Kenosha police shoots black man multiple times in his back in front of his children, declares curfew

It's FAKE NEWS issued by the Wisconsin Department of Justice to hurt Trump

 

Dude.

Do you actually think they would include all of that info and just leave out the fact he was carrying a knife?

You could argue all you want but logic should tell you otherwise.

How about we stick to the facts as reported.

 

I don't know what were the factors used in this circumstance. It appears that they had an elevated perception of him as a deadly threat, and I can't help but think that implicit racial bias plays part in that. Again, I think deadly force shouldn't be used unless there is some level of certainty that the suspect is intending to attack the officer or someone else. With his back turned, leaning into the car for who knows what purpose, I don't feel that burden was met.

 

You got me it's not an official report, do you want a cookie now

I guess a press report from WDOJ is not official,who knew.

Durvasa did not have an issue with the link but since you can't get me out of your head you had to inject yourself into this.

Are you really this lonely and starving for attention?

Don't you have a Althouse or Turley article to find?

 

Yes, that is possible, for the reason I gave. All the information reported are undisputed facts. Whether he was armed or not before reaching his car is disputed.

That's exactly what I'm doing. You are interjecting a fact (he was unarmed) that was not reported, and acting like it was reported. We should be honest about what we know, and what we don't know.

 

just stating the facts

 

lol

 

Why are you disputing it?

What is honest about you disputing it?

Answer a simple question what is the logic that they would leave out the fact that he was carrying a knife?

Why are you basing this argument simply on a blurry photo that some people think is a knife?

 

What is it that I'm disputing? I'm only pointing out what appears to be the case, given the evidence at hand.

Because it's not a fact. It is something that may or may not be true. The press release you linked to was intended to report out what are the known facts of the case, thus far. Not saying something is not the same as reporting that it isn't true.

 

What appears to be the case?

What evidence are you using the blurry pic and ignoring the report?

What is stopping them from saying he knife in his hand why would that fact be omitted?

 

The blurry pic, the witness account of the police officer telling him to drop his knife, the fact that the officers maintained a distance from him and did not try to tackle him to the ground as he casually walked over to the other side of the car, the fact that the knife was found on the driver side floor of the car.

But I don't know for sure. Maybe they thought he had a knife in his hand, and it was just by chance that it turned out that there was a knife on the driver side floor of the car after he was in custody. Is that the most likely explanation? You can decide that for yourself.

I can only repeat myself. It is still under investigation. It is not a known fact. Until they say one way or the other whether he was armed, we can only go by the facts that are available to us and draw our own inferences.

 

That Kenosha PD doesn't have body cameras and that a knife was found at the scene, not clear if it was on Blake or in the car but it sounds like it was in the car, is going to make it very difficult to convict the LEO. This is going to fall back on whether the LEO felt he was reasonably threatened and right now there doesn't seem to be the evidence that at the moment that the shooting took place to say he wasn't. My guess is there will be no indictment or even arrest.

That still doesn't mean this situation is OK. It still seems very odd the sequence of events leading up to the arrest.

With this situation and the situation of allowing Rittenhouse and other civilians out to act as vigilantes while themselves not being able to control the situation tells me there is something very wrong with Kenosha PD.

 

Why isn't the fact that the man had his back turned to the officers enough evidence that the officers were not being reasonably threatened? What was he planning on doing, shooting out projectiles from his rear? Maybe he is reaching for a gun, and maybe he is going to turn around and start firing on them is not a reasonable inference to make. That is purely speculative.

 

The problem question is what is "reasonable". If we don't have very clear evidence of what Blake is reaching for inside the car or even what the LEO sees or thinks he sees the argument will default to the state of mind LEO. As we've seen with other shootings prosecutors and jurors give a lot of lee way to the what LE think is reasonable.

I'm not saying this is right as a civilian in the same situation will have a much higher bar regarding reasonable use of force but that is situation that we see with a lot of these cases. Further with an actual weapon on the scene will factor very heavily that there was actually a threat. This isn't like Amadou Diallo where LE shot an unarmed man holding a wallet.

 

It's also not like Rittenhouse's situation.

 

That tells me all i need to know.

So again why would they leave him carrying a knife out of the report but say he had a knife in the car?

 

You keep asking the same question over and over, and I keep answering it. This conversation isn't productive. Let's wait until more information comes out.

 

I'm not a lawyer or anything, but even assuming he did have a knife in his hand, if I was a juror I would not grant a reasonable fear. If he backs away instead of grabbing his shirt, 3 cops with guns drawn is protection enough versus one guy with a knife.

Now, I can foresee an argument that Blake had a knife in his hand, which deterred the cops from using close combat tactics like wrestling him or subduing with batons, and that Blake could use that freedom to fetch a gun from the car, at which time the encounter becomes more dangerous. I still, as a juror, would not be sympathetic to a reasonable fear argument because they don't see any gun. Given that they are making life-and-death decisions, I don't want cops pulling the trigger over hypothetical guns.

Another possibility, Blake gets into the car and tries to drive. The car could be used as a deadly weapon. But again that's really finding the most extreme solution to a merely hypothetical problem.

As I have long complained on the bbs about, cops are in the risk management business and their training is to minimize their own risk as much as possible, even if it means pushing outsized risk onto the public they serve. Here again it seems that they took a better-safe-than-sorry approach, where 'safe' means a man is paralyzed for life (probably). I don't think this is sustainable. We need police to make more effort -- and even take some calculated risk -- to keep members of the public safe. Police will themselves be more safe in the long run if they do.

 

Alright, I'll give credit where credit is due. Nice Weezer reference. It was the first thing that came to mind when I heard about this story.

Spoiler