Situation:
- Criminal hits person with baseball bat (non lethal weapon)
- Cop attempts to arrest criminal
- Criminal wrestles with cop and runs away with bat
- Cop shoots criminal
Conclusion :
Criminal was wrong at every point. Criminal is bad. Cop shouldn’t have shot criminal. Cop was wrong to shoot criminal.
Situation:
- Criminal hits person with baseball bat (non lethal weapon)
- Cop attempts to arrest criminal
- Criminal wrestles with cop and runs away with bat
- Cop chases down criminal and arrests him.
Conclusion:
Criminal was wrong at every point. Criminal is bad. Cop did a good job. Cop is good.
Which conclusion am I screwing up?
Situation:
Officer Sheskey obtained a description of Jacob Blake and knew he would have to arrest Jacob Blake on the warrant if he encountered him.
When officers arrived, Laquisha Booker flagged them down and shouted statements identifying Jacob Blake as the other person involved and indicating that he was trying to take her car, stating, “My kids are in the car.”
Officer Sheskey saw Jacob Blake and saw him putting a child in the back of the vehicle in question, a gray Dodge SUV.
Officer Sheskey immediately attempted to arrest Jacob Blake based on his active warrant and was quickly assisted by Officer Arenas and Officer Meronek.
Jacob Blake knew there was a warrant out for his arrest.
Jacob Blake did not comply with the verbal commands of officers as they attempted to arrest him.
When the officers attempted to physically restrain Jacob Blake, he resisted, physically struggling with officers.
Officers brought Jacob Blake to the ground, but he was able to get off the ground and to get away from the officers trying to arrest him.
During this struggle, Officer Sheskey and Officer Arenas both attempted to subdue Jacob Blake by deploying their tasers.
Both times that Jacob Blake was struck with the tasers, he ripped out the taser wires/prongs making the tasers ineffective against him.
Officer Sheskey also attempted to drive stun Jacob Blake with his taser by applying the taser to Jacob Blake’s neck/back area, but that too was ineffective.
As he resisted arrest, Jacob Blake was armed with a knife.
By the time he was walking in front of the SUV, the knife was opened and the blade was exposed.
Jacob Blake did not comply with police commands to drop the knife.
Jacob Blake tried to enter the driver’s door of the SUV.
The SUV had been rented by Laquisha Booker in her name and Laquisha Booker had indicated to police that Jacob Blake did not have permission to drive the vehicle.
There were children in the SUV who Laquisha Booker had yelled were her children.
Jacob Blake had the opened knife in his right hand and was attempting to escape from Officer Sheskey’s grasp and enter the driver’s side of the SUV.
Both Officer Sheskey and Officer Arenas stated that in the moment before Officer Sheskey opened fire, Jacob Blake twisted his body, moving his right hand with the knife towards Officer Sheskey.
Two citizen witnesses saw Jacob Blake’s body turn in a manner that appears consistent with what the officers described.
Officer Sheskey shot Jacob Blake seven times in total. There were four entrance wounds to Jacob Blake’s back and three entrance wounds to his left side (flank).
Officer Sheskey stated that he fired shots until Jacob Blake dropped the knife. Noble Wray explained this is consistent with law enforcement training where officers are instructed to continue shooting until they stop the threat.
Conclusion?