The father of Jacob Blake reports that his son, shot seven times in the back by Kenosha police, is paralyzed from the waist down. Doctors don’t know if it’s permanent.
The story of what happened to Blake is becoming far too familiar. So is the reaction: a Black person is shot by police; angry but peaceful protesters turn out in the streets; police converge and respond to provocations with tear gas and beanbag rounds; things turn truly violent; looting erupts; buildings burn.
In a nutshell, that’s what happened Sunday, Monday and early Tuesday in Kenosha, WI.
It started with an altercation between police and 29-year-old Jacob Blake, who was shot multiple times in the back by an officer as he tried to climb into an SUV with his three young sons inside. The children were not physically harmed.
Blake was hit at least 7 times at close range; he’s hospitalized in Milwaukee, in serious condition, paralyzed from the waist down.
The incident was captured on video and went viral.
“The man who said he made the cellphone video, 22-year-old Raysean White, said he saw Blake scuffling with three officers and heard them yell, ‘Drop the knife! Drop the knife!’ before the gunfire erupted,” says the Associated Press. White said he didn’t see a knife in Blake’s hands.
The video sparked a national outcry and more protests.
“Protesters elsewhere also marched Monday, including in New York City, Washington DC and Minneapolis, where at least five people were arrested,” reports CNN. There were also protests in Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland OR.
And back in Kenosha, as so often, the poorest members of society paid a heavy price.
“The fires not only destroyed local businesses — a cellphone store, a tattoo parlor, a furniture store, a Mexican grocery — but they also forced out residents who lived on the second floors of the nearly century-old brick buildings,” reports the Washington Post.
“We’re a poor neighborhood,” said Debbie, 69, who worked at the grocery and did not want to give her last name, the Post says. “Some of us don’t make enough money, so now we’re trapped.”
The Wisconsin Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the shooting, which is expected to take several weeks.
Some Wisconsin officials, like Milwaukee’s county executive, denounced the pattern of police violence against people of color.
Hundreds of protesters had defied an 8 P.M. curfew on Monday night and clashed with police and 125 members of the Wisconsin National Guard who were protecting the federal courthouse. It went on well into Tuesday morning.
Several buildings burned to the ground, other storefronts were badly damaged and looted.
“Nobody deserves this,” Pat Oertle, owner of a computer store that was vandalized., told the AP. “This accomplishes nothing.”
But Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, citing Kenosha and other recent shootings of Black people by police, said:
“Those shots pierce the soul of our nation.”
