Jacob Blake's sister demands justice for her brother

Jacob Blake’s sister delivered a powerful speech at the March on Washington’s 57th anniversary rally where she ordered Black America to ‘stand up’ and fight, but urged the public to avoid ‘violence and chaos’. 

Letetra Widman took the stand at the Lincoln Memorial, where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic, ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in 1963, and said, ‘We will not be a footstool to oppression.’

‘Black America, I hold you accountable. You must stand, you must fight, but not was violence and chaos. Learn to love yourself black people. Unify,’ Widman said.

‘We will not dress up this genocide and call it police brutality. We will only pledge allegiance to the truth,’ she added. 

Her brother Jacob Blake, a father of six, was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Sunday, refueling national outrage against police brutality against black people.

More than 50,000 people gathered on Capitol Hill for the historic gathering where the crowd heard from Martin Luther King Jr’s granddaughter, who vowed her generation will ‘fulfill my grandfather’s dream’. 

Activists were joined by the families of police brutality victims including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner.

Rev. Al Sharpton, whose civil rights organization, the National Action Network, planned Friday’s event, said the objective of the march is to show the urgency for federal policing reforms, to decry racial violence, and to demand voting rights protections ahead of the November general election. 

Outrage over Blake’s case continued to grow this week after it was revealed he is now paralyzed from the waist down and was handcuffed to his hospital bed by law enforcement.

Jacob Blake Sr. took to the podium after his daughter and said: ‘We’re going to hold court on systematic racism – guilty!’

‘Racism against Trayvon Martin – we find them guilty! Racism against George Floyd – we find them guilty! Racism against Jacob Blake…guilty! And we’re not taking it anymore.’

B’Ivory LaMarr, the attorney for the Blake family, doubled down on his clients stance and said ‘we’re tired of talking’.

‘We’re tried of playing games. 2020 is they year America will be put on timeout. Today, I just want to let you know is the last season of the police version of ‘How to Get Away With Murder,’ said LaMarr, referencing the popular television show.

‘We know your playbook. We know your plays,’ he continued. ‘Step one: claim that you were in fear and find an object so you can justify that you were in fear of a black or brown person.

‘Step Two: assassinate that black person and step three: assassinate his character.’  

Other people who spoke at Friday’s march were event organizers Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, who both called decried racism that has continued to permeate the country.

Yolanda Renee King, the 12-year-old granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr., gave a riveting speech that called on young Americans to take their place on the front lines of fighting for equality.

Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor and the siblings of George Floyd were also in attendance.

In the Sunday shooting, police arrived to the 2800 block of 40th Street in Kenosha after Blake’s girlfriend ‘reported that her boyfriend was present and was not supposed to be on the premises’.

Officers tried to subdue him with a taser before opening fire, authorities said.

During an investigation Blake admitted to police that he had a knife and authorities recovered it from the driver’s side floorboard of car after opening fire. No other weapons were found at the scene. 

Jacob Blake’s lawyer says paralyzed black man shot by police is no longer handcuffed to hospital bed after he posted bond for an arrest warrant on a sexual assault charge 

Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old black man left paralyzed after he was shot by Kenosha, Wisconsin, police on Sunday, is no longer handcuffed to his Milwaukee hospital bed.

Patrick Cafferty, an attorney representing the Blake family, told WISN-TV on Friday that the felony arrest warrants which stem from alleged crimes that Blake committed before the shooting have been vacated and that deputies were no longer in his hospital room after he posted bond. 

Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. David Wright said on Friday that Blake was handcuffed to his hospital bed because he ‘has felony warrants for his arrest from crimes he committed prior to the shooting incident.’

Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Investigator Scott Still said, ‘Mr. Blake posted the bond underlying the arrest warrant, enabling his release from custody. The hospital watch was discontinued immediately after receiving this information from Kenosha authorities.’  

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The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office told The Associated Press that all hospitalized patients in police custody are restrained unless undergoing medical procedures and that it’s working to ‘ensure a safe and humane environment for Mr. Blake.”

A reporter asked Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers about the handcuffs Thursday during a news conference.

‘The Sun-Times is reporting that Jacob Blake is handcuffed to his hospital bed. Does that concern you?’ the reporter asked.

‘Hell, yes. I would have no personal understanding why that would be necessary. 

