'It Hurts': Neighbors Recount Jacob Blake Kenosha Police Shooting

KENOSHA, WI — It's early Monday morning, and Donnell and Tamika Lauderdale are out on 28th Street using a kitchen broom to spread bleach across a 10-foot section of the roadway where 29-year-old Jacob Blake was shot and severely wounded by Kenosha police the night before.

"We feel like his blood shouldn't be here on this ground," Donnell told Patch. "We are using whatever tools we got to clean up the mess that somebody else made."

Modest single-family homes and duplexes line 28th Street. Children's toys and toddler-size bicycles lie scattered here and there in front yards and sidewalks, signs of children once at play.

"This neighborhood is one of the best neighborhoods in Kenosha," Donnell said, "especially here around this corner. What happened right here is proof that the devil is still at work."

Donnell lives just down the street from Blake and told Patch that Blake had been at his house a half-hour before he was shot and wounded by Kenosha police.

"The police were called here," Donnell said. "But it wasn't as bad as it ended. The police could have just let him get in his car and leave with his kids in the car."

Donnell said Blake's children were in the car when Kenosha police opened fire on their father — an appalling thought, he said.

"It was the 6-year-old's birthday," he said. "He left our house about 30 minutes before with presents in his hands for the kids."

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Shooting Captured On Video

Police were called to the area just after 5 p.m. Sunday on a report that Blake had been involved in a dispute between two women.

An eyewitness posted video of the incident on Twitter. (As a caution to the viewer, the content of the video contains graphic and dramatic footage.)

>> National Guard Called To Kenosha Following Jacob Blake Shooting

In the eyewitness video, Blake is seen walking away from officers around a parked SUV. The video shows Blake with his back turned, and officers pointing guns at him.

At one point in the video, Blake is seen opening the SUV door. A moment later, the video captures an officer trying to hold Blake's shirt.

Video shows Blake pulling away, and several officers firing multiple gunshots at him. Video shows Blake collapsing into the driver's seat of the SUV.

'We Want Justice For This Young Man'

Minister Sophia Degraffenreid from Zion, Illinois, was on her way to work when she decided to drive past Blake's house. There, she saw Donnell and Tamika out in the street cleaning up dried blood.

She got out of her car, prayed with them, gave hugs and spent time talking as the sun rose over their neighborhood.

"We want people to make sure they see a human race. I wasn't here, but that video is unacceptable," she told Patch. "Why didn't they use another tactic? We're asking that the police are held accountable."

Degraffenreid told Patch she has lost two immediate loved ones to gun violence during her time in Chicago and does not want to see more suffering for the Black community she loves.

"As a Black mother with a Black son with two dead baby daddies due to gun violence in the city of Chicago, I'm tired," she told Patch. "I don't want to see Black-on-Black violence, I don't want to see white-on-Black violence. I don't want to see it on any nationality. We want justice for this young man, and everyone who's lost their lives to police brutality and gun violence — especially the Black community."

As day broke over this once-quiet neighborhood in Kenosha, Donnell reflected upon events that happened over the last 24 hours — ones that touched his heart, his family, community and now the world.

"It never stops, so we've got to make it some way, and we are going to keep trying till we do," he said. "People are looting and rioting for a reason. It's not because they want to destroy the town; it's in their heart that they're angry. We're angry. It hurts. It keeps happening. Everywhere."