Jacob Blake should not have been shot.
Jacob Blake should not be laying in a hospital bed in Kenosha, with the prospect that he may never walk again.
Revelation 6:10
Jacob was not presenting an active threat to police officer or the public. He had his three small children in his car. He was on the scene to break up a fight, not start one. If police officers really needed to detain him that badly, they should have instead deescalated, and if necessary, let him drive off. He was not a threat. He was not hurting people. His license plate could have been taken. He could have been brought in later, once tempers were cooled. Again, just like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and so, so, so many others, this did not need to happen.
Jacob Blake should not have been shot. Period.
Have police officers and public safety officials learned nothing in 2020? Have the protests that have been rolling across our nation against police brutality and the unnecessary deaths of so many really fallen on ears this deaf?
We have to demand better of those we entrust our public safety too. Our public is not more safe if our cops are so willing to pull guns and fire them at people not presenting an active threat to a situation.
If you watched the video of Jacob Blake, or read the story, or saw the outcry, and your first thoughts weren’t centered around sadness and horror and disgust and anger, but instead were centered around thoughts like, “He got what he had coming to him,” or “He should have complied with police,” then I think you need to do some deep introspection. Your soul is sick in some way, if you can’t see a father get shot by agents of the state and not feel something other than blind affinity for the power structures that let this keep happening. Please, spend some time reflecting, and praying, and thinking deeply about what kind of world you want to live in.
From a Christian perspective, as I’ve said time and time and time again here, our allegiance and sympathy should not be with those wielding the power of the nation over others. Our sympathy, in the words of Christ, should always be with the least, with the oppressed, with the wronged, with those outside of power. We should see incidents like this with a great sense of sadness for our world, and an attendant moral outrage over the use of violence over and over against our fellow human beings. If you claim the title of Christian but you feel people like Jacob Blake somehow got what they had coming to them, then you are doing this whole Christian thing wrong. Go gaze on our Crucified Lord, who was a victim of overwhelming and unjust state police power.
Jacob Blake should not have been shot. #BlackLivesMatter
Justin DaMetz 