The uncle of Jacob Blake, the black man whose shooting by Kenosha police last year set off the riots during which Kyle Rittenhouse fatally shot two men and wounded a third, slammed Rittenhouse's not-guilty verdict on Friday.
Justin spoke to a large crowd of reporters outside the courthouse immediately following Rittenhouse being cleared of all five charges against him: ‘The mayor, the police chief, the people who are running the army, have blood on their hands today.'
The 52-year-old Chicago resident has been a vocal protester outside the courthouse in Kenosha where Rittenhouse faced trial.
Referencing the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, Justin said: 'This isn’t just an attack on African-Americans and I keep saying that.' He continued: 'This is an attack on our democracy. So you can sit back and say it’s not your people and it’s not us and let the first domino fall but this is a direct attack on our democracy and the republic that we live in.’
Justin Blake, Jacob Blake's uncle, has been protesting outside the courthouse during Kyle Rittenhouse's trial in Kenosha, Wisconsin
Following Rittenhouse's not-guilty verdict, Justin said: We want the nation to know the nation that you live in now isn’t the nation of the United States that we used to live in
He went on to call out the White House for what he considers their insufficient action to help the African-American community and the families of those impacted by racism and police violence.
'President Biden and Harris sold out our family,' he declared. 'They said they were going to do things to square up what was going on in the African-American community and have not. So juries like this will continue to happen.'
Referencing his invitation to the 2021 inauguration he said: 'I didn’t need a ticket to go up there to the White House when he got inaugurated. We need to bring something tangible back to our community.'
Circling back to the Rittenhouse trial he said: 'And this was a god-awful site for the whole world to see. The racism, the underbelly of racism, that runs throughout this country in every jurisdiction.'
Despite his anger towards the verdict, he called for everyone to 'as peaceful as they can' invoking Martin Luther King Jr. '‘There’s a check out there that’s overdue for African-Americans.’
'We want the nation to know the nation that you live in now isn’t the nation of the United States that we used to live in,' Justin told CNN.
Rittenhouse, 18, collapsed in tears and hugged his attorney as the jury in his double murder trial acquitted him of all charges after four days of deliberation and weeks of testimony. The verdict came in at 12:15 p.m. Friday in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The Rittenhouse shootings took place during riots on August 25, 2020 - two days after Jacob was shot. Jacob was shot after officers responded to a 'family trouble' around 5:15 p.m. August 23, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Jacob Blake (seen above after he was hospitalized in Milwaukee) has been rehabbing the spinal cord injuries he suffered as a result of the shooting at the hands of Kenosha, Wisconsin police on August 23, 2020
Blake's shooting sparked protests and widespread rioting in Kenosha. Two days after the shooting, Rittenhouse fatally shot two men and wounded a third. Jurors on Friday found him not guilty of all five charges against him (Pictured: Kyle Rittenhouse closes his eyes and cries as he is found not guilty on all counts at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Friday)
Rittenhouse faced life in prison if convicted on the most serious charge for using an AR-style semi-automatic rifle to kill two men - Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum - and wound a third, Gaige Grosskreutz.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, who faced criticism over his response to the Kenosha protests in 2020, urged calm as the jury deliberated.
He announced last week that 500 members of the National Guard would stand ready for duty in Kenosha if needed.
'Regardless of the outcome in this case, I urge peace in Kenosha and across our state,' Evers tweeted.
He added: 'I ask all those who choose to assemble and exercise their First Amendment rights in every community to do so safely and peacefully.'
Justin had reacted angrily to Evers’ decision to deploy the National Guard, calling the governor a ‘coward’ and a ‘racist.’
He said that Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha were ‘positively focused.’'
‘The governor is a coward and a racist to send out National Guards,' Justin told the New York Post.
'The only National Guard he's bringing out is for the people supporting Rittenhouse, while we'll be celebrating that somebody's going to jail, they'll be quite upset.'
Justin has remained a vocal advocate for his nephew and the Black Lives Matter movement (Pictured: Justin Blake outside the courthouse on Tuesday waving a Pan-African flag)
Blake, 30, was paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the shooting in August of last year
Blake says he was able to stand up in October of last year, saying his pain felt like his legs were sliding 'through a woodchipper'
Jacob is learning to walk again while rehabilitating his injuries in Chicago, according to his uncle.
‘He has bad days, there’s no doubt, but he’s so grateful to be alive,’ Justin told The New York Times.
Justin said that his nephew has not been following the Rittenhouse trial, which went to the jury Tuesday. Instead, he has focused on his new T-shirt printing business.
‘He needs to be focusing on himself, focusing on his children and his new normal,’ Justin Blake said of his nephew.
A GoFundMe campaign started by Jacob Blake’s mother, Julia Jackson, has raised more than $2.3million.
The money is expected to go toward his medical care. It is not known which facility in Chicago is treating Jacob Blake.
DailyMail.com has sought comment from the Blake family and his attorneys.
Jacob had a warrant for his arrest at the time of his shooting, and was struck by seven bullets after turning toward a cop while holding a knife.
The attorney for officer Rusten Sheskey, who shot Jacob, has said Jacob was holding a knife during the encounter and that the officer believed he was trying to kidnap the kids in the backseat of the SUV he was near when police saw him.
Sheskey was placed on administrative leave but returned to work March 31; he was not charged, according to the Kenosha Police Department.
A GoFundMe campaign started by Jacob Blake’s mother, Julia Jackson, has raised more than $2.3million
His shooting touched off protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August, after a summer that saw nationwide protests over other officer-involved shootings of black people across the country
Some of the protests became violent. Above, police stand near a building on fire in Kenosha
Blake said of the unrest: 'I didn't agree with what they were doing, but I understood'
In November 2020, Jacob had pleaded guilty to two counts of disorderly conduct and domestic abuse from a previous incident, and was sentenced to two years' probation. As part of the deal, one count of criminal trespassing and one count of third-degree sexual assault and domestic abuse were dropped, according to NBC News.
A probable cause statement from May 3, 2020, said a complainant met officers crying, in a nightgown saying Jacob had woken her up demanding his things then grabbed her between her legs. She told police her car and debit card were missing after he left.
The former police youth cadet is white, as were those he shot. Rittenhouse testified he acted in self-defense, while prosecutors argued he
