Jacob Blake Shooting: Can Police Be Held Accountable?

FEATURING CHRISTOPHER E. BROWN – The shooting of a 32-year old African American father of three in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has become the latest flashpoint in the fight against racist police violence. Video shows Jacob Blake shot in the back at nearly point-blank range by an officer who has now been identified as a man name Rusten Sheskey. Blake remains paralyzed from the waist down. Already Kenosha police are claiming that Blake was reaching for a knife in his car when he was shot. It’s a familiar script for those sickened by an on-going epidemic of killings of Black Americans for whom justice is not only elusive but who are often blamed for the violence that police wreak on them. Can police be held accountable?

Christopher E. Brown, an attorney and an expert on excessive police force cases and qualified immunity. He runs the historic, African-American law firm The Brown Firm and recently won a $3.5 million settlement for the family of Wayne Jones, a mentally ill man who was shot 22 times by West Virginia police.