Afternoon Edition: Aug. 26, 2020

Today’s update is a 5-minute read that will brief you on the day’s biggest stories.

SHARE Afternoon Edition: Aug. 26, 2020
KENOSHA_082620_45.jpg

Protesters retreat as a teargas canister explodes during a protest over the shooting of Jacob Blake last night in Kenosha, Wis.

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Good afternoon. Here’s the latest news you need to know in Chicago. It’s about a 5-minute read that will brief you on today’s biggest stories.

Afternoon Edition signup

Afternoon Edition


Chicago’s most important news of the day, delivered every weekday afternoon. Plus, a bonus issue on Saturdays that dives into the city’s storied history.

This afternoon will be sunny and extremely hot, with a high near 98 degrees. Tonight’s low will be around 77 degrees. And don’t expect things to cool down soon: More heat is in the forecast for tomorrow, with a high near 96 degrees and heat index values as high as 100 degrees.

Top story

Antioch teen arrested in fatal shooting during protests in Kenosha: Illinois police

Illinois police arrested a juvenile today after two people were shot to death during another night of Black Lives Matter protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

A law enforcement official identified the suspect as 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch. Commander Norman Johnson of the Antioch Police Department said the suspect was arrested on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide.

Antioch is about 15 miles from Kenosha, which has seen three straight nights of unrest since the police shooting of Blake, a Black man, on Sunday. Blake, who was apparently shot in the back while three of his children looked on, is paralyzed, and it would “take a miracle” for him to walk again, his family’s attorney said yesterday.

Two people were killed last nightin an attack carried out by a young white man who was caught on cellphone video opening fire in the middle of the street with a semi-automatic rifle. “I just killed somebody,” he could be heard saying at one point during the shooting rampage that erupted just before midnight.

Our complete coverage of the chaos in Kenosha

One victim was shot in the head and the other in the chest, Sheriff David Beth told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A third person suffered gunshot wounds not believed to be life-threatening.

Cellphone video of at least two of the shootings posted on social media shows a young man with a rifle jogging down the middle of a street as a crowd and some police officers follow him. Someone in the crowd can be heard asking, “What did he do?” and another person responds that the man had shot someone.

The man with the gun stumbles and falls, and as he is approached by people in the crowd, he fires three or four shots from a seated position, hitting at least two people, including one who falls over and another who stumbles away to cries of “Medic! Medic!”

A witness, Julio Rosas, 24, said that when the gunman stumbled and fell, “two people jumped onto him and there was a struggle for control of his rifle. At that point during the struggle, he just began to fire multiple rounds and that dispersed people near him.”

In the cellphone footage, as the crowd scatters, the gunman stands up and continues walking down the street as police cars arrive. The man puts up his hands and walks toward the squad cars, with someone in the crowd yelling at police that the man had just shot someone, but several of the cars drive past him toward the people who had been shot.

In the wake of the killings, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers authorized 500 members of the National Guard to support local law enforcement around Kenosha, doubling the number of troops sent in. The governor’s office said he working other states to bring in additional National Guard troops and law officers.

Get the latest reporting on Kenosha here.

More news you need

  1. Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden and running mate Sen. Kamala Harris talked to Jacob Blake’s parents and one of his sisters for about an hour today, his father told us. Biden brought nothing but “love, admiration, caring” and empathy to the phone call, the elder Blake said.
  2. Chicago’s school board is poised to decide this afternoon whether to keep officers in dozens of public high schools and for how long, or to accede to demands by Black students and activists to remove them from schools. The decision will come in the form of two votes, Nader Issa reports.
  3. COVID-19 has killed 37 more Illinoisans, public health officials announced today, marking the state’s highest number of deaths attributed to the virus in a single day in seven weeks. Among the latest victims is a teenage girl from Cook County.
  4. Shannon Ryan, 20, was walking downtown with her mother, Zoraleigh Ryan, when a man in an SUV plowed into them, knocking the mother to the ground before circling the block and hitting her mother again, dragging her half a block under his vehicle. Today, attorneys for the Ryan family announced the filing of a wrongful death suit against the driver.
  5. James Smith, the commander of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s security detail, has resigned, citing personal reasons. Lightfoot’s decision to appoint the retired Deputy U.S. Marshal as her security chief drew condemnation from the Fraternal Order of Police last year.
  6. Two men are facing federal charges in connection with looting at Northwest Side pharmacies in late May during civil unrest that followed the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. William Lorenz, 40, and Ivan Bermudez, 42, are each charged with conspiracy to commit burglary involving a controlled substance.
Subscription Offer
Support civic-minded, independent journalism by signing up for a Chicago Sun-Times digital subscription.

A bright one

South Side mom turns social justice issues into an entrepreneurship opportunity for her family

As South Side businesswoman Qiana Allen viewed footage of looters breaking into her Beverly clothing boutique in May, she knew she had to take matters into her own hands.

“I was upset. I was furious. I was hurt,” said Allen of her temporarily closed clothing store, Culture’s Closet, which caters to full-figured women. But what she thought about most wasn’t the store, but her two sons: “I felt like those boys didn’t have any guidance to show them that this wasn’t the right [way to express anger],“ she said.

merlin_92569902.jpg

Qiana Allen poses with her sons Kameron Cole (left) and and Keenan Cole at their shop, Munchiez, in Beverly.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Soon after, Allen told her sons, Keenan and Kameron Cole, that she was going to open Munchiez, a novelty candy store and cereal bar, and make them part owners and co-workers alongside her. Allen hopes the business will be an outlet for her boys, who are 20 and 15 years old, and keep them out of trouble. She also wants them to gain entrepreneurial skills along the way. 

“I’m definitely trying to show them hard work, dedication, and ambition,” she said. “But they’re both taking the initiative to do certain things that will make the business grow, and those are the things that I definitely want to make sure that they take with them for the rest of their lives as they grow into young men and become their own people.”

Read Evan F. Moore’s full story here.

From the press box

Bears running back David Montgomery left practice this morning after suffering a groin injury. The severity of the injury, which occurred when Montgomery slipped and fell during a drill, isn’t known yet, but coach Matt Nagy expressed optimism to reporters.

And in case you haven’t been paying attention to the South Side, Lucas Giolito’s no-hitter last night was the latest fun in a thrilling White Sox season, Rick Morrissey writes.

Your daily question ☕

What are you doing to prepare you and your kids for learning at home this fall?

Email us (please include your first name and where you live) and we might include your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.

Yesterday, we asked you to tell us how you imagine you’ll explain the pandemic of 2020 to your kids or grandkids. Here’s what some of you said…

“I would tell them…‘let’s just not speak of it.’” — Joy Lazouskas Gannon

“I’ll tell them 2020 was the year we learned a significant minority of Americans just didn’t care enough about the lives of strangers to tolerate being inconvenienced, so that those strangers might live rather than die.” — Dennis Fritz

“It SUCKED.” — Mary Fuson

Thanks for reading the Chicago Afternoon Edition.Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.

Sign up here to get the Afternoon Edition in your inbox every day.

The Latest
Despite getting into foul trouble, which limited him to just six minutes in the second half, Shannon finished with 29 points, five rebounds and two assists.
Cowboy hats, bell-bottoms and boots were on full display Thursday night as fans lined up for the first of his three sold-out shows.
The incident occurred about 3:40 p.m. near Minooka. The horse was successfully placed back into the trailer, and the highway reopened about 40 minutes later. No injuries were reported.
The Hawks conceded the game’s only two goals within the first seven minutes and were shut out for the 12th time this season in a 2-0 defeat Thursday.