Jesse Jackson calls for charges for officers involved in Jacob Blake shooting

The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Thursday called for the indictment of the Kenosha, Wis., police officers involved in the Sunday shooting of Jacob Blake.

Jackson, speaking in Kenosha on Thursday with local NAACP officials, urged nonviolent demonstrations against the shooting and asked for the support of white residents and religious leaders.

“We’re going to march, we’re going to protest, nonviolent and disciplined and in big numbers, until these men are in jail,” he said, according to ABC News.

Jackson also addressed the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Illinois who has been charged with shooting to death two protesters who were rallying after Blake’s shooting.

“White citizens should not provide sanctuary for this kind of killing,” he said. “It’s not about black and white. It’s about wrong and right.”

An officer shot Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, multiple times in the back as he leaned into an SUV containing his three children. Blake’s father has said his son is paralyzed from the waist down as a result.

Blake’s relatives have called for attempted murder charges for the officer who shot him and for the dismissal of all of the officers involved.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation has identified Rusten Sheskey as the officer who shot Blake, and said Sheskey was the only officer who fired. The city erupted with protests in the nights after the shooting, with many turning violent on Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday night demonstrations, by comparison, were predominantly peaceful. The National Guard and police were on the scene but did not take action as protesters stayed out past a 7 p.m. curfew.

“Crowds last night were small. There were a few hundred people and they walked peacefully through Kenosha and they did exactly what they wanted to do as far as the protest to make people know their concerns, but they did it without violence,” Sheriff David Beth of Kenosha County said at a news conference Thursday.

Beth attributed the lack of unrest to a crowd that was predominantly locals.

“I think the people that were here last night were Kenosha’s people,” he said. “We didn’t see streams of cars coming in from out of Kenosha County. A huge part of me thinks that a lot of our issues start when different people with different agendas come here to Kenosha.”