Jacob Blake & Progressives Holding Law & Order Hostage

The progressive response to the Jacob Blake case is part of a war on police that, itself, is a part of a war on the Constitution and society.

The Jacob Blake case is notable both for the clarity of the facts — they show the police acted reasonably — and the deeply destructive reaction from two Democrats: Wisconsin’s Governor Tony Evers and Joe Biden.  What BLM and Democrats are working towards is a world in which blacks are above the law.  That suits Democrats at the moment, even if it results in bloodshed and a race war.  If one gives criminals the veto power over their arrest, then this nation’s law and order will truly break-down and we’ll be in the wild, wild west.  From the 1619 Project to BLM/Antifa rioting to the George Soros funded prosecutors selectively applying our laws, and, now to the war on police, the progressives’ goal is to destroy society so that they can remake it without the Constitution getting in their way.

The violence of the Jacob Blake arrest of a few days ago was doubtless shocking to the many Americans with limited exposure to crime, the police, and real-life violence.  But just because something is shocking does not mean it is wrong.  Most people would be shocked to watch their future New York strip being made, from the moment the cow walks into the slaughterhouse, or their next fried chicken dinner from the moment the chicken gets its throat cut on a conveyor belt.   Sorry, vegans, but all of it is literally necessary for the survival of society, shocking or not.

So it is with policing.  Cops have the hardest job there is.  They are under a duty to arrest those suspected of a crime, many of whom do not want to be arrested.  In such a scenario, police officers’ live and safety are always at high risk, and they often have to use force.  The police are being vilified for that in the Jacob Blake case:

So here is the whole story.  Police were dispatched to the incident location after a call from Blake’s ex-girlfriend, complaining that Blake should not have been there. In the past, he had pulled a “Joe Biden,” and digitally raped her. It is unclear whether Blake’s presence violated a protective order.  It does not matter, though, since dispatch informed the officers en route that Blake was the subject of an arrest warrant for sexual assault and domestic violence.  As such, they had a duty to detain and arrest Blake.

Police across the nation are uniformly charged with a non-discretionary duty to arrest those subject to a criminal warrant.  South Carolina’s law defining the duties of law enforcement officers serves as one example:

 23-15-50. Arrest of persons against whom process issued; bail.

The sheriff or his deputy shall arrest all persons against whom process for that purpose shall issue from any competent authority commanding such person to be taken into custody . . .

But when police attempted to arrest Blake, he violently resisted.   This from Redstate:

The DOJ release says the officers attempted to subdue Blake using a taser device but were unsuccessful.   It was at that point that Blake struggled his way out of the control of the officers, regained his feet, and walked around the front end of his car.  Two officers trailed him with guns drawn but did not perceive a threat that required them to shoot.  A third officer went around the back end of the car to meet Blake on the other side.

Mr. Blake then opened the driver’s side door and leaned inside.  The witness who shot the video from across the street told investigators he could hear the officer yelling “Drop the knife. Drop the knife.”

Wisconsin DOJ states that in the immediate aftermath of the shooting Blake admitted that he had a knife.  Investigators reported finding a knife on the driver’s side floorboard of the vehicle. . . .

When our legislators pass a law, it applies to everyone, regardless of race, and, police are required to arrest for criminal violations of the law. Police are always authorized to use force to effect an arrest if the individual resists.  The level of force depends to a degree on the type of resistance and type of charges justifying the arrest.

It has  always been the common law in the U.S. that police cannot use deadly force to stop a person fleeing a mere misdemeanor offense.  A misdemeanor is an offense where a conviction leads to a penalty of less than a year in jail.  Jaywalking is a misdemeanor.  The law used to be different for all individuals wanted for committing a felony — i.e., an offense where a conviction would lead to more than a year in jail (e.g., sexual assault).  In 1985, the Supreme Court held that state laws that authorized shooting a “fleeing felon” violated the Fourth Amendment.  In that case, Tennessee v. Garner, the Court held that police could only fire upon a fleeing felon if they had “probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.”

Different considerations apply when the suspect is not fleeing but is, in fact, resisting arrest.  As the Supreme Court wrote in the 1989 case, Graham v. Conner:

. . . [T]he right to make an arrest or investigatory stop necessarily carries with it the right to use some degree of physical coercion or threat thereof to effect it. . . .

The “reasonableness” of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. . . .  The calculus of reasonableness must embody  allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments – in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving – about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.

As in other Fourth Amendment contexts, however, the “reasonableness” inquiry in an excessive force case is an objective one: the question is whether the officers’ actions are “objectively reasonable” in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation. . . .

Many police departments post their use of force policies online.  They vary a bit from location to location but are virtually all uniform in allowing graduated responses and, ultimately, use of potentially deadly force when the officer sees a threat of death or serious injury to himself or others.  None, to my knowledge, provide for the police, in the exercise of discretion, to forego making an arrest if the suspect is black or the suspect objects.

Thus it seems virtually certain that the shooting of Jacob Blake was lawful and justified.  And yet we get this from the progressive piece of human garbage occupying the Wisconsin Governor’s mansion:

And in the same vein, from the progressive left’s ostensible standard-bearer:

Make no mistake, this war on police is likewise a war on you, the Constitution, and American society as a whole.  It is being cynically used by Democrats to create an intolerable situation where blacks suspected of a crime cannot be arrested by police without danger to their lives and careers.  It is horrifying.  These worthless bastards cannot be allowed to succeed, for this is a zero-sum game.