CNN caught telling the truth for 10 seconds, but had to lie yet again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6Y6pTKSsMI

Kenosha police has released details about Blake's shooting. It's downloadable here https://www.wispolitics.com under press releases. 

There's absolutely no way officers could let him enter the vehicle, that's out of question. Claims that Blake was not a threat are nonsense. I'd still say officers could've handled it better, maybe go for leg shot from that distance or kick him when he has his back turned to throw him away from the car and buy time. Easy to say in hindsight though and there's still details missing. Hard to see this as race related thing either.

Here are the actual and undisputed facts:

• The officers were dispatched to the location due to a complaint that Mr. Blake was attempting to steal the caller’s keys/vehicle.

• Officers were aware of Mr. Blake’s open warrant for felony sexual assault (3rd degree) before they arrived on scene.

• Mr. Blake was not breaking up a fight between two females when officers arrived on scene.

• The silver SUV seen in the widely circulated video was not Mr. Blake’s vehicle.

• Mr. Blake was not unarmed. He was armed with a knife. The officers did not see the knife initially. The officers first saw him holding the knife while they were on the passenger side of the vehicle. The “main” video circulating on the internet shows Mr. Blake with the knife in his left hand when he rounds the front of the car. The officers issued repeated commands for Mr. Blake to drop the knife. He did not comply.

• The officers initially tried to speak with Mr. Blake, but he was uncooperative.

• The officers then began issuing verbal commands to Mr. Blake, but he was non-complaint.

• The officers next went “hands-on” with Mr. Blake, so as to gain compliance and control.

• Mr. Blake actively resisted the officers’ attempt to gain compliance.

• The officers then disengaged and drew their tasers, issuing commands to Mr. Blake that he would be tased if he did not comply.

• Based on his non-compliance, one officer tased Mr. Blake. The taser did not incapacitate Mr. Blake.

• The officers once more went “hands-on” with Mr. Blake; again, trying to gain control of the escalating situation.

• Mr. Blake forcefully fought with the officers, including putting one of the officers in a headlock.

• A second taser (from a different officer than had deployed the initial taser) was then deployed on Mr. Blake. It did not appear to have any impact on him.

• Based on the inability to gain compliance and control after using verbal, physical and less-lethal means, the officers drew their firearms.

• Mr. Blake continued to ignore the officers’ commands, even with the threat of lethal force now present.

The foregoing facts need to be added to the story to correct what is currently out there. As the uncontested facts above demonstrate, the officers involved gave Mr. Blake numerous opportunities to comply. He chose not to. None of the officers involved wished for things to transpire the way it did. It is my hope that truth and transparency will help begin and aid in the healing process.”

-End-

CNN headline: Blake had a small disagreement about the arrest and was shot and killed by white supremacist cops.

Unfortunately, none of that justifies shooting him in the back and without body cam footage, it is difficult to say if earlier escalations by the police were warranted.

I'm not going to discuss whether shooting in the back was justified until we have all the details but excuse me, earlier escalations by the police?? 

Yes. Both groups appear to have contributed to escalation. Again, there is no way to determine whether those escalations were justified. 

Blake did something to make the woman call the police. He had an open warrant. Cops went from talking to giving orders to hands on. 

If a suspect initially shows even slight aggression, it's justified and sometimes the best approach to go straight to hands on.

There's not much to determine here, really. 

"sometimes"

yeah....

From reading those "facts" from the police (whose account should very much be questioned), it appears that they repeatedly relied on force and threats of force as their primary tactic for getting the situation under control. In other words, they relied heavily on escalation instead of deescalation. It is possible that this was the best way to handle the situation, however, it is very much possible that it was not the ideal way to handle the situation.

According to police handbooks (ex. https://www.seattle.gov/police-manual/title-8---use-of-force/8100---de-escalation ), deescalation typically occurs through four tactics: Communication, time, distance and shielding. While the police did attempt to communicate with him, it is difficult to determine whether that communication was truly deescalatory or if it largely became yelling commands, which can escalate the situation. It does not appear that any of the other three deescalation tactics were utilized. They chose to go "hands-on" with Mr. Blake, initiating the physical confrontation, which immediately escalated the situation.

An approach of deescalation would typically be to step back and give the individual time to calm down and time for back-up to arrive and time to better control the situation by limiting the individual's access to certain escape routes. They also chose not to utilize distance and shielding in this case by getting very close to Mr. Blake, despite the fact that his only weapon was a knife. Even when he was walking to the vehicle, the officers decided to follow him with their guns pointed only about a foot from his back. This deliberately put the officers in a more dangerous situation where deescalation is made more difficult. If they had taken several steps back, they wouldn't have needed to be so ready to act on instantaneous movements and would have been able to give themselves more time to react to a rapidly evolving situation.

I've said this before, but the issue with police shootings doesn't simply revolve around when the police shoot someone who has done nothing wrong. Often there is an issue with how police handle a situation leading to a shooting that is deemed "justified". Interestingly, looking through the Kenosha Police's policies and procedures that they have made public, I could not find any mention of deescalation either as its own heading, or in their use of force procedures. I do see that an executive order was signed in the aftermath of this incident requiring police to receive training in deescalation, which indicates that there was no such requirement for this for some police in the state before the incident.

y'all realize there's a whole spectrum of force to consider before shooting someone in the back, right? There are ways to subdue the perp, there are ways to incapacitate without killing.

IT's like everything's binary with you people. "Oh, they weren't complying/literally any other excuse? Welp, time to kill him!"

