Leaders from Riot Kitchen, a group formed to feed protesters in Seattle in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, told CNN that volunteer crew members had been planning to join a caravan headed to Washington, DC, when they were arrested at a Kenosha gas station on August 26.
At the time, volunteers were refueling vehicles and getting gas for the generator they use for cooking, the organization said in an August 28 statement on Twitter. „Our crew was arrested by officers who did not identify themselves with drawn guns,“ the statement read. „Our volunteers were thrown into holding cells and kept for hours without water or blankets and denied phone calls to their loved ones.“ It is unclear why the volunteers ended up in Kenosha. They have since been released, Riot Kitchen said. The Kenosha Police Department did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. However, the police department said in a news release on August 27 that officials had arrested nine people on August 26 for disorderly conduct after being tipped off about „suspicious vehicles with out of state plates meeting in a remote lot.“ The department said that officers located the vehicles — a black school bus, a bread truck and a tan minivan — and began surveillance with the assistance of US Marshals. Police then followed the vehicles to a gas station, according to the news release. „Police observed the occupants of the black bus and bread truck exit and attempt to fill multiple fuel cans,“ the news release states. „Suspecting that the occupants of these vehicles were preparing for criminal activity related to the civil unrest, officers attempted to make contact and investigate.
