Americans been infected or put out of work.”
The Biden campaign official rebuked Republicans for putting forward no clear plan for beating back the pandemic in the convention’s first two nights.
“Donald Trump’s continual refusal to take this virus seriously has given the United States the worst outbreak in the world,” Bedingfield said in the statement.
“His convention’s refusal to come to grips with reality or acknowledge the magnitude of the loss is a stark reminder to Americans of his complete failure to lead,” she added.
Meadows Dismisses Hatch Act Concerns: ‘Nobody Outside Of The Beltway Really Cares’
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Wednesday scoffed at concerns that the official government procedures that were carried out at the Republican National Convention (RNC) the night before, including a naturalization ceremony, were in violation of a law forbidding the use of government activity to boost political interests, aka the Hatch Act.
National Hurricane Center Warns Of ‘Unsurvivable’ Storm Surge From Laura
DELCAMBRE, La. (AP) — Laura strengthened Wednesday into a menacing Category 4 hurricane, raising fears of a 20-foot storm surge that forecasters said would be “unsurvivable” and capable of sinking entire communities. Authorities implored coastal residents of Texas and Louisiana to evacuate and worried that not enough had fled.
The storm grew nearly 70% in power in just 24 hours to a size the National Hurricane Center called “extremely dangerous.” Drawing energy from the warm Gulf of Mexico waters, the system was on track to arrive late Wednesday or early Thursday as the most powerful hurricane to strike the U.S. so far this year.
Continue reading “National Hurricane Center Warns Of ‘Unsurvivable’ Storm Surge From Laura”
Two Shot Dead, One Wounded As Protests Continue Over Jacob Blake Shooting
This story was updated at 10:25 a.m. ET.
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Two people were shot to death and another was wounded during a third night of protests in Kenosha over the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, and authorities Wednesday hunted for a possible vigilante seen on cellphone video opening fire in the middle of the street with a rifle.
The gunfire was reported just before midnight, and Sheriff David Beth said one victim was shot in the head and another in the chest, the Milwaukee Journal Sentine l reported. The third victim’s wounds were not believed to life-threatening.
According to witness accounts and video footage, police apparently let the young white man responsible for some or all of the shootings walk past them with a semi-automatic rifle over his shoulder as members of the crowd were yelling for him to be arrested because he had shot people.
Beth said that investigators had reviewed footage and that he was confident a man would be arrested soon.
The sheriff told the Journal Sentinel that armed people had been patrolling the city’s streets in recent nights, but he did not know if the gunman was among them.
“They’re a militia,” Beth said. “They’re like a vigilante group.”
The FBI said it is assisting in the case.
Cellphone video of at least two of the shootings that was posted online shows a young man with a rifle jogging down the middle of a street as a crowd and some police officers follow him. Someone in the crowd can be heard asking, “What did he do?” and another person responds that the man had shot someone.
The man with the gun stumbles and falls, and as he is approached by people in the crowd, he fires three or four shots from a seated position, hitting at least two people, including one who falls over and another who stumbles away to cries of “Medic! Medic!”
A witness, Julio Rosas, 24, said that when the gunman stumbled and fell, “two people jumped onto him and there was a struggle for control of his rifle. At that point during the struggle, he just began to fire multiple rounds and that dispersed people near him.”
“The rifle was being jerked around in all directions while it was being fired,” Rosas said.
In the cellphone footage, as the crowd scatters, the gunman stands up and continues walking down the street as police cars arrive. The man puts up his hands and walks toward the squad cars, with someone in the crowd yelling at police that the man had just shot someone, but several of the cars drive past him toward the people who had been shot.
Protester Devin Scott told the Chicago Tribune that he witnessed one of the shootings.
“We were all chanting ‘Black lives matter’ at the gas station and then we heard, boom, boom, and I told my friend, `’That’s not fireworks,’” said Scott, 19. “And then this guy with this huge gun runs by us in the middle of the street and people are yelling, ‘He shot someone! He shot someone!’ And everyone is trying to fight the guy, chasing him and then he started shooting again.”
Scott said he cradled a lifeless victim in his arms, and a woman started performing CPR, but “I don’t think he made it.”
At a news conference earlier Tuesday, Ben Crump, the lawyer for Blake’s family, said that Blake was shot multiple times by police on Sunday and that it would “take a miracle” for him to walk again. He called for the officer who opened fire to be arrested and for the others involved to lose their jobs.
The shooting of Blake — apparently while three of his children looked on — was captured on cellphone video and ignited new protests in the U.S. three months after the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer touched off a nationwide reckoning over racial injustice.
Kenosha police have said little about what happened other than that they were responding to a domestic dispute. They have not said why the officers opened fire or whether Blake was armed, and they have not disclosed the race of three officers on the scene.
The 29-year-old Blake underwent surgery Tuesday, according to Crump, who added that the bullets severed his spinal cord and shattered his vertebrae. Another attorney said there was also severe damage to organs.
Blake’s father, also named Jacob Blake, told the Chicago Sun-Times that his son had eight holes in his body. At a news conference, he said police shot his son “seven times, seven times, like he didn’t matter.”
“But my son matters. He’s a human being and he matters,” he said.
Blake’s mother, Julia Jackson, told CBS “This Morning” in an interview that aired Wednesday that she feels as if she is in a “bad dream” and that it felt “unreal” that her son’s name has been added to the list of Black people who were shot by police.
“Never in a million years did I think we would be here in this place. Him being alive is just a miracle in itself,” she said.
During the latest round of unrest on Tuesday, police fired tear gas for the third straight night to disperse protesters who had gathered outside Kenosha’s courthouse, where some shook a protective fence and threw water bottles and fireworks at officers lined up behind it. On Monday night, crowds destroyed dozens of buildings and set more than 30 fires downtown.
On Tuesday, before the two deadly shootings, Kenosha County Board sent a letter to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers requesting that at least 2,000 more National Guard troops be sent. Evers initially dispatched 150 troops on Monday and increased that to 250 on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the board sent a second request, for 1,500 troops.
“Our county is under attack. Our businesses are under attack. Our homes are under attack. Our local law enforcement agencies need additional support to help bring civility back to our community,” board leaders wrote.
Evers did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and GOP Rep. Bryan Steil, whose district includes Kenosha, said Evers should accept federal troops from President Donald Trump.
Anger over the shooting has spilled into the streets of other cities, including Los Angeles and Minneapolis, the epicenter of the Black Lives Matter movement this summer following Floyd’s death.
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Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin. Associated Press reporters Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee, Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis, Aaron Morrison in New York, and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed.
Correction: This story’s headline originally reported that Jacob Blake had died after being shot by the police. He was severely wounded and is reportedly paralyzed from the waist down. We regret the error.