Another brutal police shooting, this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The victim's name is Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man shot in the back seven times by a white officer, in front of Blake's three sons who were in an SUV that Blake was entering. Three officers on the scene to break up an argument, and the officer's response was to empty this clip into Blake's back.
A man identified as Jacob Blake was shot by police during a domestic call in Kenosha on Sunday, Aug. 23. A large crowd took to the streets afterward to protest.
Kenosha County declared a state of emergency curfew from 10:15 p.m. until 7 a.m. Monday.
The shooting happened near 28th Avenue and 40th Street around 5:11 p.m., after officers were called for a “domestic incident.”
Graphic video of the shooting circulated social media. It shows Blake walking away from police and getting into an SUV. One officer is seen holding Blake’s shirt, and then seven gunshots can be heard.
According to the Kenosha Police Department, officers provided immediate aid to the man after the shooting. He was transported via Flight for Life to Froedtert in Milwaukee in serious condition.
Protests were nearly immediate, hence the curfew last night. Adam Silverman at Balloon Juice has more:
I’ve watched the video several times. As I’ve noted here several times, I’m a criminologist by training, even if not by practice anymore. I’ve taught hundreds of law enforcement officers. I’ve even taught policing to them. I’ve consulted with law enforcement, I’ve trained law enforcement (Federal, state, and local) in continuing ed/inservices, as well as in my martial arts classes, and I’ve had tactical training from some law enforcement (my quarterly weapons training is supervised by a close friend who is a SWAT sniper). While we only have 20 seconds of video, so almost no context, there is nothing in that 20 seconds that should have resulted in shooting Mr. Blake, let alone shooting him seven times in the back. There are three officers. His back is to them, and at one point he is close to pressing himself against the driver’s side front door of his mini-van. At that point the officer that had a hold of his t-shirt should have stepped forward and pressed Mr. Blake into the van with the other two officers providing cover and support. With Mr. Blake immobilized against the van, he could have then been taken into custody if he was either A) the person responsible for the domestic disturbance that they’d been called to deal with or B) someone else at the seen who had somehow interfered with their responding to the domestic disturbance call. Even if Mr. Blake had ignored their instructions – “lawful orders” – that is not a justification for this type of law enforcement response. There is no crime on the books in the US that allows for summary execution without judgement. In those 20 seconds, Mr. Blake had taken no aggressive actions towards those officers. He appears to simply be trying to get away from them and into his van. He hadn’t swung at them, kicked at them, charged at them. He certainly didn’t try to run them over as he wasn’t in the van yet.
As we wait for more news about both Mr. Blake’s condition and the context around what actually happened yesterday in Kenosha, the US is now faced with another example of how African Americans’ contacts with law enforcement, as well as those of other people of color, all too often end violently with the violence directed at the African Americans or people of color. And we’re faced with this example, and the responses it will engender, as the Republican Party begins its nominating convention. A nominating convention that was already expected to focus on unwavering, unflagging, and unconditional support for law enforcement and harsh condemnation of any criticism of law enforcement and how they actual interact with African Americans and people of color.
What has become exceedingly clear is that no one should be policed the way African Americans and people of color are policed. And by policed I do not just mean how law enforcement interacts and deals with them, but how our entire criminal justice system from law enforcement to the courts to corrections is applied. We are in serious need of reform across recruitment, vetting, hiring, initial education, continuing education, policing unions, as well as what prosecutors and judges authorize, tolerate, and do. And we certainly need to rethink how law enforcement should respond, and who within law enforcement should do the responding, to domestic disturbance and welfare check calls.
The video, which I will not link here, is being recorded from a window across the street. It clearly shows the officer shooting Blake in the back as Blake is opening the driver's side door and entering the SUV to check on his three sons in the vehicle.
The first officer makes no effort to restrain Blake as Blake passes him to go around the front of the SUV to reach to the driver's side door, the second of the three officers is standing at the left rear door of the vehicle and the third officer is behind the second at the rear corner of the SUV. The second officer draws his pistol one-handed and empties the clip into Blake's back at a distance of maybe two feet as Blake leans into the vehicle with the kids screaming in the SUV as it happens.
It is a black man being sentenced to summary execution by a white cop, only Jacob Blake at least survives the initial shooting by a miracle. I sincerly hope he lives and sues Kenosha PD into oblivion.
I'm so tired of this. I'm so tired of my life's sole meaning being reduced to "I draw breath only because haven't been murdered by a cop yet for being a perceived threat". I am so much more than that.
But I'm also not because at any time, a police officer can decide I am a dead slab of cold nigger meat. But for the grace of police, go millions of us. Savage beasts, subject to extermination in the name of "law enforcement". We are in America, but we are not Americans and never have been. We are not human in the eyes of police. We are just suspects, threats, things denied dignity and agency. There is an entire political party dedicated to keeping us in this social, open-air prison, to keep us as a menagerie of beasts to hunt for fucking sport, video game targets that can be butchered and splayed out for a laugh at the local cop bar and it makes me livid. I want to punch and hit and tear and I want to smash and I want to make them truly afraid so they stop, but that's exactly what they want.
An excuse to execute.
I am tired, and angry, and tired of being angry. I am tired of writing this story every few months. I am weary to my soul of seeing the absolute disdain by tens of millions of Americans who just don't give a shit if Black people are butchered. We deserve it, we are told. We should stop being thugs. We should always obey officers of the law. We shouldn't make them shoot us.
So I say this to you this morning. For the love of God, help us.
Get your families and your friends and the people you love to register to vote and help us. Trump got 57% of the white vote in 2016. In that CBS poll I referenced from yesterday when Biden is winning overall 52%-42%, Trump is getting 52% of the white vote. If white voters make up 70-71% of the electorate as they did in 2016, that would be an 8-point overall swing toward Biden from where Clinton was in 2016 and he'd walk away with an easy win.
That's it. Five percent of white Trump voters have to vote for Biden instead and it's a landslide.
It's been four hundred fucking years of this. Of only surviving because "we're one of the good ones" right up until someone decides we're not.
See this for what it is and help us.
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