Kenosha Buildings Burn In Second Night Of Jacob Blake Protests

KENOSHA, WI — Multiple buildings were torched, storefronts were damaged and graffiti littered boarded-up buildings during the second night of destruction in Kenosha following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

On Monday morning, Kenosha residents had awakened to smoldering buildings and firefighters aloft on ladders trying to extinguish flames. But compared to the destruction caused Sunday night into early Monday morning, Monday night's destruction was far more extensive and cut across a greater portion of the city.

Damage was once again reported downtown, as well as west into Kenosha's Uptown neighborhood and into a retail center in Pleasant Prairie that included Dick's Sporting Goods and the Kenosha Target store.

Kenosha police were out in force Monday night, using tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper bullets to disperse an angry crowd that gathered in front of the Kenosha County Courthouse.

About 125 members of the National Guard were called out to the area Monday afternoon to brace for the second night of civil unrest. Authorities instituted an 8 p.m. curfew; however, that did little good as protesters ransacked both the downtown area and the Uptown area, which is west of the city center.

"What we heard last night in the city of Kenosha is unacceptable," Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian said during a Monday afternoon news conference, which had to be moved indoors to prevent from being overrun by protesters. "Rioting and looting is not something that is acceptable to the community. [It] also has consequences, and people will have to be held accountable in legal process and due process just like everybody else."

Blake, 29, was shot Sunday evening by police as he leaned into his SUV, cell phone video showed. The shooting occurred while three of his children were reportedly sitting inside the vehicle.

Blake's father, also named Jacob Blake, said his son is paralyzed from the waist down following the shooting. Blake's father told the Chicago Sun-Times that he was told his son was shot eight times during the confrontation with police.

The Danish Brotherhood Lodge, 2206 63rd St., was set ablaze just before 11 p.m. Monday in Kenosha's Uptown neighborhood, which is a collection of businesses and homes near 63rd Street and 22nd Avenue just west of downtown Kenosha.

Just around the corner, Rode's Camera Shop lay in ruins. The shop first opened in 1911 and took up residence in Uptown during the 1950s. The business has been owned by several generations of the Rode family. Early Tuesday, it lay in a smoldering heap beneath charred wood and crumbling brick.

Uptown bore the brunt of Monday night's protest, as a nearby mattress shop and local tavern were burned and sustained heavy damage. Storefronts throughout the area had smashed windows and other, lighter damage.

Traffic control barricades and yellow police tape crisscrossed the Uptown area Tuesday morning as people held out their smartphones, or simply stopped to look with their own eyes, at the destruction. The Uptown area in Kenosha was covered in a thick haze of smoke as firefighters worked to finish off the fires at the Danish Brotherhood Lodge and camera shop.

Downtown, teams of public workers picked up shards of glass, broken window and, shattered streetlight domes and collected the toppled streetlights and traffic standards that were upended Monday night into early Tuesday.

Once vibrant, even by coronavirus pandemic-era standards, downtown Kenosha stood at a standstill Tuesday morning. Nearly all buildings had boarded-up windows, and some had messages pleading with protesters to leave them alone. Some businesses had "BLM" or "Black-Owned" spray-painted on them, while the Olive Tree Restaurant had the message "Kids Live Upstairs" written in red spray paint.

Reporting and writing from The Associated Press were used in this report.