This briefing has ended. Follow our latest coverage of the unrest in Kenosha, Wis., and elsewhere here.
Here’s what you need to know:
- The F.B.I. will lead the civil-rights inquiry into the shooting.
- Vice President Mike Pence noted the Kenosha unrest, but not what led to it.
- Athletes boycott to protest police violence and racism.
- The officer who shot Jacob Blake was identified.
- An Illinois teenager was arrested after two people were fatally shot.
The F.B.I. will lead the civil-rights inquiry into the shooting.
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., as continued protests coincided with demonstrations in other cities, boycotts in several pro sports leagues, and a call from the vice president for “law and order” from a national stage.
As protesters poured onto the streets of Kenosha, Oakland and other cities, the authorities also gave new details in the shooting of Mr. Blake, a Black man who was partially paralyzed after a white officer, Rusten Sheskey, fired at him in front of his children on Sunday.
Officials also announced the arrest of a 17-year-old from Illinois, saying he was charged with first-degree intentional homicide in a shooting that killed two men during protests in Kenosha on Tuesday night.
With hundreds of Wisconsin National Guard troops deployed to Kenosha, President Trump on Wednesday said he also planned to send federal law enforcement officials, raising concerns that clashes could worsen between protesters and the authorities there.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said late Wednesday that the agency had deployed more than 200 federal agents and marshals and would “continue to surge Kenosha with federal resources as needed and necessary.”
The newest unrest, after a summer of protest, came as the federal authorities were already straining under a series of crises: a major hurricane in the Gulf, wildfires in the West, and the coronavirus pandemic nationwide.
Hundreds of demonstrators marched peacefully late into the night in Kenosha, where many businesses’ windows were boarded up on Wednesday after violence had erupted on previous nights. The National Guard was again sent into the city, which imposed a curfew that started at 7 p.m.
The police briefly searched a truck that appeared to be carrying food and water for demonstrators, but there were no reports of clashes between law enforcement and protesters.
The F.B.I. said on Wednesday that it would conduct the federal inquiry in cooperation with the Wisconsin authorities.
This is the second such investigation for the Justice Department this year involving a white police officer and a Black man. In May, the department said it had opened an inquiry into Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of George Floyd during an arrest.
Civil rights advocates, and even some lawyers inside the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, doubt the department will announce a decision or take action in either case before the presidential election, especially given that Mr. Trump has built his re-election campaign in part around his staunch support for law enforcement officers.
Vice President Mike Pence noted the Kenosha unrest, but not what led to it.
Vice President Mike Pence, addressing the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, noted the strife gripping Kenosha, without mentioning what precipitated it: the latest shooting of a Black person by a white police officer.
Mr. Pence was the only speaker of the evening to mention the Wisconsin city, where peaceful protests over the past several days have been accompanied at times by looting and fires.
“The violence must stop, whether in Minneapolis, Portland or Kenosha,” the vice president said, citing other two other American cities where violence has also exploded amid protests. “Too many heroes have died defending our freedom to see Americans strike each other down.”
Mr. Pence, who in 2017 flew to Indianapolis for an N.F.L. game and then walked out after several players knelt during the national anthem, also sought to cast himself as a supporter of those who express their beliefs in nonviolent ways.
Athletes boycott to protest police violence and racism.
Athletes from the N.B.A., W.N.B.A., Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer and the professional tennis tour took their boldest stand yet against police brutality, boycotting games on Wednesday in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
The moves dramatically escalated a season of athletes demonstrating for social justice, with some players expressing doubts about continuing to play during widespread social unrest.
The boycotts came after Milwaukee Bucks players refused to come out of the locker room for their N.B.A. playoff game against the Orlando Magic. The league quickly postponed two other playoff games scheduled for Wednesday.
Players in other leagues soon followed their lead, with numerous professional basketball, baseball and soccer games called off as a result. In the tennis world, matches at the Western & Southern Open, which is being played in New York, were suspended on Thursday, organizers said, with matches for men and women scheduled to resume on Friday.
