Family of Jacob Blake Demands Arrest of Officers
Who Shot Him in the Back
HAVANA TIMES – The violence came on the third night of unrest in Kenosha following the police shooting on Sunday of Jacob Blake, an unarmed 29-year-old Black man. An officer shot Blake seven times in the back as he was getting into a car. His three young children witnessed the shooting.
Blake was reportedly trying to break up a fight between two women before the shooting, but the police have not explained why they went after him. He remained hospitalized in serious but stable condition Monday. His lawyers said Tuesday he is paralyzed from the waist down.
Patrick Salvi II: “He had a bullet go through some or all of his spinal cord, at least one bullet. He has holes in his stomach. He had to have nearly his entire colon and small intestines removed. He suffered damage to his kidney and liver, and was also shot in the arm.”
Members of Jacob Blake’s family spoke publicly Tuesday for the first time since the weekend police shooting, calling for the firing and arrest of the officers responsible. And they called for more peaceful protests. This is Jacob Blake’s sister Letetra Widman.
Letetra Widman: “This is nothing new. 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. I am numb. I have been watching police murder people that look like me for years.”
After headlines, we’ll get the latest from Wisconsin and speak with Mandela Barnes, Wisconsin’s first African American lieutenant governor.
Inhumanity in the treatment of the Jacob Blake continues. Having lost his colon, a segment of the small bowel, damage to liver and kidneys and being paralyzed from the waste down, it is now reported that he is handcuffed to his bed.
When asked why, the Governor of the State, didn’t know why.
How are black fathers in the US going to explain to their children, the laws as applied in “the land of the free”?
When oh when will US police services adopt the nine principles established when Robert Peel introduced the London Metropolitan Police in 1829? Principle number 6 is particularly relevant – the minimum necessary use of force.
The problems are self-evident, forms of recruitment and training, emphasize of military style of enforcement – and the repetitive use of firearms.
Canada has an ever-growing problem with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police – introduced in order to enforce Federal law as Western Canada developed. Both the purpose and the RCMP are now redundant.
Police services ought to be community based with a supervisory committee of local citizens, appointed by the elected community council.
The problems of misuse of police, also occur and even more frequently, in totalitarian regimes like Cuba. MININT looms over everything – but the regime controlled media, takes care not to report actions which would properly be regarded as oppressive in the democratic world.
Imagine ‘Granma’ or ‘Mesa Redondo’ reporting upon Cuban police brutality! The world is aware of the incidents in democratic countries because of free media reporting. But when reporters endeavor to inform about actions within many countries, and as all too frequently reported in HT, they often pay with their lives or as in Cuba, are incarcerated.