Harris calls for officer involved in Jacob Blake shooting to be charged

Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said the police officer who shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., should be charged.

“I don’t have all the evidence,” Harris said in an interview with NBC News that will be aired on Friday, but “based on what I’ve seen it seems the officer should be charged.”

It was not immediately clear from the excerpts of the interview released by NBC if Harris specified what charges the officer should face.

Protests have erupted in Kenosha this week after Officer Rusten Sheskey, who is white, shot Blake, a Black man, seven times in the back. Blake survived the shooting but is currently paralyzed from the waist down. His three children were in the car when he was shot by Sheskey.

Sheskey has since been placed on administrative leave, and the Wisconsin Department of Justice is investigating the shooting. 

The shooting was the latest incident of a police killing of a Black American, fueling demonstrations across the country over systemic racism and police brutality. 

Harris and Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, have spoken with Blake’s family, and the California senator in a speech Thursday expressed her support for peaceful protests. 

“People are rightfully angry and exhausted, and after the murders of Breonna [Taylor] and George [Floyd], and so many others, it’s no wonder that people have taken to the streets, and I support them,” said Harris, a former district attorney in San Francisco and California attorney general.