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 — Samantha Jacquest’s dream was to open an independent bookstore in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
She had a few pop-up shops in the past, but this latest venture would be her first brick-and-mortar store.
The weekend before Blue House Books was scheduled to open, Jacquest was busy in her downtown shop, putting up shelves, painting, and getting things in order for her opening on Aug. 29, 2020. What she didn’t know at the time was that just a few hours later, the future of her city and her business would be hanging on by a thread.
Across town, Kenosha police Officer Rusten Sheskey, a white man, had just shot Jacob Blake Jr., a black man, seven times in the back, leaving him partially paralyzed. The Aug. 23 incident took place in front of Blake’s three sons, who were 8, 5, and 3 at the time.
The incident was caught on camera by a neighbor, who then released it on social media. The video went viral within minutes.
JACOB BLAKE SHOOTER LEAVES LOANER GUN IN LOCKED CAR SEVEN MONTHS PRIOR TO THREE-DAY SUSPENSION
The outrage over what happened quickly spread across the country, and hundreds of people showed up in Kenosha to protest police brutality and racial injustice, just as they had following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.
What started as a peaceful protest morphed into a violent melee. Kenosha was burned, trashed, and looted.
The fire department in the city of fewer than 100,000 residents responded to 37 arsons on the second night alone.
The estimated damages to local businesses topped $50 million.
There wasn’t a plan in place to handle the volume of people who came to the small city or the momentum that was building as a handful of bad actors turned the protests into a mob-like scene.
“I do genuinely believe that the people who came here and caused the most damage didn’t give two hoots about what had actually happened,” Jacquest told the Washington Examiner. “They were just here to cause trouble.”
While authorities had their hands full, Jacquest and her friends sprang into action. They set up at a business downtown and worked to protect owners from angry rioters. They also focused on business recovery, organized local volunteers, provided supplies to business owners, and cleaned up the glass and debris left by looters.
Jacquest, who had been waiting for years to open her first bookstore, did so with boards on the windows and door.
KENOSHA OFFICER WHO SHOT JACOB BLAKE AVOIDS DISCIPLINE AND RETURNS TO DUTY
While Kenosha’s business community came together, the dialogue between the police and the protesters pulled them further apart, with each side growing more distrustful of the other.
Then came Kyle Rittenhouse — a white 17-year-old who showed up in Kenosha on Aug. 25 while the city was still in chaos.
He allegedly opened fire with his AR-15-style rifle on two protesters, killing them both. He claimed that he was trying to protect businesses from looters.
Black Lives Matter supporters painted Rittenhouse as a trigger-happy racist, while some conservatives turned him into the poster boy for gun rights groups. To Jacquest, Rittenhouse “was the last thing Kenosha needed.”
Nine months after the out-of-town demonstrators, the media, and the circus left town, Kenosha is still a shell of its former self.
Uptown looks like a graveyard of boarded-up businesses. Ironic messages spray-painted on closed stores tout kindness and love. Some have inspirational quotes, while others promote unity and the Black Lives Matter movement. One piece of plyboard attached to a crumbling brick building has hearts and handprints painted on it with the message, “We Love Our Community.”
Sweet sentiments aside, Kenosha’s business community might be too damaged to bounce back soon.
Lou Molitor, president of the Kenosha Area Chamber of Commerce, told the Washington Examiner that he hasn’t heard of anyone uptown trying to reopen.
“Memories don’t go away from what all happened last August,” he said. “It was a pretty bad time for the city, and people are still pretty cautious, especially after hours.”
The mayor and police department believe significant strides have been made to restore confidence, rebuild businesses, and bring the community together. Ninety percent of the people the Washington Examiner spoke to disagreed.
Mayor John Antaramian announced at a September press conference that he would lead the city as it works to improve the quality of life for black residents and open up a dialogue.
“It’s going to be my responsibility to make sure we’ve changed,” Antaramian said at the time.
A number of residents, business owners, and faith-based leaders the Washington Examiner spoke to said that aside from four “listening sessions,” Kenosha hasn’t done much.
“How do we bring harmony to our community when there continues to be an enormous amount of distrust and the city is not really doing anything to resolve it other than to tell us basically to get over it?” the Rev. Jonathan Barker of Kenosha-based Grace Lutheran Church asked.
Barker, a California native who has been in the Wisconsin city for more than a decade, was recently arrested alongside Blake’s uncle, Justin Blake. The men were part of a peaceful protest outside the Public Safety Building, which houses the Kenosha Police Department and the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office. The men were upset that Sheskey had been allowed to return to the police force without any sort of discipline, and they contend that the Blake family should have been given a heads-up as a courtesy. They also believe the police department’s lack of transparency has only created more tension.
“The tone has been unhelpful, and you would think that even in terms of self-interest, you’d say, ‘How can we start bringing harmony to our community for many reasons, including having businesses succeed and tax bases and getting reelected?’ And you’d think the city would be invested in bringing more reconciliation into Kenosha, but they haven’t been,” Barker said.
The Kenosha Police Department told the Washington Examiner that it hasn’t gotten a fair shake and has been vilified by people jumping to conclusions about what happened and what steps it is legally allowed to take in cases that generate national headlines.
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“There’s a whole lot more to the story, and the disadvantage for the police department is that in order to keep these investigations intact, to make sure that it is a fair and impartial and an unbiased investigation, we can’t get there and tell our side of the story like we want to,” said Lt. Joseph Nosalik, the public information officer for the Kenosha Police Department.
