As the nation reels from a new set of riots after the shocking shooting of a man at least 7 times from behind, I’ve seen tons of commentary on line about the situation. Many people have condoned if not outright encouraged violence in response to Jacob Blake’s shooting yet, here we are, like we were a few months ago after George Floyd died, with people outraged before we know all the facts. This pattern of ours as a country to jump to conclusions isn’t doing us any favors if we want to be a nation united, methinks.
I find the whole situation complex and I have the luxury of viewing it over the internet, not the burden of being the police officers who had to make split second decisions in real time. Before continuing, I want to state clearly: I’m not making the case that shooting someone in the back is good; and doubly so, to do it 7 times seems shocking from my vantage point. However, I think it’s equally important to acknowledge it’s much easier to sit here and criticize the cops after the fact and suggest woulda/coulda/shoulda strategies than it is to be the cops in this situation.
Having seen the second camera angle and noting that the tasing didn’t work and further noting although 2 cops had Blake down on the ground he got away, I have to wonder about what actions made sense for the cops to take. Blake was not complying while walking from the back of the car on the passenger side around the front to the driver’s side with guns trained on him after non lethal force didn’t work to subdue him. If I were that cop I am not at all sure what I would have done after he opened the car door and was leaning inside. As of yet we have no idea if he acquired a weapon when he opened the door, nor do we know what the cop saw him doing. As we are not privy to that information, any conjecture we espouse is at best derived from incomplete information.
Ignoring the specifics of what happened when he reached into the car, I have been wondering this important question:
If a cop (or in this case multiple cops) tries to subdue a suspect using non lethal force, at what point is it acceptable for them to shoot after the non lethal force didn’t work?
This is a complex moral and ethical question I think.
On the one hand we have to consider the outrage of a cop shooting a civilian and the general idea that we don’t want cops to shoot civilians ever if possible. If we deem shooting unacceptable under all circumstances and dictate a cop can’t ever shoot, no reason to take their guns away — instead, we might as well get rid of cops completely and go with lawlessness. After all, if the police can’t use deadly force and criminals can, who wants to be an officer and what good will they do anyway?
In this situation, it made sense to me the policeman didn’t shoot Blake as he was walking to the driver side. (I can only imagine the public response would be worse if he had.) In reality, there was no more of a threat with him in front of the car than there had been when he got up from the unsuccessful tasing and tackling.
Here’s where it gets dicey. If he leaned into the car and he was getting a weapon — perhaps a handgun or shotgun — and he then pulled that out and used, would that have been the time that was acceptable for the cop to shoot? Of course at that point, after Blake deployed a weapon, doesn’t that mean the cops are risking their own safety and the safety of any others in the immediate vicinity? In the end, how do we balance the safety of officers of the law against the rights of citizens?
I don’t know how we enforce law and order in a way that has some semblance of justice or if justice is even possible conceptually. I see no justice in someone allegedly wielding a weapon reportedly with a warrant out for them walking free brandishing knives in bars and on the street. Equally so, it’s hard for me to think getting shot 7 times in the back is a punishment befitting of the non compliance Blake demonstrated.
The one thing I can say with certainty is that I would fully expect to be shot if I had done what he did, whether it was right, wrong, just, or unjust.