Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis on Wednesday suggested that people who violated curfew were to blame for the fatal shooting of two individuals during a night of protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
“Everybody involved was out after the curfew,” Miskinis said at a press conference just hours after the Wednesday morning incident in Wisconsin. “I’m not gonna make a great deal of it but the point is — the curfew’s in place to protect. Had persons not been out involved in violation of that, perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened.”
“This is not the action, I believe, of those who set out to do protests,” he added. “It is the persons who were involved after the legal time, involved in illegal activity, that brought violence to this community.”
Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, of nearby Antioch, Ill., has been charged in connection with the shooting from early Wednesday.
Protests have rocked Kenosha since Sunday’s police shooting of Blake, a 29-year-old Black man who was shot seven times in the back.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has called for the resignation of Miskinis, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth and Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian.
“The ACLU strongly condemns Sheriff Beth and Police Chief Miskinis’ response to both the attempted murder of Jacob Blake and the protests demanding justice for him. Their actions uphold and defend white supremacy, while demonizing people who were murdered for exercising their first amendment rights and speaking out against police violence,” said Chris Ott, executive director of the ACLU’s Wisconsin branch.
The Hill has reached out to the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department for comment.
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