Kenosha, Wisconsin still recovering from Jacob Blake riot damages

What happens after race riot chaos dies down, and the people living in those cities have to pick up the pieces?

That’s what a new report from the Washington Examiner goes into. The piece by investigative reporter Barnini Chakraborty highlights the long-term aftermath of what happened to Kenosha, Wisconsin. A town thrown into turmoil last year after police officer Rusten Sheskey shot Jacob Blake Jr. in the back several times, and paralyzed him.

Black Lives Matter activists at the time didn’t need to know any more details before showing up for retribution. By that meaning $50 million in damages to businesses in the area, as the local fire department raced to put out a whopping 37 arsons “on the second night alone.”

In contrast to a bigger city like Minneapolis, the George Floyd situation caused damages "estimated to exceed $500 million and the Trump administration denied a request for federal funding to help offset the cost of cleanup and recovery."

In the case of Kenosha’s local business owners like Samantha Jacquest, their stance has nuance. The outlet describes how she was set to open a bookstore right before the rioting broke out. Amongst that turmoil Jacquest found herself coordinating with other local businesses to protect one another from looting.

It’s people like her who ended up cleaning up the property damage, and tasked with the general business recovery efforts.

Samantha Jacquest told Washington Examiner that the Kyle Rittenhouse incident "was the last thing Kenosha needed."

In that situation Kyle claimed he was protecting local businesses one night during the riots, and ended up needing to protect his own life after rioters went after him.

In terms of those demonstrators in general, Jacquest believes "that the people who came here and caused the most damage didn't give two hoots about what had actually happened."

The president of the Kenosha Area Chamber of Commerce said that he "hasn't heard of anyone uptown trying to reopen."

What Kenosha is left with for now is people still protesting (Rusten Sheskey’s reinstatement created more activist backlash). But they’re doing so in a damaged shell of a city that hasn’t yet recovered to where it was.