‘Certainly, he’s paid a horrific price already being shot seven or eight times in the back. I can’t imagine why that’s happening,’ Evers said.

At the time that police in Kenosha responded to a domestic disturbance call from Blake’s girlfriend on Sunday, there was an outstanding warrant for Blake’s arrest.

Blake was wanted in connection with a domestic abuse call from earlier this year.

He faces charges of third-degree assault, trespassing and disorderly conduct in connection to an alleged domestic abuse incident on July 6. 

A woman Blake knew has alleged that Blake came into her house at about 6am, sexually assaulted her, and then took a debit card and car keys before fleeing in her vehicle, according to a criminal complaint. 

In 2015, Blake was charged with a gun-related offense in Racine, Wisconsin, but it did not result in a conviction. 

The officers who responded to the Kenosha residence near the location of the shooting on Sunday appear to have been warned by the dispatcher to be on ‘alert at this address for a ninety-nine.’

In police code, 10-99 can refer to a wanted suspect, according to CNN. 

It’s unclear whether the officers knew the exact circumstances of the outstanding warrant against Blake when they arrived at the residence.

Earlier on Friday,  Blake’s father revealed the news that his son was handcuffed to his bed at Froedtert Hospital.

Outrage spread quickly at the news, and people demanded Kenosha police remove the handcuffs. 

‘How the f**k do you handcuff Jacob Blake that you paralyzed to a hospital bed after you shot him in the back seven times?’ tweeted Rashida Tlaib, congresswoman for the neighboring state of Michigan.

Tony Evers, governor of Wisconsin, was asked if he’s concerned about Blake being handcuffed.

‘Hell yes,’ he said. 

‘I would have no personal understanding why that would be necessary. 

‘I can’t imagine why that’s happening and I would hope that we would be able to find a better way to have him get better and recover.’

Jacob Blake Sr told the Chicago Sun Times that he had just been to see his son in hospital. 

‘I hate it that he was laying in that bed with the handcuff onto the bed,’ he said.

‘He can’t go anywhere. Why do you have him cuffed to the bed?’

Blake also asked what he had been arrested for, and received no answer.

The Blake family attorney, Benjamin Crump, said it would take a ‘miracle’ for Blake to recover use of his legs. 

‘The medical diagnosis right now is that he is paralyzed, because those bullets severed his spinal cord,’ he said at a press conference on Tuesday.

‘He will need a miracle to walk again. He is currently in surgery as we speak, to try and save his life. And return to some semblance of the man he once was.’

Crump’s legal partner, Patrick Salvi, confirmed that a bullet went through his spinal cord. He had bullets in his stomach, and had to have almost his entire colon removed. He had a bullet in the kidney, and in the arm.

‘He has a long road to recovery,’ said Mr Salvi.

When Blake, 29, saw his father in the hospital Wednesday, he thought he was hallucinating because he could not believe what he was seeing, according to his father.

‘I told him, ‘You thought Daddy wasn’t going to see my son?’ his father said. 

‘He grabbed my hand, held it real tight and started weeping, telling me how much he loved me.’

Though his son’s eyes were swollen, the elder Jacob Blake said he ‘looked and sounded like’ his son, and he’s alive. 

Seeing him in the hospital was like walking across a desert to find someone waiting with a glass of water, his father said.

‘It was way more than fulfilling,’ his father said. 

‘It was a feeling I can’t describe.’  

Renatto Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, said: ‘Jacob Blake was shot in the back multiple times and is paralyzed from the waist down. 

‘What possible justification could there be for handcuffing him to his hospital bed?’

Wesley Lowery, correspondent for 60 Minutes, said he had just spoken to Blake’s uncle, who was deeply distressed by the handcuffing of his nephew.

‘One thing the family is particularly upset about — the uncle just gave me a call to make sure I had noted this in our interview — is that Jacob Blake, shot seven times and paralyzed, has been handcuffed to his hospital bed,’ Lowery said.

Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Blake in the back, is a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department.  

Sheskey, 31, has been put on administrative leave while Wisconsin officials investigate the confrontation caught on video.

Sheskey, a member of the department’s bicycle squad, long aspired to a law enforcement career and once described police work as ‘a customer service job, and the public is our customer.’ 

On Thursday officials announced that the National Guard will send troops from three additional states – Arizona, Alabama and Michigan – to Kenosha to assist with operations there.