Things have been utter chaos in Kenosha, Wisconsin. When the riots first began, a rioter pulled a gun out on a reporter. An elderly man attempted to defend his business and the mob beat him to a bloody pulp. Things seem to have calmed down a bit and now people are assessing the damage, including an Indian immigrant whose entire business went up in flames.
The Sunday Times' Josh Glancy walked through Kenosha and snapped pictures of the wreckage. The worst part, however, was that locals say it was people from out of town that caused the destruction and chaos.
Spent the last 36 hours walking around Kenosha in a daze. Large swathes of the city are indistinguishable from a war zone.
— Josh Glancy (@joshglancy) August 29, 2020
The destruction in places is total, the locals dazed, shocked and trying to be brave.
Here are some pictures /1 pic.twitter.com/d7JSNXrmX0
The worst hit area is uptown, beating heart of the city's black community. Ice cream shops, nail salons, faith missions, all smouldering husks /2 pic.twitter.com/hodOHhbd16
— Josh Glancy (@joshglancy) August 29, 2020
I couldn't even work out what this building used to be /3 pic.twitter.com/f3b7iBP54w
— Josh Glancy (@joshglancy) August 29, 2020
Every single local I spoke to blamed "out of towners" for the worst of the destruction. They didn't offer a huge amount of evidence for this, but it's a blanket consensus /4 pic.twitter.com/vboZYrRK9y
— Josh Glancy (@joshglancy) August 29, 2020
This is the car lot next to where the Kyle Rittenhouse shootings took place. You could still taste the smoke /5 pic.twitter.com/s1CwmUr17x
— Josh Glancy (@joshglancy) August 29, 2020
Residents have had to put signs up asking for rioters to be respectful and not destroy their building.
Pretty much every boarded up shop has a mural or painting on it now. Some have plaintive requests to prospective fire starters: "Kids live upstairs" /6 pic.twitter.com/PcaNJs3lnK
— Josh Glancy (@joshglancy) August 29, 2020
A (former) job centre in uptown Kenosha /7 pic.twitter.com/1WbYSTeHZ4
— Josh Glancy (@joshglancy) August 29, 2020
The owner of this bar told me they'd opened just before the pandemic. Having eventually reopened, it was broken into this week, he estimated $25k worth of damage /8 pic.twitter.com/4BFh8zcgRM
— Josh Glancy (@joshglancy) August 29, 2020
As we were talking, a young man came to ask the owner where the nearest post box was. "There used to be two across the street," he replied. "But they both just got burnt."
— Josh Glancy (@joshglancy) August 29, 2020
/end
In the weeks to come, the media will move on and forget about Kenosha and other places that have fallen to the mob. The sad part: the locals will be left to clean up and rebuild following the destruction caused by out of towners.