Naomi Osaka, a Japanese player who is Black, said on Wednesday night, before the announcement that the tournament had been suspended, that she would not play in the semifinals.
“As a black woman I feel as though there are much more important matters at hand need immediate attention, rather than watching me play tennis,” she said in a statement wrote on Twitter.
N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. players have long been at the forefront of protests in the sports world. But they went even further this year after the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and as leagues took an extended hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic.
LeBron James, the N.B.A.’s biggest superstar, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday: “WE DEMAND CHANGE. SICK OF IT.”
Since Mr. Blake was shot, many N.B.A. players had openly debated the wisdom of continuing to play, questioning whether the platform provided by the league’s return was amplifying their message or taking attention from the broader social justice movement.
On Wednesday, more than three hours after Milwaukee’s game against Orlando had been scheduled to start, Milwaukee’s George Hill and Sterling Brown read a team statement.
“We are calling for justice for Jacob Blake and demand the officers be held accountable,” Mr. Hill said. “For this to occur, it’s imperative for the Wisconsin State Legislature to reconvene after months of inaction and take up meaningful measures to address issues of police accountability, brutality and criminal justice reform.”
The Bucks’ three main owners issued a statement expressing support for the team’s players, and players and coaches from the 13 teams still at Walt Disney World were invited to a meeting Wednesday night to determine what should happen next — in essence to decide how soon, or even if, the playoffs should resume.
On Thursday morning, former President Barack Obama praised the Bucks “for standing up for what they believe in,” and commended the N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. “for setting an example.”
“It’s going to take all our institutions to stand up for our values,” he said on Twitter.
Asked by Politico about the unrest and boycotts on Thursday, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said, “I do think that peaceful protest has a place and it has importance.”
But he added that he wanted to move to a discussion of “constructive” solutions. “This country has seen enough of the protests and some of the negative things that can happen,” he said, “when the protests go too far or are hijacked by people who have a different agenda.”
About players in the N.B.A., he said: “They have the luxury of taking a night off from work. Most Americans don’t have the financial luxury to do that. I think it’s nice that they’re standing up for the issue, but I’d like to see them start moving into concrete solutions.”
The officer who shot Jacob Blake was identified.
Wisconsin’s attorney general on Wednesday identified the white police officer who shot Jacob Blake multiple times in Kenosha, Wis., as Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the city’s police force.
Officers were responding to a domestic complaint on Sunday afternoon when they attempted to arrest Mr. Blake, state officials said. They used a Taser on Mr. Blake but it failed to stop him, and Officer Sheskey then fired his gun into Mr. Blake’s back.
The attorney general, Josh Kaul, said that Officer Sheskey had fired his gun at Mr. Blake seven times. Mr. Kaul said that the officers who were involved in the confrontation, including Officer Sheskey, had been placed on administrative leave.
Mr. Kaul also said on Wednesday that Mr. Blake had acknowledged having a knife “in his possession” when the shooting occurred and that investigators had found a knife on the driver’s side floorboard of Mr. Blake’s car after the shooting.
Ben Crump, a lawyer for Mr. Blake’s family, said in a statement that Mr. Blake had not posed any threat to police officers on Sunday, and denied that he was carrying a knife.
“Based on our investigation on behalf of the Blake family, witnesses reported that Jacob had no knife in his hand,” Mr. Crump told CNN on Thursday morning. “All Jacob Blake was trying to do was get in his car and get his three little boys away from a volatile situation. He did not pose a threat to law enforcement.”
An Illinois teenager was arrested after two people were fatally shot.
A 17-year-old from Illinois was arrested and charged on Wednesday after two people were fatally shot during a chaotic night of protests in Kenosha, Wis.
