Biden addresses police shooting of Jacob Blake

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said the Kenosha, WI police officers involved in the JacobĀ  Blake shooting “must be held accountable.”

“This morning, the nation wakes up yet again with grief and outrage that yet another Black American is a victim of excessive force,” he said, just over two months before Election Day in a country already roiled by the recent deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. “Those shots pierce the soul of our nation.”

Jacob Blake was shot in the back by police seven times while entering his vehicle, as his three young children watched.

Blake’s father says he is now paralyzed from the waist down and remains in serious condition at a Milwaukee-area hospital after he was shot by police officers responding to a domestic violence call late Sunday afternoon in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

More than 60 people were gathered following the shooting at the scene with several saying that Jacob Blake was trying to break up a verbal altercation between two women shortly after 5 p.m.

According to a police department press release, Kenosha police were sent to the incident at 5:11 p.m. and were subsequently involved in an officer-involved shooting.

According to the release, officers provided immediate aid to the man, who was transported via Flight for Life to Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa, WI. Jacob Blake was reportedly in serious condition. Police radio traffic indicated that a landing zone was established at Bradford High School just before 5:30 p.m. and the man was then transported.

The incident was being turned over to the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigation, which will be investigating the officer involved shooting.

At least a half dozen witnesses said that Jacob Blake had tried to break up a fight between the two women outside a home at 2805 40th St. and that police had attempted to use a taser on the man prior to the shooting. Then, they heard at least seven gunshots ring out.

Witnesses said he was unarmed and shot in the back, although officers involved in the shooting claimed Jacob Blake had a knife. Still a knife in a gunfight? Latest medical reports from Blake’s family is that he is paralyzed from the waist down and will never walk again.

A video that has since gone viral on social media shows Blake walking away from officers and going around the vehicle to get inside. While the man is entering the vehicle the video shows an officer firing a gun at the man inside the vehicle. A woman in the video is screaming as he is being shot.

There were reportedly children in Blake’s car.

 

 

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