Causey In a precious few seconds, lives were changed forever
Officers arrived to a chaotic scene. They were told Blake was trying to steal a car and they attempted to subdue him, using Tasers to no effect. Then things got physical. At one point, Sheskey and Blake were wrestling on the ground, Graveley said.
For me, the questionable point in the incident comes when Blake walks around the SUV and tries to get inside the vehicle with his children in the back seat.
In those precious few seconds, the lives of both Sheskey and Blake change dramatically.
Sheskey reengaged with Blake because several things crossed the officer’s mind, Graveley said.
Sheskey didn’t know if Blake was going to hurt the children in the SUV or possibly hold them hostage. Maybe Blake was going to hop in the car and race off, Graveley said.
“Officers could not let him leave with a child in the car,” Wray said. “This is the stuff Amber alerts are made of.”
That’s when the officer decided to fire his weapon.
But to Wray’s point: Was shooting to kill Blake the only option? Was resorting to deadly force the way police could resolve this tense situation?
We may never know exactly what was in the officer’s head, but we do know what Blake’s sons saw: They saw their father gunned down and nearly killed. That’s a traumatic scene they will never forget.
There are no winners in this tragedy. There are no new lessons to learn. There won’t be any kumbaya moments between police and the public — even if Sheskey were fired.
While firing the officer would help to restore confidence in the department, it would only be a start.
As a Black man, I would not feel comfortable in Kenosha knowing what could happen if any of these officers stopped me for a simple traffic violation.
The one thing I do know is that we have seen this scene play out time and time again.
There is a double standard applied by law enforcement that values the lives of people of color less than white lives. We’ve seen videos of white people fighting back with the police, or even arguing with officers, some armed with AR-15s, and they walk away unscathed.
One viral video on YouTube.com even shows a white man beating up on two sheriffs’ deputies during a traffic stop and at one point using one of their batons on them before stealing their car and fleeing.
He was not shot.
The double standards are hard to stomach.
And so is the decision not to hold the police accountable in the shooting of Jacob Blake.