KENOSHA (Wisconsin) • Days after a Kenosha police officer shot Mr Jacob Blake, a black man, outside an apartment building, the authorities provided new details on what led to the videotaped encounter that has prompted heated street protests and calls for reform from professional athletes, politicians and residents.
Law enforcement officials said in recent days that they had shackled Mr Blake to his hospital bed – where he is paralysed from the waist down from his wounds – because he faced an arrest warrant from last month on charges of sexual assault, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.
The same woman who had filed that complaint had called 911 before the shooting to report Mr Blake’s presence, according to interviews and records.
Some onlookers and Mr Ben Crump, the civil rights lawyer representing Mr Blake, have described Mr Blake as a peacemaker seeking to break up a disturbance involving two women when the police arrived.
Meanwhile, Facebook made an “operational mistake” in not acting sooner to remove a page for a militia group that posted a call to arms in Kenosha, said its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
Facebook said on Wednesday it had removed the page for the Kenosha Guard and an event listing for Armed Citizens to Protect Our Lives and Property, as these violated the firm’s policy against “militia organisations”.
Mr Zuckerberg acknowledged that the firm had received complaints from “a bunch of people” about the posting. “The contractors and reviewers who the initial complaints were funnelled to basically didn’t pick this up.
“And on second review, doing it more sensitively, the team that’s responsible for dangerous organisations recognised that this violated the policies and we took it down.”
NYTIMES, REUTERS
Law enforcement officials said they had shackled Mr Blake to his hospital bed because he faced an arrest warrant from last month on charges of sexual assault, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.
