Kenosha Shooting Leaves 2 Dead, 1 Injured During Jacob Blake Protests

Two people have died and another person was seriously injured in a shooting after protests erupted into violence for a third night in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Jacob Blake's shooting by police in Kenosha on Sunday has ignited fresh protests against police brutality and racial injustice in a number of cities across the country—three months after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a national reckoning.

The encounter was captured on cellphone video, showing police opening fire, apparently shooting him several times in the back as he leaned into his SUV. Three of Blake's young sons witnessed it from the back seat of the vehicle.

Blake's spinal cord was severed by the bullets and some of his his vertebrae were shattered, leaving him paralyzed, his family's attorney Ben Crump revealed during a press conference on Tuesday. "It's going to take a miracle for Jacob Blake Jr. to ever walk again," Crump said.

Hours later, demonstrations in Kenosha erupted into violence for the third night in a row.

Police clashed with protesters who gathered outside a newly erected metal barrier protecting the Kenosha County Courthouse.

Officers in riot gear fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd after an 8 p.m. curfew took effect, while protesters threw water bottles, rocks and fireworks, according to the The New York Times.

Some protesters later ended up at a gas station not far from a courthouse, where a group of armed men stood outside and argued with protesters, promised to protect the property from damage, according to the newspaper.

Police responded to reports of shots being fired and multiple gunshot victims in the vicinity of 63rd Street and Sheridan Road at around 11.45 p.m., the Kenosha Police Department said in a news release.

Two of the gunshot victims have since died, police sad, while a third was transported to a hospital with serious injuries that are not life-threatening.

No further details about the incident was revealed, nor details about the victims.

But Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth told The Times that his office's investigation is focused on the group of men with guns outside the gas station. The sheriff's office has been contacted for additional comment.

Several videos posted on social media captured the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

Reporter Drew Hernandez shared a clip on Twitter, where several shots are heard ringing out. Several people are seen crowding around a man, who appears to have been shot in the head, and applying pressure to his wound.

"It appears an armed citizen was defending the car dealership and opened fire on the rioter who was attempting to vandalize or burn the dealership down," he wrote in another tweet.

"Someone has been shot in what appears to be the head while looting a car shop," Elijah Schaffer, a Blaze TV reporter, tweeted alongside a video showing people tending to the man's injuries. "I can not confirm the exact wound location but he's white and losing a lot of blood."

Shelby Talcott, a reporter with The Daily Caller, tweeted that her colleague Richie McGinniss carried one shooting victim into a car. A video she later shared shows several people placing a wounded man to a car across the street from a hospital.

"The victim is at the hospital. @RichieMcGinniss is there (he's okay). Said he believes a second gunshot victim just arrived," she wrote alongside the video.

In another video shared by Schaffer, a witness is seen speaking to a police officer about the perpetrators of the shooting.

"Official witness making a statement to officers that it was the boogaloo boy militia protecting a business that was being destroyed," Schaffer tweeted. "A second witness told me the same account off camera."

The Boogaloo, also known as the Boogaloo Bois or the Boogaloo movement, is an extremist group whose members have reportedly shown up at protests against police brutally as well as protests against stay-at-home orders amid the COVID-19 pandemic in recent months.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, those who have become associated with the term range from militia groups to white supremacists.

This article has been updated with additional information.