Jim Mallardo and Billy Morrisey are part of a group of residents who have mobilized to help put out fires lit by rioters following protests that have increasingly transformed into violence in downtown Kenosha at night.
What they want people to know is that they’re not against the protests. These fire stoppers don’t want their city to burn at the hands of those who are set on destroying it.
On Tuesday, Mallardo and Morrisey, along with a handful of others responded to such fires, including one behind the Public Safety Building near the Metra station, another in a dumpster in a front of the gasoline station at 60th Street and Sheridan Road and another set on 59th Street and Sheridan Road near Reuther High School, among others. “One of the protesters had yelled at us, `Are you on our side or against us’?” Mallardo said Wednesday.
“Billy had to yell at them and he said, `We’re not against the protesters, we’re against burning down our city’,” Mallardo said.