Fox News is already suggesting that Jacob Blake is to blame for police shooting him in the back 7 times

Fox anchor and reporter don't mention that Blake was unarmed when police shot him in the back

Written by John Whitehouse

Published

Updated

Police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times as he was getting into the car with his family on Sunday night. Blake, who is Black, was unarmed.

Video of the police shooting quickly spread across social media. Many Kenosha residents protested the shooting.

On Monday morning, Fox News focused more on the damage resulting from the protests than it did on the shooting.

On Fox “straight news” program America’s Newsroom, guest anchor Trace Gallagher framed correspondent Mike Tobin’s report around what the police were telling him about the shooting. Neither Gallagher nor Tobin note that Blake was unarmed. At the end of his report, Tobin discussed a prior incident between Blake and the police. This narrative falls into the long-running pattern of right-wing media attacking Black victims of police violence for not being perfect victims.

From the August 24, 2020, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

TRACE GALLAGHER (GUEST ANCHOR): Protests over the weekend in Wisconsin, as hundreds marched on police headquarters in Kenosha after police shot a Black man yesterday. It happened after police responded to a domestic call. The incident caught on camera. And a warning, some viewers may find this video disturbing.

The man is seen as officers followed him to his car and fired several rounds as he tried to get in. Mike Tobin is live for us in Chicago. And Mike, what are police telling you?

MIKE TOBIN (CORRESPONDENT): Well, Tracy, the investigating agency is now the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigation. That agency says it may take as long as 30 days until the public starts getting some answers in this case. The Kenosha Daily News, however, quotes eyewitnesses saying that Jacob Blake was breaking up the fight to which police were responding. It was about 5 o'clock last night when Kenosha Police got a call about a domestic disturbance. At some point their interest became Blake. He can be seen walking from the passenger side of the vehicle around to the driver's side. Clearly, the officers have weapons drawn. Reports say Blake had been tased but continued walking. As Blake goes head first into the driver's side of the vehicle, one officer can be seen pulling on his shirt as if to keep him out of the car, and then several shots are heard.

That video quickly made the rounds on social media. What followed was riots; numerous cars and dumpsters were set on fire, windows were smashed, Kenosha Police implemented a curfew. The county courthouse and administrative buildings are still closed. And while the Division of Criminal Investigation says they have yet to determine if a prosecution is warranted, the Democratic governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, tweeted, “While we do not have all of the details yet, what we do know for certain is that he is not the first Black man or person to have been shot or injured or mercilessly killed at the hands of individuals in law enforcement."

Now, prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump now represents the family. He says Jacob Blake had three children in the back of the vehicle when he was shot by police. A retweet on [Crump's] page says Blake, who was life-flighted to Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, is out of surgery and recovering in the ICU.

According to a report in the Racine County Eye, Blake has had run-ins with police before. Back in 2015, according to the report, he brandished a weapon inside a bar, he resisted arrest, and ultimately had a canine turned on him. Trace.

We saw the same thing happen with George Floyd as well. Fox personalities focused on the perspective of the police, denied that race was involved, and spent considerable time trying to find ways to blame Floyd for his own death -- even though we all saw the officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.

Update (7:30 p.m.): A chyron during Fox's “straight news” program The Story referred to the police shooting of Blake as an “officer-involved shooting.”

Many experts have criticized newsrooms for using the term.