Jacob Blake was no angel, but Kamala Harris says his shooting is unjustified and officer ‘should be charged’

Aug 28

(EEW Magazine News) Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back at close range seven times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is no angel noted EEW Magazine Online reader, Mary from Wisconsin, in a letter to the editor.

In this September 2019 selfie, Adria-Joi Watkins poses with her second cousin Jacob Blake who was shot multiple times by police in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 23. (Courtesy Adria-Joi Watkins/AP)

In her fiery words condemning some Americans’ cries for justice on Blake’s behalf, Mary pointed out that in July 2020, a warrant was issued for his arrest after his ex-girlfriend and mother of his three children filed a police report in May accusing him of sexually assaulting her, stealing her car and debit card and withdrawing cash from her bank account without consent.

EEW Magazine Online must note that Blake has neither been tried nor convicted on the charges and has not entered a plea in that case.

The question then becomes, does one need to be an angel in order to expect police not to shoot them when they are unarmed? Must they be perfect to expect due process?

If Mary’s argument stands, the answer is yes.

Mary is not alone in her assessment of Blake’s case. EEW Magazine Online editors have heard from several anti Black Lives Matter activists that characterize Blake as a violent criminal who was resisting arrest and got what was coming to him.

But so many others, like democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, believe that excessive force was used.

In a sit-down with “Today” anchor Craig Melvin, Harris said she believes in “due process,” and when it comes to Blake’s shooting, “I cannot see how anybody could reason that, that was justifiable.”

The 55-year-old California senator also noted that Blake appeared to be unarmed in the footage released online which makes it hard to defend an officer’s decision to fire seven shots with Blake’s children in the backseat of his vehicle looking on in horror.

“Based on what I’ve seen, it seems that the officer should be charged,” she said.

Harris is not alone. Black Lives Matter advocates are outraged across the nation and arguing that perfection should not be a prerequisite for justice, and excessive force is far too often used against Black men, many times resulting in death or serious harm.

Harris told Melvin, “Here’s the thing: In America, we know these cases keep happening, and we have had too many Black men in America who have been the subject of this kind of conduct, and it’s got to stop.”

Harris, who is campaigning for votes in the November election, said, as it relates specifically to “Black men in America,” she and democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden “know we still have a whole lot of work to do.”

As the election looms closer, national unrest surrounding Blake’s case demands a response from both police and politicians even as key pieces of information are yet missing and fueling speculation over why a white officer shot Blake in the back as he leaned into his SUV.

In a direct rebuke of republican leadership, Harris said on “Today,” “I have yet to see these people who profess to be national leaders speak about this issue of the killing of unarmed Black men, brown men, indigenous men in our country.”

Wisconsin police have not said much about Blake’s case either. Yet, they maintain they are not hiding information but can’t reveal other details while the case is under investigation. But the near-silence from the Kenosha department and state authorities is at odds with what an increasing number of American police forces are doing in the wake of high-profile shootings with the potential to cause unrest.

“The times have changed. What you may have done even a year ago doesn’t work now. We need to recognize the public outcry that is taking place and the need for information,” said Chris Burbank, a former police chief in Salt Lake City.

Investigators haven’t explained why police drew guns on Blake and why the officer opened fire. They say a knife was found in the SUV, but they have said nothing about what role it may have played.

As for why officers came to the scene in the first place, the Wisconsin Department of Justice, which is investigating, said in a news release Wednesday that a woman had called about a boyfriend who wasn’t supposed to be there. But investigators haven’t said whether Blake was that boyfriend.

Blake survived but is paralyzed, and it would “take a miracle” for him to walk again, family attorney Ben Crump said Tuesday.

Crump has said Blake was trying to do the right thing by intervening in a domestic incident. And an onlooker who recorded the widely seen cellphone video of the shooting said that he saw a group of women shouting at one another on the sidewalk and soon afterward saw officers wrestling with Blake. Those accounts have not been confirmed by police.

Meanwhile, authorities have also come under scrutiny over why Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old police enthusiast suspected in the shooting deaths of two people during a night of protests in Kenosha on Tuesday, wasn’t arrested until the next day, in his home state of Illinois.

Witness accounts and video footage show police apparently let the gunman walk past them and leave the scene with a rifle over his shoulder and his hands in the air as members of the crowd were yelling for him to be arrested because he had shot people.

Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth explained that the scene was chaotic and stressful, with people shouting and running, and that may have caused “tunnel vision” among officers.

Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis said Wednesday that his department has few details about the Blake shooting because another agency — the Wisconsin Department of Justice — is investigating, as required by state law. It was state officials who on Wednesday released the information about the knife and identified the police officer for the first time.

“I can’t answer questions about the investigation. ... I wasn’t there, I’m not privy to those reports,” Miskinis said, adding: “We’re not hiding behind a blue line of silence. It doesn’t exist.”

Still, outside investigations are required elsewhere, too, and many departments nevertheless release narratives within hours of a police shooting, a reflection of how authorities are adapting to escalating public scrutiny.

When police speak to the public directly, especially early on, it can help calm the kind of unrest that Kenosha is seeing, said Burbank, who is now at the Center for Policing Equity, a think tank.

“By doing nothing, you are allowing the aftermath that more people are being injured,” he said. “This may be how they’ve always handled these, but you can’t do that now.”

___

Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston, Michael R. Sisak in New York, and Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.