Sen. Lindsey Graham said Wednesday that he doesn't want to "pre-judge" what happened in the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, but he also wants to know why Blake didn't yield to the police like George Floyd did in Minneapolis.
"I want to know what happened," the South Carolina Republican said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends," repeating questions he first posed at a press conference announcing his endorsement from the South Carolina Fraternal Order of Police Tuesday. "Mr. Floyd was subdued. He was in custody. He was defenseless and they just put the knee on the neck. I want to know what happened. Why was the guy, Mr. Blake, still moving ... I want to find out what happened, but I'm with the cops."
Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot by a police officer seven times in the back, according to a cell phone video of the incident. He is paralyzed from the waist down after one bullet tore through his spinal cord, reports CBS News. Patrick Salvi, an attorney representing the family, said Tuesday that other bullets left holes in Blake's stomach, damaging his kidney and liver and requiring that "nearly his entire colon and small intestine" be removed.
Violent protests have broken out in Kenosha. Two people were shot and killed Tuesday night and one was injured in a clash between demonstrators and a group of armed men. Blake's mother on Tuesday called for peace and prayers, not violence.
"That's the way to do this but I'm not ready to condemn the cops ... I don't know what happened," said Graham. "Go be a cop for a day or two and see how easy this job is. Give it a try. Put on a badge and gun and go ought in the middle of this crap and see how well you do."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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