“This Is the Epidemic We’ve Got in this Country”
Like so many others, we were by turns shocked, appalled and infuriated when we watched the cell phone footage of a Kenosha, Wisconsin (pop. 100,000) police officer shooting 29-year-old Jacob Blake on Sunday afternoon (Aug. 23) around 5 pm local time. Blake was subsequently airlifted to a Milwaukee hospital, and was reported to be in serious but stable condition on Monday.
Blake, according to reports to date, had just intervened in a domestic dispute (presumably the one the officers had been called about) to break it up and was returning to his car, where three of his young sons (aged 3, 5, and 8) were waiting for him. He opened the door, leaned forward to get in, when one officer grabbed his tank top to impede his movement and then started shooting, deliberately. Seven shots can be clearly heard in the onlooker video, but it is uncertain how many struck Blake (no information has been released on his injuries, apart from his overall condition).
What is this? Have we gone mad, quite literally?
The WaPo’s Eugene Robinson:
“In the video, as Blake walks around the car, he is not seen to brandish or even possess any kind of weapon. His hands are by his sides or fumbling at his pockets. Yet the officers already have their guns drawn and aimed at his back. The only threat we see being presented, the only crime we see being committed, is Blake’s brown skin.”
Witnesses said that “[h]e did not act aggressively toward either of the officers and was not armed with a gun or any other weapon.”
[Note: this has been countered; some witnesses now claim Blake had a knife and had scuffled with police officers on the sidewalk (behind the car in the widely-circulated video) before the cell phone sequence that’s circulating began. There’s another video now available taken from the opposite angle, showing Blake appearing to be scuffling with officers, extricating himself and ignoring their orders to stop. The report that Blake was holding a (small) knife has not been confirmed.]
Kenosha police officers don’t have video recorders, but they do carry microphones, so the voice recordings will be important for determining what transpired before the shooting – throughout the police intervention in the domestic dispute for which they were called initially, Blake’s involvement, and the aftermath with Blake only. (First guess: the officers mistakenly thought Blake, who was trying to quell the dispute, was actually part of it.)
Minor protests, which began almost immediately after the first onlooker’s video began circulating on social media, escalated throughout Monday into the night; the best place to follow what’s happening on a live basis is Twitter (#JacobBlake, #Kenosha, #KenoshaUprising for starters).
There are a lot of fires throughout the central area of the city, and some buildings have been set on fire as well, including the Kenosha Department of Corrections, aka the local jail. It’s being reported that an entire area of the city is now on fire, with every single shop/store broken into and looted.
The Twitter comments are predictable for this type of event – (some) members of the community blaming outsiders for the destruction, absolutely furious over the fires/loss of property, mutual accusations, etc. Clearly there’s looting going on – a lot of it. And there are fires – the Twitter feeds testify to these. (CNN is now reporting that three buildings have been burned: a furniture supply company, an auto repair business, and the local jail; more on Twitter:
Citgo gas station on fire. Burlington Coat Factory on Fire. Marshall’s possibly on fire. Looting at Target, Dick’s, Walgreens. #Kenosha DA must arrest this cop tomorrow or there will be nothing left to burn. #JusticeForJacobBlake #BlackLivesMatter
An 8 pm – 7 am curfew was imposed in an effort to impose calm, but it’s been defied by numerous protestors (between 100 and 150, according to reports).
The Governor of Wisconsin (Tony Evers, a Democrat) ordered 125 National Guard troops into the city to assist local LE, but it doesn’t appear from the footage/on-the-ground reporting that they’ve brought peace to Kenosha, which lies just over the border from Chicago, and falls within the latter’s Metropolitan Statistical Analysis catchment area.
Here’s one possible contributor to people’s anger:
“Police in the former auto manufacturing centre of 100,000 people midway between Milwaukee and Chicago said they were responding to a call about a domestic dispute when they encountered Blake on Sunday. They did not say whether Blake was armed or why police opened fire, they released no details on the dispute, and they did not immediately disclose the race of the three officers at the scene.”
It just isn’t helpful when authorities refuse to be 100% open and forthcoming with residents in the wake of an event like this – it further feeds distrust, frustration, anger, and ultimately, helpless rage.
Unsurprisingly (well, at least for those who have been following racial protests this summer), last night there were multiple protests of solidarity with Blake and his family in Portland, NYC, Brooklyn (protestors can be seen crossing the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan in one Twitter photo), etc.
Blake’s family has retained Ben Crump as their legal representative (Crump also represents the family of George Floyd); we can therefore look forward to a massive civil suit in the wake of whatever criminal charges may or not be filed against the officers involved, who have been placed on administrative leave.
From Crump’s initial statement regarding the shooting:
“We all watched the horrific video of Jacob Blake being shot in the back several times by Kenosha police. Even worse, his three sons witnessed their father collapse after being riddled with bullets. Their irresponsible, reckless, and inhumane actions nearly cost the life of a man who was simply trying to do the right thing by intervening in a domestic incident. It’s a miracle he’s still alive.”
Jacob’s uncle issued a public statement on behalf of his family, calling for an end to the violence and destruction.
A GoFundMe page was started for Blake and his family to cover the costs of legal representation, medical costs (because when you don’t have a national healthcare system …) and rehabilitation, and living expenses during this period. Over $650,000 had been raised as of Tuesday morning (Goal: $1 million).
For us, the single most important sentence we’ve read about Kenosha (poverty rate: 19%) came from the Guardian article: “…the former auto manufacturing centre…” This immediately signals “rust belt, decaying Midwest,” and recalls other cities like it throughout the former manufacturing center of the U.S. Combine a high existing poverty rate, a decaying manufacturing town, and the current political situation (in Wisconsin and the U.S. overall) with a pandemic, staggering new unemployment, the fact that 44% of all black renters won’t be able to pay their rent in September, and you have a dystopian scenario ready to play out everywhere, at every provocation.
Without belaboring the point, we’ve already had our “national conversation” – it’s time for “national action.”
Would such action entail reparations? Yes. And that’s the conversation we should have moved on to long ago.
Further reading:
CNN coverage (continuously updated)
The Guardian coverage (from early Tue. Morning)
Eugene Robinson, “We Need Black Lives Matter. The Police Who Shot Jacob Blake Prove It”
“The Police Shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black Wisconsin father, Explained”
“Protests Erupt after Police Shooting in Wisconsin”
“Protests Erupt after Wisconsin Police Shoot Unarmed Man Seven Times”