A third night of street protests over the police shooting of a Black man erupted into gun violence late Tuesday and early Wednesday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing two people and wounding one, police said.
Social media videos showed chaotic scenes of people running and screaming amid a volley of gunfire and others tending to gunshot wounds. The bloodshed followed a night of skirmishes that had appeared to turn calm after police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters who defied a curfew.
The shooting broke out shortly before midnight, killing two people and wounding a third who was expected to survive, the Kenosha Police Department said in a statement.
Crowds chased a man running down the street with a rifle after they believed he had shot another man.
One pursuer took a flying kick at him after he fell to the ground. Another man tried to grab his weapon and appeared to be shot at close range, falling to the ground.
Another video showed a man who appeared to be shot in the head as several people rushed to his aid, frantically trying to tend to his wound and keep him alert.
Yet another video showed a man with a severe arm wound sitting on the ground and being aided by an armed man as police approached.
Kenosha has been rocked by protests since Sunday, when police shot Jacob Blake, 29, in the back at close range.
After struggling with the police, Blake broke free and walked away from them and around his car to the driver’s side, where he was shot after opening the door, according to a bystander video that went viral.
Three of his young sons were in the car, witnesses said.
Blake was hit by four of the seven shots fired and left paralysed and “fighting for his life,” his family and lawyers said on Tuesday, hours before the latest round of civil unrest broke out in the lakefront town between Milwaukee and Chicago.
Anti-racism protesters also clashed with police in Portland, Oregon, and Louisville, Kentucky, on Tuesday night, part of a wave of national protests that have continued since the May 25 death of a Black man in Minneapolis, George Floyd, who was pinned to the street under the knee of a white police officer.
The Kenosha protests have drawn self-styled militias, patrolling the streets with rifles or standing guard.