Wisconsin Reels After Police Shooting of Jacob Blake

He said he had a conversation a few days ago with an uncle, a police officer in Kenosha, who said that he has seen more tension than ever between residents and police officers, more anger and animosity on both sides.

“There’s been a growing disconnect here for years,” Mr. Neumann said. “There’s always been an underlying distrust for the police.”

Erik Adams, a neighbor of Mr. Blake’s who is Black, said he was newly terrified of the police after seeing what had happened. He had fielded several phone calls on Sunday from friends who were worried that he might have been the one who was shot.

“I understand why people are angry,” he said. “Black people want justice.”

The Wisconsin attorney general, Josh Kaul, vowed to “vigorously and fully investigate the facts of this case,” but said he was not ready to comment on the details, including information about the officers on the scene.

“Our pursuit of justice is going to be unwavering,” he said Monday at an afternoon news conference.

Though Mr. Kaul, a Democrat, is leading an independent investigation, he said the decision to prosecute the case would be made by the local prosecutor. The Kenosha County district attorney, Michael D. Graveley, said his office would decide whether to press charges based on the evidence gathered by the outside investigators.

“We are going to try to do this as quickly as we can,” he said, but “these kinds of huge decisions, in a community that is hurting as badly as we are today, are not decisions that can be made in haste, and they are not decisions that can be made before we have the complete information.”

“We ask people to be as patient as they can,” he added. “We support all advocacy that is peaceful. I’ve had thousands of emails today from people who are quite appropriately expressing their strong feelings about this case.”