Apple CEO Tim Cook has posted a statement via Twitter regarding Jacob Blake Jr., a black man shot by a white Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer on August 23, 2020. Cook called Blake “another Emmett Till.”
The Wisconsin state attorney general said on Wednesday that a knife belonging to Blake was found at the scene of the confrontation. Attorney General Josh Kaul said the knife was recovered from the driver-side front floorboard of the car Blake was leaning into when he was shot. Kaul also told a news conference that Blake, during the course of the investigation, had “admitted that he had a knife in his possession.”
Two police officers deployed tasers in failed attempts to stop Blake, who was not following police instructions, before one of the officers shot him multiple times in the back with a gun as he reached into his vehicle’s driver’s side area, the Wisconsin Department of Justice said on Friday.
“According to the record, Blake has an arrest warrant filed against him on July 7, 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin for an incident involving domestic abuse that happened on May 3. The offenses listed are criminal trespass to dwelling, third-degree sexual assault and disorderly conduct,” Reuters reported on Thursday.
The three responding officers have been placed on administrative leave.
The incident sparked three nights of civil unrest that has included a wave of arson, widespread vandalism and a separate shooting that claimed two lives in Kenosha, a city of about 100,000 residents on Lake Michigan, 40 miles (60 km) south of Milwaukee.
Kenosha city police confronted Blake when they were called to the home of a woman who reported that her boyfriend was present “and was not supposed to be on the premises.”
The location he gave for the residence corresponds with the address of the woman identified in media reports as Blake’s fiance, Laquisha Booker.
During the incident, Kaul said, police tried to arrest Blake, using a Taser stun gun in a failed attempt to subdue him.
Blake, according to the attorney general, then walked around his vehicle, opened the driver-side door and leaned forward, as officer Sheskey, clutching Blake’s shirt, fired his weapon seven times at Blake’s back…
Blake was struck by four of the seven gunshot rounds fired at him on Sunday. Bullets shattered some of his vertebrae, leaving Blake paralyzed from the waist down, possibly permanently, his lawyers said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook’s statement:
We stand with those who refuse to accept the status quo. The WNBA, NBA, and all of those who will not tolerate another Jacob Blake. Another Emmett Till. We must do better — lives depend on it.
We stand with those who refuse to accept the status quo. The WNBA, NBA, and all of those who will not tolerate another Jacob Blake. Another Emmett Till. We must do better — lives depend on it.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) August 28, 2020
MacDailyNews Take: Why didn’t the tasers work to stop him before this escalated so tragically? They both missed? Malfunctioned?
According to the Wisconsin Department of Justice: “After the initial attempt to arrest Mr. Blake, Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey deployed a taser to attempt to stop Mr. Blake. When that attempt failed, Kenosha Police Officer Vincent Arenas also deployed his taser, however that taser was also not successful in stopping Mr. Blake.”