Trump to go to Kenosha in wake of racial unrest
US President Donald Trump will travel in a few days to the Midwestern city where African American Jacob Blake was shot multiple times in the back by a white policeman, sparking a nationwide wave of protest.
Trump will meet police in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday and “survey damage from recent riots” triggered by Blake’s shooting last weekend, White House spokesman Judd Deere said Saturday.
Blake took at least six shots before his small children as he tried to find yourself in a car, within an incident which has prompted an outpouring of anger over just one more shooting of a black man by police.
Deere didn't say if Trump would meet up with the category of Blake, 29, who was simply left paralyzed from the waist down.
Protesters have taken to the streets in major cities nationwide come early july over the deaths of black persons as a result of police, including George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.
It is the most widespread civil unrest in america for decades.
Trump has characterized the mostly-peaceful activists as rioters as he pushes a law and order message while fighting an uphill battle for re-election in November.
Kenosha, about an hour’s drive from Chicago, saw three nights of violence following the Blake shooting as protesters set fire to buildings and cars.
Major US sports leagues including the NBA were forced to suspend play as African American and other players outraged by the shooting joined the latest national wave of anger over racial injustice and police misconduct.
On Friday thousands of protesters thronged the US capital for a mass march marking the anniversary of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s historic “I have a dream” speech on August 28, 1963.
It had been dubbed “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks,” in reference to Floyd, who suffocated under the knee of a white officer.
Often fighting back tears, relatives of Floyd, Blake and Breonna Taylor - a black 26-year-old shot dead by police in her apartment last March - took turns addressing the ocean of people, who repeatedly called out the victims’ names in response.
“Black America, I hold you accountable,” said Blake’s sister Letetra Widman. “You need to stand, you need to fight, however, not with violence and chaos. With self love.”
Like his father 57 years ago, Martin Luther King III stood on the Lincoln Memorial steps and urged Americans to keep fighting inequality - and to vote in November no matter what to defeat Trump.
“We are going for a step of progress on America’s rocky but righteous journey towards justice,” King said.