The teenager, Kyle Rittenhouse, was arrested in Antioch, Ill., after being charged with first-degree intentional homicide, according to a court document filed in Lake County, Ill. Antioch is about 30 minutes southwest of Kenosha, just over the Illinois line.
The deadly shooting erupted on Tuesday during the third night of unrest in Kenosha, as protesters scuffled with a group of men who were carrying guns and saying they wanted to protect Kenosha businesses from looting.
A hail of gunfire broke out along a crowded, dark street, sending bystanders fleeing into parking lots, screaming. Two men, 26 and 36, were killed and a third was seriously injured.
The authorities said Mr. Rittenhouse was not a protester but they did not say what he was doing there.
The continuing strife in Kenosha prompted Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin to order hundreds of National Guard troops into the city. It also drew the attention President Trump, who has sought to portray jurisdictions run by Democrats as rife with danger and crime.
Mr. Trump tweeted on Wednesday that he planned to deploy federal law enforcement officials to Kenosha and that Mr. Evers, a Democrat, had agreed to accept the help.
Tracking Kyle Rittenhouse: a visual investigation.
Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Illinois resident who walked among protesters in Kenosha, Wis., carrying a military-style semiautomatic rifle, was arrested and faces a charge of first-degree intentional homicide in a shooting that killed two people Tuesday night.
Mr. Rittenhouse appeared on multiple videos taken during the night by protesters and bystanders who chronicled the events of the evening as peaceful protests gave way to chaos, with demonstrators, armed civilians and others facing off against one another and the police in the darkened streets.
The New York Times’s Visual Investigations unit analyzed hours of footage to track Mr. Rittenhouse’s movements leading up to, and during, the shootings.
Mr. Rittenhouse was arrested early Wednesday in his hometown, Antioch, Ill., about 30 minutes southwest of Kenosha and just over the state line.
Multiple posts on his social media accounts proclaim support for pro-police causes like the Blue Lives Matter movement and Humanize the Badge, a nonprofit group that he ran a Facebook fund-raiser for on his 16th birthday.
His posts also suggested a strong affinity for guns, with videos showing Mr. Rittenhouse taking backyard target practice, posing with guns and assembling an assault rifle.
But many details about both his background and his motivations for walking around the Kenosha protests carrying an assault rifle are still emerging.
Before the shootings
About two hours before the first shooting, the producer of a video livestream interviewed Mr. Rittenhouse at a Kenosha vehicle dealership.
Mr. Rittenhouse was there at the same time as several other armed men. Some of them were positioned on the building’s roof overlooking the parking lot where vehicles were burned the day before.
In a brief exchange on the livestream, he identifies himself as “Kyle.”
In another interview, Mr. Rittenhouse spoke with Richie McGinniss, a video editor at The Daily Caller, a conservative news and opinion site.
Mr. Rittenhouse said that he was there to protect the business, calling it “his job,” although there is no indication that he was asked to guard the site.
Later, he claimed to another videographer that he was pepper sprayed by someone in a nearby crowd while protecting property.
In most of the footage The Times has reviewed from before the shootings, Mr. Rittenhouse is around this area. He also offers medical assistance to protesters.
About 15 minutes before the first shooting, police officers drive past Mr. Rittenhouse, and the other armed civilians who claim to be protecting the dealership, and offer water out of appreciation.
Joe Biden supports peaceful protest and condemns “needless violence.”
As President Trump seized on the unrest in Kenosha, his opponent in the 2020 presidential election, Joseph R. Biden Jr., condemned what he called the “needless violence” that has roiled the city during several days of protests.
But Mr. Biden, the Democratic nominee, also expressed solidarity with peaceful protesters, denounced systemic racism and said he had spoken with the parents and other relatives of Mr. Blake, the Black man whose shooting by the police set off the protests in Kenosha.
“I told them justice must and will be done,” Mr. Biden, speaking in a video that was posted on social media, said of his discussions with Mr. Blake’s family members. He also urged those listening to his remarks to “put yourself in the shoes of every Black father and Black mother in this country and ask, ‘Is this what we want America to be?’”
