Kamala: "Jacob Blake should not be fighting for his life right now."

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[spicysista]

1. His children.....I can't even finish the thought.

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2. ..

Link to tweet

[still_one]

3. I can't watch the video. I just hope he fully recovers, and the police involved are held fully

accountable

[bdamomma]

6. This needs to stop

now. Police are not showing remorse for their actions. WTF!

[Disaffected]

4. Not in any way trying to justify what happened but,

why or why did he not obey the cops and stop trying to get into his vehicle??

For all the cops knew, he may have been trying to retrieve a weapon or at least get in and drive off.

Do folks (and maybe especially black folks) put in such a situation tend to act irrationally out of fear of what might happen even if they do what the cops are ordering? One would think that they must surely realize their actions place them in considerable danger.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Stop this.

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7. why should he be any different from white folks who regularly get treated like police are guardians

...instead of enforcers?

[Disaffected]

8. No reason at all.

[radius777]

9. Even so, there are other non-lethal ways to restrain someone.

There was no reason to kill this man, other than his life did not matter to them.

[Disaffected]

11. Of course they should have used non-lethal means,

I am simply trying to understand why victims act the way they sometimes do when confronted with such perilous situations. Why in this case did he keep trying to reach and enter his car?

I would also like to understand exactly why the cops, in this case, chose to shoot him - were they genuinely afraid for their own safety or, as you state, they didn't give a damn about the victim?

Is it even wise to generalize about these things?

[haele]

10. He didn't have to. They had no reason to stop him, he hadn't done anything wrong.

Yes, he might have been daring them to stop him from going about his business after trying to break up a fight (in a black neighborhood with cell phones out and recording, BTW) but that's still no reason to use deadly force.

White men with guns beneath the driver's seat can "have enough of the bullshit" and walk away from the po-lice if they hadn't done anything wrong at the time.
And the cops will just run his tags and send him a ticket.

But black men can't do that, even though, according to due process under the law, he should be able to. And what I saw in the video was a man who had enough of the bullshit and walked away from the cops.

It isn't really for you or me to say "Hey Black Man - or Latino Man - or any other non-White Man, you gotta live in fear of the police and kowtow all your life, because it's going to be your fault if you get shot for looking like you disrespect them."

He was going to get hassled no matter what. And he knew it, and he had enough of the petty bullshit.

That's what happened. The police had no right to be afraid of him if they had done their job properly. There were kids in the car, and they were close enough to see that, and probably heard that.

If those cops were real men with real police training instead of that wannabe SEAL "Killology training" that all the racists fuckwad BoPs are pushing, they would have let him get into his car, run his tags and waited for everything to cool down to haul him in if there was a warrant on him, or if they wanted to actually charge him with something instead of hassling him.

Proper policing training: you don't approach or detain someone unless there's a real reason (questioning) or imminent danger. If they weren't wanted for a crime and they don't want to answer the questions, let them go.
I learned that as part of a 2 week Shore Patrol/Security patrol training for an alternate duty requirement back in the 1980's. Along with basic de-escalation techniques; there were a lot of domestic calls for Shore Patrol back then.

That cop that shot him showed a petty, coward ass in public.

Haele

[maximusveritas]

12. Thanks for having the courage to ask this question

Too many people will leap to conclusions and try to shut down any questioning in cases like this when all they have is a very limited snapshot of what happened.
They will make stupid comments like "So he deserved to be killed then?"
We don't have all the facts and it is a huge mistake to jump to conclusions in any direction. I wish the Biden campaign would show more restraint because they are very susceptible to falling into a huge trap that could destroy their whole campaign if they look like they are attacking the cops and it turns out the guy was reaching for a weapon (not saying that's the case here)

[Disaffected]

13. Thank you for saying that.

I did alright post the question with some little intrepidation, expecting responses as you describe.

I also did consider mentioning what the cops may have seen when they were trying to pull him back out of the car (or, what lead up to the situation before the video started) but didn't want to add possible further provocation.

[JonLP24]

15. They said he was trying to break up a fight before the video

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16. they should have seen his children sitting there

[JonLP24]

14. The video is pretty blatant

He grabs the shirt and fires several shots directly in his back.

If they choose to remain silent that would have been noticeable as well. The people against BLM are likely to vote Republican anyway while we need the votes of BLM(WE need them more than Never Trumpers since Trump enjoys high favorability within his own party).

[cwydro]

17. It's a fair question.

Doesn’t excuse the attempted murder on the cops’ part, but I don’t understand why anyone walks or runs away from a cop with a gun on them.

[Disaffected]

18. Yeah, it's hard to figure.

Personally, I would probably be frozen or unable to even stand.

Is it possible he didn't realize the guns were drawn? If he did, why would he risk his kids lives as well as his own?

In any case, was glad to just hear on the news he is in "serious but stable condition" so it looks like he will survive.