DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Kenosha, Wis., saw more protests last night, and this time, they took a deadly turn. The Kenosha Police Department says three protesters were shot and two have died. All this comes after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was shot by police Sunday in Kenosha. Blake survived, but his family says he is paralyzed from the waist down after police shot him multiple times in the back. We have Wisconsin Public Radio's Rachael Vasquez with us this morning. Hi, Rachael.
RACHAEL VASQUEZ, BYLINE: Hi, David.
GREENE: Can you take us through these protests yesterday and how they became deadly?
VASQUEZ: Yeah, it really - it felt like two separate protests as the night went on for me, when I was out there walking around. Earlier in the evening, there was an initial march with about 100 or so protesters who kind of walked across the city. They were largely peaceful in - on foot and in cars. And they returned to the county courthouse area right around the 8 p.m. Central time curfew for the city. And they, at that time, urged a lot of the people who were with them to go home and to respect the curfew. And a lot of them did, but some didn't, and some stayed.
GREENE: Well, we should say the city of Kenosha Police Department has tweeted out that there were two fatalities last night and that they're following this with an investigation. I know we don't know much, but do you know where this became deadly? Was this around the protest that you're talking about or somewhere separate?
VASQUEZ: Yeah, it was in the kind of general vicinity of the protest, within about a couple blocks. And what we know about the investigation into the shootings so far is that they're focused on a group of protesters - or a group of civilians, I should say, who were there armed with guns and who were looking to protect private property. That's what they said, at least. They were there to try to prevent looting and things like that.
GREENE: It's going to be interesting to learn more about who they were. I mean, we know these protests have drawn a lot of different groups out onto the streets. The people who were out there protesting police brutality, I mean, can you tell us what exactly they're demanding at this moment?
VASQUEZ: Yeah, they have a couple different things that they're looking for. They want the release of any and all video related to the incident, to the shooting of Jacob Blake. They want a community review board to help give the Kenosha community a voice in some of the policing decisions that they say are negatively affecting communities of color there. And just like communities across the country, a lot of them are calling to defund the police as well.
GREENE: OK. And just to restate the news - we're getting word from the Kenosha Police Department that two people were killed last night in Kenosha. This is as protests continue over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, who remains hospitalized. His family says he is paralyzed.
Wisconsin Public Radio's Rachael Vasquez. Thank you so much for your reporting on this.
VASQUEZ: Thanks, David. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
