Wisconsin police shooting shows need for civilian oversight, says county supervisor
Jacob Blake, 29, hospitalized after police shot him in the back several times on Sunday
A county lawmaker in Wisconsin is calling for more civilian oversight of police departments after the police shooting of a 29-year-old Black man.
Police in Kenosha, Wis., shot Jacob Blake multiple times in the back on Sunday as his three sons watched, his family's lawyer said. The Wisconsin Department of Justice is investigating.
He was taken to hospital, where he is now out of surgery and in stable condition, his father told NBC News on Monday morning.
A bystander video circulating on social media shows Blake walking toward the driver's side of a grey SUV followed by two officers with their guns drawn. As Blake enters the vehicle, one of the officers grabs the back of his shirt. Police open fire and seven gunshots ring out. It's unclear whether one or both officers fired their weapons.
The Kenosha Police Department said officers were responding to a "domestic incident." Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer representing the Blake family, said in a statement that Blake was trying to "de-escalate a domestic incident" when the officers first shot him with a Taser, and then with bullets.
The shooting is the latest in several high-profile police killings of Black, Indigenous and other people of colour in both the U.S. and Canada, and comes three months after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked protests worldwide.
Zach Rodriguez, a Kenosha County Supervisor, went to the scene of the shooting after the news broke. He spoke to As It Happens guest host Helen Mann on Monday. Here is part of their conversation.
Mr. Rodriguez, what was your gut reaction when you saw this video of Jacob Blake being shot?
I felt my gut drop. That was my initial reaction to see something like this happen in my own city.
What was Mr. Blake doing at the time of the shooting?
To my knowledge, he was either picking up or dropping off the kids, or something of the sort.
I understand you have spoken with Mr. Blake's neighbours. Is that right?
That is correct.
And what are they telling you?
That he was trying to break up a fight, and next thing you know, he was getting shot in front of his three children.
And the children were in the vehicle where he was shot?
That's correct. That's what I've been told.
You have now also gone to the site of the protests. Tell us what you heard from people that you spoke with there.
A lot of anger. A lot of animosity towards just the current race relationships right now in the U.S.
Everybody ... kind of seems shocked, and some not shocked at all, that it happened right here in our own backyard.
Why are they shocked? I mean, as I understand it, there have been 18 police-involved deaths in southeast Wisconsin in the last 20 years.
I think it's just one of those things where, you know, you see it on TV and you sympathize and you feel for those individuals, but you never think it's going to be in your own community.
Do you think those past incidents over the last 20 years have been adequately investigated?
I wouldn't say yes or no to that. I think that it takes on a case-by-case basis.
There's one here in Kenosha County that happened with the city ... some time ago, that is still semi-relevant. That's an example to me — that was the Michael Bell shooting — where that investigation, we felt or I felt and a lot of community members feel, was rushed and not as transparent as it should have been.
How would you describe relationships between the police and the Black community in that neighbourhood?
It's not my own neighbourhood, so I don't want to speak for the residents. But to the residents that I did speak with, they said that they never had anything like this happen in that neighbourhood.
But I think countywide [and] citywide here in Kenosha, that there's definitely tensions and those tensions are very high.
We saw those tensions wrap up with these protests. There was some destruction as well. Can you describe what you know about that?
I had the opportunity to see it firsthand. And most of our downtown storefronts have been very seriously damaged. We had some very serious fires going on, [on] both public and private property.
They broke windows. They burned garbage trucks.
And when I say they, I don't mean the protesters. I view those as instigators and those who are simply here to take advantage of the situation.
But does their action reflect any feelings in the community among those protesters, feelings of frustration, of anger?
For sure, yeah.
I have received e-mails this morning from ... residents both in Kenosha County and outside across the county that say, you know, we can rebuild property, but we can't bring back somebody who's died at the hands of police.
You have been pushing for changes in the county to address racism and police violence. What does the shooting say to you about what more needs to be done?
At the very least, we need more civilian-led groups or committees that oversee these departments so that, you know, the community knows that they're there being inspected.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice is the one investigating this. The officers involved are on administrative leave right now. Is that the way this should be investigated? Is that who should be responsible, in your mind, for seeing what happened?
If you look back at the Michael Bell shooting, that really led the change here in Wisconsin, which led the change nationwide.
Wisconsin was the first state to pass new state laws that mandates when there is a police shooting, an outside agency has to investigate. So that way, the police aren't investigating themselves.
How confident are you that justice will be done in this case?
Fairly confident, and I certainly hope so. There's been a lot of calls that if, you know, that was you or I, that we'd be sitting in the county jail right now, and I can't help but feel the same way.
Written by Sheena Goodyear with files from CBC News. Interview produced by Kate Swoger.