Binary logic is a real problem in this thread, I've noticed and it's bad on both sides. Good or bad. Black or white. Justified or not. Innocent or guilty. murder or not. I think that's a major reason why there's such a divide between sides, so few people are interested on finding the truth on the spectrum when everything is tribalistic 'us vs them' nonsense. That's why I keep saying that simple but wrong answers are easier to believe and understand than complicated but right answers. the debate devolves into all or nothing back-and-forth affairs with no room for compromise, nuance, depth, or subtlety.

This latest example is perfect. The guy was not complying, so of course force needed to be used. For some of you, that's the same as 'well, he didn't come peacefully, oh boy time to go killin' again!" and others are 'force is bad, period'. The reality of the situation is that somewhere in the middle was the right answer and I'm not seeing a whole lot of arguments extolling the virtues of a more reasonable solution in the middle.

And honestly? Despite me being some liberal SJW cuck or whatever the regressives like to call my type, it sounds more and more like this guy was practically begging for lethal force. Something that should only be reserved for the most dangerous of situations. However, shooting him in the back is almost never okay. I've seen videos of a police officer who used lethal force...when the perp was coming at her with a knife, she was alone, she warned him, and she gave him plenty of opportunities to put the knife down. This is an example of lethal force applied correctly. She put in a call for backup, she was trying to delay - because lethal force should ALWAYS be a last resort - but in the end it literally came down to she either shot the assailant or she could be killed herself.

This issue with the man being shot in the back is a complicated, difficult situation because there are arguments on both sides of the debate that are very strong, but so many of you are blindly pushing for entirely to one side or the other and that's just wrong and frankly stupid by definition. By refusing to see the virtues of a more intelligent debate, you're tacitly admitting it's not about right or wrong, not about finding true justice, it's just us vs them tribalism and it's about 'winning' the debate.

From what I've been able to gleam, force was necessary in this instance. Black, white, hispanic, asian - it doesn't matter - the perp was acting violent, resisting, and was a danger. Force was needed. Maybe even guns were needed in this instance. But shooting a man in the back when there were others standing around and they had other options available to them was not the right choice. It doesn't matter if he had outstanding warrants, it didn't matter what his skin colour is, use of lethal force is not related to his prior transgression (IT's shocking how often the news tries to justify lethal force with something like 'he got caught with marijuana once, so he was clearly a dangerous criminal). Nothing exists in a vaccuum, but none of this matters when the choice to end a life is presented. And even that statement has nuance, because there are exceptions - but this was not one such exception.

The reality is, and the point of BLM and the rest of this clusterfuck, is that the choice to jump to lethal force happens more frequently to black men. The reality is that, whether the cops are racist or not, there's a culture-wide propensity to escalate quicker when it's a black man in question. There have been studies into this, white people DO tend to rate black men as more dangerous than other white people. It's in our nature to see 'others' as dangerous. The whole point of this protest is to change general perception, because with cops, they can get away with a LOT. Cops look out for cops because the job IS hard. Cops look out for cops because they ARE in danger and DO form bonds. the districts protect their workers because, to them, they give their workers (who are stressed as fuck given the nature of their occupation) the benefit of the doubt. This is understandable.

These protests are not to completely dissolve police departments or kill all cops or paint all cops as bad guys (Some extremists are saying that, but smart people know these people are dumbasses and are NOT helping the cause; unfortunately, folks on the opposite end regularly use these most extreme examples as the basline for their arguments, one again eliminating all nuance to the argument; seriously, stop fucking doing that). We want more accountability, we want cops for law enforcement and not everything else - which creates extra stress as cops are barely trained enough to do their job, let alone be a negotiator or therapist or whatever else - we want general perception to change and for our systems to no longer allow for those in power to abuse it.

the large majority of this movement wants peace. And some of you want to use it as an excuse to go to war. Some of you would rather bend over backwards to justify systemically endorsed racism and murder than try to get to the bottom of why these issues exist. And the more binary your arguments become, the harder it is to admit you're wrong and change your perception. The more tribalistic you are, the more likely you are to double down on bad logic, terrible opinions, and gross justifications. That is how you get arguments like 'well, black people just deserve it more because they are more prone to crime' instead of understanding how bias works, how 100s of years of racism has affected a population or how wealth factors into it a lot more than skin colour, or how we have a system that is unbalanced and thus makes it seem like some people do more crime because they are found guilty more often without factoring in the potential bias of those in charge of prosecution. This is how we end up with people using literal neo-nazi articles to justify their arguments.

Seriously, you all need to do better. I'm not a nice person and won't pretend I'm being nice, but you need to do better. IF you don't, then you're the problem, the problem that needs to be solved.

Don't apologize, do better. Don't argue unless you're going to be better at it. Don't push your beliefs unless you're willing to do better at arguing them.

Be better than all this.

One rule of deescalation is not to allow it escalate to "moving" situation. So as I stated before, allowing Blake to enter the vehicle was not an option. So this pretty much limits options of shielding and distance. Not to mention a safe distance on someone holding a knife is 30ft+ or something. It simply wasn't an option in this case, unlike Tamir Rice shooting for example.

Distance, shielding, time and stuff like that is usually, by my experience, trained under tactics drills. It's not necessarely written in any procedure. Mention on verbal communication is found in Kenosha Police's policies. 

Anyway, if the suspect doesn't comply to verbal speech or orders, it's pretty much impossible to deescalate. It's a two-way street. This seems to be the case here. Blake was not in the position to not comply.