Michael Graveley, the Kenosha County district attorney, announced that he will not prosecute Officer Rusten Sheskey for the shooting of Jacob Blake. For those familiar with the facts and circumstances of the shooting, this comes as no surprise. There was a tragic shooting. There was no crime.
The media, however, did not fairly recite the facts of what happened, that he resisted arrest, refused to drop his knife as ordered, refused to comply with lawful commands and then opened and entered his car as police officers, with guns pointed, unaware of whether this person who they had reason to believe had engaged in violence before could have a weapon.
Instead, the narrative was that he was black and the cop was white, and the cop shot him seven times in the back. Both of these are facts. Neither is salient. Both of these facts are part of the critical narrative. Neither changes the legal consequence of what transpired. Yet, the media proffered only the part of the narrative it preferred, ignoring the facts that distinguished a crime from a tragic shooting.
https://twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/1346571578058924032
Would this have turned out differently had Jacob Blake been of a different race? No. Cops are no more inclined to die at the hands of a white defendant than a black one, and this scenario more than overcomes the Reasonably Scared Cop Rule. Are black men no longer obligated to obey a lawful command by a cop while resisting seizure and armed? No, even black guys are subject to the law, particularly when three cops with guns pointed at a guy who just resisted arrest refused to drop the knife and get on the ground, and instead entered a vehicle despite being ordered not to do so.
Yet, this isn’t the story told.
BREAKING:
Wisconsin prosecutors decline to charge white Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, leaving him paralyzed
— Scott Bauer (@sbauerAP) January 5, 2021
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin prosecutors decline to charge white police officer who shot Black man in back, leaving him paralyzed.
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 5, 2021
Is Zaid right, that the media is fomenting riots by posting lies of omission, if not commission? This is not a commentary about whether cops disproportionately believe black men to be more inclined to crime and violence, but one discrete shooting. Was race a factor? Perhaps, although it’s highly unlikely. But the simplistic narrative leads us deeper into unwarranted anger and ignorance.
When a cop needlessly kills someone, he should be prosecuted like any other shooter. But not every cop shooting is bad, and not every shooting of a black man by a white cop is a crime. We will not fix problems by denying the facts to push the narrative. This can, however, cause more anger, violence and suffering by the innocent victims whose homes and businesses are vandalized and burned down by wrongfully outraged mobs.
The lies have to stop. The media is part of the problem.
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Not his car, the car of the woman who called 911.
Yes, the “his car” is a part of the dispute with the woman who called 911.
Even the Court TV coverage of this was distorted. The most pitifully slanted coverage in recent history by every media outlet that reported the DA’s decision.
My gratitude is for the DA who made the correct decision instead of bending to the will of the mob. I cannot wait for the trials of the policemen involved in the George Floyd case. Will the juries render an impartial verdict or a verdict influenced by fear of the mob?
The media has done no good in either case. There are some severe pathologies in the “black community” that are never discussed. Why does the media not discuss the horrendous massacre of young black men by other young black men? The black on black murder rate usually averages in the mid to lower ninety percent. Why does the media NOT explore this issue?
Mainstream media commits the cardinal sin of being unable or unwilling to deal with certain realities.
One of the least helpful arguments against police abuse is that there is also black on black crime. There are always going to be people who commit crimes, but that’s got nothing to do with cops committing crimes. It has no place in a lawyerly discussion of police misconduct, even though non-lawyers commonly conflate the two as if they were equivalents.
I don’t understand why you insist that the police did the right thing, anymore than I understand why the media would insist this was murder. I don’t think they needed to start out with guns drawn, nor did it make any sense for them to grab him while he was holding a knife- that’s just a rookie mistake. The officer is lucky he didn’t get a knife in the throat at that moment.
If anything, it’s a close call that isn’t worth prosecuting as a murder. But it was bad police work and didn’t have to lead to anyone dying.
Reading is hard, Jay. I didn’t say the cops did the right thing. I said this wasn’t a crime. Focus.
Welp, looks like this headline shoulda been on the other post. . .
“The lies have to stop. The media is part of the problem.”
I think that this post goes together with the next one. We now have the first Amendment, and methods of disseminating our opinions faster than anyone has even been able to conceive, until about 50 years ago. And, as you say, the crazies who used to be isolated are now talking to one another. But our primative brains have not yet adjusted to deal with this onslaught of insanity.
We also have an entire industrial-educational complex devoted to teaching the children that there is no such thing as objective truth, and many of those (still) children are now out in the “journalism” profession, disseminating the narratives that they think we need. Which many of us do not want.
I don’t have any suggestion except to try to teach people to not believe anything they read or hear out in the MSM, or on the internet Not even this post. Because if you compare how other people report stuff that you, personally KNOW about, you quickly come to the conclusion that the only thing you can take at face value is who won the ball game last night (usually). Everything is spun and twisted to match a preferred narrative.
I don’t have any suggestions except just hunker down, keep talking, don’t get angry at anyone, and hope that we will eventually get thru this.