Protesters Gather in Wisconsin After Police Shoot Black Man Multiple Times
Written by SOURCE on August 24, 2020
A Black man is in serious condition after being shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Graphic footage, per the Associated Press, shows police shooting at the man’s back seven times as he walked away and got into the driver’s side of an SUV. Following the shooting, which police claim was preceded by their arrival on the scene in response to “a domestic incident,” protesters gathered to condemn the police’s actions and demand swift justice for those involved.
“You overused it,” Laquisha Booker, identified in a separate TMJ4 News report as the man’s fiancée, said. “That’s what you did. You shot him numerous times for no reason. It didn’t take all that. Disregard that my kids were in the car at all. And you knew they was in there because I kept screaming that before y’all even made it to the other side, to the driver’s side, to get him in the car. I been yelling that the whole time, ‘Let me get my kids.'”
The Kenosha News has identified the man shot and placed in serious condition as Jacob Blake. That report also includes comments from witnesses stating that Blake was trying to “break up a fight between two women” outside a home in the area when police arrived. Police, they say, “attempted to use a Taser” on the man prior to firing at him multiple times. Witnesses have also said that Blake was unarmed.
Vehicles from both the Kenosha Police Department and Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department were on the scene Sunday evening. The shooting investigation has since been turned over to the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers condemned the shooting in a tweeted statement Sunday night.
“I have said all along that although we must offer our empathy, equally important is our action,” he said. “In the coming days, we will demand just that of elected officials in our state who have failed to recognize the racism in our state and our country for far too long.”
