Wisconsin has been a little spicy this past week.
A police shooting sparks yet another city being besieged by rioters who think it’s a good idea to burn it all down.
In my youth, friends and I would cross the IL/WI border to do a little drinking in Kenosha. Back then, the legal age for a beer in IL was 21, but 18 in WI, hence the pilgrimage, lol. One of our group was a Harley mechanic, so we’d visit a biker bar called ‘The Midnight Hour’. They made a killer Kamikaze, which we ordered by the pitcher. 38 Special played there once. Good times, but I digress.
Now, part of Kenosha is smoldering ruins.
You hear the stories about the rioters being mostly ‘out-of-towners’, and there could be something to that. I monitor local FB groups, and after the first night of riots, there was a certain contingent of locals who thought it would be a good idea to meet at our courthouse, then travel the 2 hours to Kenosha to ‘support’ the rioters. SMH. So this is not just a group of paid agitators, these are regular left-leaning folk who are so frustrated with [fill in the misdirected cause of the day] that they’d risk their own lives for a few hours of gleeful chaos at (mostly) someone else’s expense.
I think this sort of thing is going to get worse up to – and possibly after the election.
And if it can happen in nowhere Wisconsin, don’t think it couldn’t kick off in your backyard too.
To make things more interesting, a group of folks took it upon themselves to protect local businesses from the ne’er do wells, a la the III% in riots past and Korean business owners of Rodney King history. Good intentions perhaps, but flawed execution.
Wikipedia (as of now – this could change) has a pretty good breakdown of events as things went south for the young Rittenhouse. You can read more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenosha_protests#Fatal_shooting_of_protesters
When the police line moved, the group Rittenhouse was with also moved, and this is where his problems began, as he was then separated from the group. A few things bother me about this.
- Situational Awareness – why did the group not recognize the line move as a potential threat, or
- Organizational integrity – why were they not working as a squad/team/battle buddy, and finally
- Where the hell were their comms? I’m sure Rittenhouse would much rather have been extricated from the sh*tshow rather than shoot his way out of it.
Of course, I wasn’t there (on purpose) so I don’t have all of the intel on the ground.
One thing’s for sure though – if I ever make it a point to attend a riot, I’ll have comms, and so will the team. We’ll probably also set up a mobile cross-band repeater to make it harder for those who would attempt to listen in. But that’s another post.
Recommendation: Get your comms up. Have a family communication plan. Need some help with that? Let me know in the comments.
Need a good radio setup? Patrick has this EMP Safe kit that comes with two pre-programmed radios, a solar charger, external antennas, and other goodies. I own this setup and have field-tested everything, easily hitting the Sheboygan repeater from just north of Milwaukee on the 2m band. The rubber-ducky antennas are okay, but you can get longer ones if you need more distance.
As events unfold, I don’t think I can stress enough the importance of comms as an insurance policy for your personal safety.
I’d promised to talk more about local radio clubs in a previous communication, but I thought this was more pressing. Stay tuned and I’ll get to it very soon.
K
P.S. Remember to leave your questions in the comments below.
Codename K says
DOH! In the article, I initially linked to the Single radio kit instead of the Two-Radio kit. I’ve fixed the link so you can now buy the right kit. Sorry about that.
Can I blame Autocorrect? (worth a try, lol)