Mr. Biden is confronting competing political pressures. While many Americans, including progressive Democrats, overwhelmingly support protests against racial injustice and police brutality, Mr. Trump has tried to cast his rival as a radical who would diminish or even eliminate police agencies, and unleash a wave of lawlessness.
Mr. Biden, who opposes cutting funds to the police, was emphatic in criticizing those who were not protesting peacefully.
“As I said after George Floyd’s murder, protesting brutality is a right and absolutely necessary,” he said. “Burning down communities is not protest, it’s needless violence. Violence that endangers lives. Violence that guts businesses, and shutters businesses, that serve the community. That’s wrong.”
Mr. Biden’s response to the events unfolding in Kenosha is his latest balancing act on law enforcement matters. His deep involvement in the 1994 crime bill, for example, has earned him skeptics among those who are focused on criminal justice reform.
On the flip side, the Trump campaign has repeatedly, and falsely, accused Mr. Biden of seeking to defund the police. Despite being untrue, the claim could hurt him, especially in swing states like Wisconsin, if Republicans are able to make it stick.
A Black man being sought by the Minneapolis police killed himself as they closed in.
A Black man who was wanted in a homicide fatally shot himself as the police closed in on a downtown Minneapolis street on Wednesday afternoon, prompting a new round of protests and looting, the authorities said, three months after the killing of George Floyd in the city set off global demonstrations against police violence.
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said the State Patrol was headed to the city to help restore order, and Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said he had ordered an immediate curfew and had requested additional help from the National Guard.
“What our city needs right now is healing,” Mr. Frey said at a news conference with the city police chief, Medaria Arradondo, on Wednesday night. “We do not need more destruction. We do not need property damage that is unacceptable in every way, shape and form, and I want to be very clear: It will not be tolerated.”
Later Wednesday evening, the police released video of the man shooting himself, saying it was important to quell rumors that he had been killed by the police.
“People need to know the facts,” Chief Arradondo said, as he echoed the mayor’s demand that people leave the downtown.
The new unrest came as protesters took to the streets elsewhere to condemn the shooting of Mr. Blake in Kenosha.
Protesters in Portland, Ore., continued their nightly demonstrations that have lasted for three months, with Wednesday night’s march billed as being in solidarity with Kenosha.
A crowd of about 200 marched to a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement building, where federal officers came out to confront the crowd. Some protesters threw projectiles, and federal officers pursued them with tear gas and other crowd-control munitions. Local police officers later made a series of arrests on nearby streets.
To the south, in Oakland, Calif., hundreds of protesters of protesters took to the streets in solidarity, with a march that began peacefully with a few hundred people calling for justice. Jacob Blake’s name was spray-painted on some boarded storefronts, and some protesters chanted the name of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Black man who was killed in the city in 2009.
Later, some protesters set small fires in the streets, breaking windows and flipping trash cans. The police shared video footage showing a small fire inside the shattered glass doors of the Alameda County courthouse in Oakland.
Photos showed smashed windows at a Whole Foods store, where a Black man had lost consciousness after being assaulted by a security guard in 2015 after an altercation about payment, and video footage also showed plumes of smoke rising near Lake Merritt after a car was set ablaze.
Reporting was contributed by Katie Benner, Julie Bosman, Sarah Mervosh, Elian Peltier, Jacey Fortin, David Botti, Stella Cooper, Andrew Das, Sopan Deb, Annie Karni, Ellen Almer Durston, Reid J. Epstein, Katie Glueck, John Ismay, Christoph Koettl, Michael Levenson, Sarah Mervosh, Azi Paybarah, Marc Stein, Sabrina Tavernise, Ainara Tiefenthäler, Christian Treibert, James Wagner, Haley Willis, Muyi Xiao, Elian Peltier, Tiffany May and Mike Baker.
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