On august 23, Jacob Blake, a black man, was shot in the back by white police officers in the city of Kenosha. Blake’s three young sons were in the back of the car and they witnessed their father being shot.
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Blake’s fiancée, who was at the scene of shooting, pleaded with the officers to let the kids out but her cries were ignored.
It comes three months after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police set off demonstrations around the United States and touched off a wider reckoning on race.
Protests have broken out in a number of US cities after Jacob Blake, 29, was shot several times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Mr Blake is in a stable condition in hospital. Video footage of the shooting, taken from across the street and shared on social media, shows Mr Blake leaning into the car and an officer grabbing his shirt, with seven shots heard. Mr Blake’s partner, Laquisha Booker, told a local NBC channel that the couple’s three children were in the back of the vehicle at the time and saw the shooting. The police said officers had been responding to a “domestic incident” but gave no details about what led to the shooting. They have not said how many officers were involved and no names have been given. Police in Kenosha do not have body cameras, although they do have microphones.
Jacob Blake’s shooting by at least one officer in Kenosha has sparked two nights of angry protests in the city after mobile phone footage of the encounter was viewed by millions online.
Blake’s father, also named Jacob Blake, told the Chicago Sun-Times in a story published on Tuesday that he did not know if his 29-year-old son’s paralysis would be permanent. The older man was travelling from North Carolina to be with his son, who is being treated in a Milwaukee hospital.
“I want to put my hand on my son’s cheek and kiss him on his forehead, and then I’ll be OK,” the father told the newspaper. “I’ll kiss him with my mask. The first thing I want to do is touch my son.”
Blake’s father said he learned on Sunday night that officers had shot his son eight times and shortly thereafter he watched the video, which appears to show his son being shot in the back.
This from Jacob Blake’s sister: "I’m not sad. I’m not sorry. I’m angry. And I’m tired. I haven’t cried one time. I stopped crying years ago." #JacobBlakeShooting pic.twitter.com/Anozs37rJd
— Benjamin Alvarez (@BenjAlvarez1) August 25, 2020
The demonstrations over Mr. Blake’s shooting have reverberated around the country this week, becoming a focus of protesters’ speeches and chants in cities including Madison, Wis., Portland, Ore., Minneapolis and New York.
The Kenosha Police Department is now facing intense public scrutiny. Its police chief, Daniel Miskinis, who has a reputation for focusing on administrative matters rather than personal interactions with Kenosha residents, has not made a public statement since the protests began. Critics of the department say it has been slow to adopt changes and build trust among residents, even after a national wave of calls for overhauling police departments in recent years.
Source: SkyTV, BBC, AL-Jazeera, Sun-Times
