Kenosha man has message for rioters who burned down his family store

'I'm not going to let this defeat us,' Scott Carpenter told 'Fox & Friends Weekend'

A Kenosha, Wis., business owner whose furniture store was burned to the ground in the riots following the shooting of Jacob Blake, is vowing to rebuild.

Scott Carpenter, the manager at B & L Office Furniture, told "Fox & Friends Weekend" his family started the business more than 40 years ago.

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"Being in this for 42 years, you just can't fold up and shut the doors and say, 'Oh well, I'm defeated,'" he said. "I'm not going to let this defeat us. We need to push forward. If we show that this defeated us, the people who did this, they won."

Carpenter, who broke down in tears when he surveyed the damage this week, said such destruction only sets back the cause of racial justice.

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"My message to them is you are defeating ... the protesters' cause. It's just hatefulness. I don't understand where that hate comes in somebody's heart that they want to destroy people's businesses," he said. "In my personal opinion, you're going to get further with love than this."

The Kenosha man said the initial reluctance of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to bring in the National Guard was a "political, boneheaded move."

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A GoFundMe page set up to help B&L Office Furniture rebuild raised more than $4,000 as of Saturday morning, with a goal of $1 million.