a mess in kenosha

As most of you know, at least if you're American, you'll have heard about the shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, seven times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, paralyzing Blake from the waist down. Riots ensued in the city (not far from where Greg lives), with burning, looting, and, after the National Guard was called out but wasn't able to stop the violence, the arrival of "militia". These appear to have been mostly white men armed with semiautomatic weapons, determined to "bring order" to the city when the authorities couldn't. That was a bad idea, like tossing a match on gasoline.

The result: two people were killed and one wounded. The suspect: 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse (a white teenager) from Illinois.  Rittenhouse, now charged with intentional homicide, had a history of supporting the police (the Washington Post said he was "fixated on supporting police"), and even entered firefighter and police cadet programs. The New York Times has a good article tracing Rittenhouse's movements that evening, including his alleged shooting of one person in the head and another in the chest. As the article reports:

Mr. Rittenhouse was arrested early Wednesday in his hometown, Antioch, Ill., which is about 30 minutes southwest of the protests in Kenosha, 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 that he ran a Facebook fund-raiser for on his 16th birthday.

His posts also suggest a strong affinity for guns, with videos showing Mr. Rittenhouse taking backyard target practice, posing with guns and assembling a weapon.

Illinois law does not prohibit ownership of semiautomatic weapons, also classified as "assault weapons", although Chicago and Cook County do. But Rittenhouse is from Antioch, which is in Lake County. His gun may have been purchased legally, then, though I'm not certain that a 17-year old can have one. State law mandates that if you're under 21 you can still own a gun if you have written permission from a parent or guardian who themselves can legally own guns. It's not clear if Rittenhouse's gun was his own, nor if a 17-year-old is of sufficient age.

Jacob Blake's family, to their immense credit, called for an end to rioting and destruction while deeply mourning their badly injured relative. One would think such a call from the victim's family would calm things down, but passions run high, inflamed by the George Floyd murder but also by armed right-wingers like Rittenhouse attracted to riots and demonstrations like flies to dung.

As for the shooting of Blake, the videos certainly make it look as though the cops shot him in the back multiple times without sufficient provocation, though we should await a formal investigation by the Department of Justice (not the local authorities). But the Kenosha police haven't been exactly professional about this. One report says this about the local police:

Moments before [the shootings], local law enforcement thanked the alleged shooter, 17-year-old former police cadet Kyle Rittenhouse, and his so-called “militia” colleagues for being on the scene. One sheriff’s deputy then gave Rittenhouse a bottle of water.

Videos widely-shared on social media verify the police department’s interactions with both the vigilante group and the alleged murderer.

Well, water I might forgive if they were dispensing it to everyone, but thanking a militia of armed thugs?

Finally, we have the odious Tucker Carlson actually justifying on Fox News the actions of the militia. Here's a video tweeted by Carlson himself (note: it's violent, and shows the shootings).

Kenosha devolved into anarchy because the authorities abandoned the people. Those in charge, from the governor on down, refused to enforce the law. They’ve stood back and watched Kenosha burn. Are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? pic.twitter.com/oul2KUiDi3

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 27, 2020

First, the "looting and arson" didn't accelerate to murder in the sense that the looters and arsonists committed murder. It was an armed teenage militiaman who's alleged to have committed the murder. Yes, perhaps local law enforcement didn't do all that they could, or weren't prepared for rioting, but there is absolutely no excuse for armed teenagers to "enforce the law". Carlson concentrates more on the violence of the rioters, which is itself inexcusable, than on the murders, far more inexcusable.

The only thing Carlson gets right is that most Americans do not want this kind of rioting to go uncontrolled.  And I don't know what to think about his pronouncement that "this is not a race war; this is a class war." I'm not so sure. Did the militia descend on Kenosha, at least in part, because many of the rioters were black? Rittenhouse's post that "Blue Lives Matter" hints of racism.

This has all combined to depress me:

1.) Teenagers can get semiautomatic weapons in many places in America and carry them openly.

2.) The police have again shot an unarmed black person, though of course we should reserve final judgement until the DOJ investigation

3.) The police apparently had a cozy relationship with the armed militia the night of the shootings.

3.) A group of people, including Rittenhouse, descends on a city to keep order, with the predictable results.

4.) Despite the laudable calls for calm and peace from Blake's family, some people continue to justify the kind of rioting, arson, and looting resulting from a possibly criminal police killing. I cannot excuse that kind of violence, just as I cannot excuse Rittenhouse's militia-style invasion of Kenosha, with the resultant killing

5.) People like Carlson tacitly excuse not the rioting, but the militia and attendant murder (again, we have to await a trial before Rittenhouse's acts can be said to go beyond "alleged").

The only laudable behavior in this whole mess is that of Blake's family calling for an end to rioting, looting, and arson. Is it any wonder that some of us are depressed? This incident involves a whole concatenation of attitudes and actions that are increasingly common in America, including pervasive gun ownership, tribalism, whether it involve races or classes, and a feeling that one has the right to destroy and riot as a political act, combined with a feeling that one should take one's gun and go up north to act like the police.