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17-year-old arrested in connection with fatal shooting at Jacob Blake protest in Kenosha

Kyle Rittenhouse was arrested after two people were killed and one person was injured when shots rang out at the protest just before midnight Tuesday, police said.
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A 17-year-old Illinois resident, sought on a first-degree intentional murder charge in connection with a fatal shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, at a protest sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, was arrested Wednesday in his hometown.

The suspect, Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch, Illinois, was taken into custody Wednesday and was being held in the Lake County Judicial System pending an extradition hearing to transfer custody to Wisconsin, the Village of Antioch Police Department said in a Facebook post.

Authorities in Kenosha County had issued an arrest warrant for him earlier Wednesday on a charge of first-degree intentional homicide, the department said. The Kenosha Police Department has not commented on the arrest.

Image: Protests in Kenosha
Demonstrators retreat from tear gas in front of the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Monday.Brandon Bell / Getty Images

Two people, a 26-year-old from Silver Lake and 36-year-old from Kenosha, were killed when shots rang out at the protest just before midnight Tuesday, police said. A 26-year-old person from West Allis sustained non-life-threatening injuries. The identities of the victims have not been released.

The sound of gunfire was captured shortly before midnight on a video posted by a reporter for NBC affiliate WTMJ of Milwaukee. The video shows what looks like law enforcement vehicles outside a gas station. People are seen running as shots ring out.

In another video posted on Twitter, which has been verified by NBC News, a man can be seen sitting in the middle of a street aiming a gun at people who are running. One person appears to try to grab the weapon; then a shot is fired and the person appears to collapse on the ground a few feet from the shooter.

The video showed that at least one other person was shot before the shooter got up and walked down a street. The video did not show what happened before the gunfire, and NBC News has not confirmed whether the incident is the same shooting described by police.

The protests in the city, about 40 miles southeast of Milwaukee, were sparked by the shooting by police of Blake, 29, on Sunday. A video of the shooting was widely shared on social media.

Blake was shot seven times by an officer at close range and is paralyzed from the waist down, family attorney Patrick Salvi said Tuesday. Doctors do not know whether the condition is permanent.

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Benjamin Crump, a lawyer who is also representing the family, said Blake was "helping to de-escalate a domestic incident" when the officer shot him from behind as Blake was walking away.

The police department has released few details beyond saying officers were responding to a domestic incident at 5:11 p.m. Sunday when the shooting occurred.