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Live Updates: Jacob Blake Will No Longer Be Shackled to Bed, Lawyer Says - The New York Times

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Jacob Blake has been shackled to his hospital bed because of a warrant against him for criminal charges from before an officer shot him on Sunday, the Kenosha, Wis., police said Friday.

Mr. Blake was charged in July with third-degree sexual assault, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct, court documents say, after a former friend accused him of breaking into her home while she was asleep and assaulting her. The woman told the police that Mr. Blake also took her car and debit card, according to the court documents.

On Sunday, the police were called to the woman’s home again after she reported that a man was at her home and was not allowed to be there. The police were arresting Mr. Blake when the shooting occurred, Wisconsin state officials said. He was shot seven times as he tried to get into his car.

The authorities have offered few other details of the shooting, which set off demonstrations in Kenosha and in cities across the country.

Mr. Blake’s lawyer, Patrick Cafferty, declined to discuss the criminal charges against Mr. Blake, except to say that his client will be pleading not guilty. He said that as of Friday afternoon, Mr. Blake would no longer be shackled in his bed after Mr. Cafferty reached an agreement with the Kenosha district attorney, Michael D. Graveley, who agreed to vacate the arrest warrant.

The decision does not affect the criminal case against Mr. Blake. “The merits of the case have not been addressed,” Mr. Cafferty said.

Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

Earlier Friday, Mr. Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr., said that he had been able to speak with his son at the hospital on Wednesday, but that conversation was limited because his son was heavily medicated and in intense pain. “My son is fighting for his life,” he said in an interview with CNN.

“When I got to his side, he grabbed my hands and began to weep,” the elder Mr. Blake said of his son. He said his son, who remain paralyzed from the waist down, asked, “‘Why did they shoot me so many times?’ And I said, ‘Baby, they weren’t supposed to shoot you at all.’”

Three of Mr. Blake’s children — ranging from 3 to 8 years old — were in the back of the car that Mr. Blake was climbing into as he was shot. “In his mind’s eye, he just wanted to get his sons out of harm’s way, but before he could get them out of the car he was just counting shots,” Mr. Blake’s father said his son had told him. “He said he was counting them. I guess he lost consciousness around number four or five.”

He said he did not know why his son had been shackled to the bed. “Why do they have that cold steel on my son’s ankle?” he said. “He couldn’t get up if he wanted to. So that’s a little overkill to have him shackled to the bed.”

A lawyer for the family, Ben Crump, said that Mr. Blake’s injuries are severe, including damage to his bowels, shattered vertebrae and bullet fragments in his spinal cord. He has undergone several surgeries, Mr. Blake’s father said, and it was unclear whether the paralysis would be permanent.

Also on Friday, the Wisconsin Department of Justice revealed new details about the shooting of Mr. Blake. The department had previously reported that one officer had fired a Taser in a failed attempt to stop Mr. Blake, but on Friday said Officers Rusten Sheskey and Vincent Arenas had both discharged their Tasers before Officer Sheskey shot Mr. Blake seven times in the back.

A third officer, Brittany Meronek, was also present at the scene, the department said. All three officers have been put on administrative leave.

Credit...Pool photo by Ashley Landis

The N.B.A. and its players’ union announced a plan to convert league arenas — provided they are under team ownership control — into polling locations for the November election as part of an agreement to resume the playoffs on Saturday, officials said in a joint statement on Friday.

“We had a candid, impassioned and productive conversation yesterday between N.B.A. players, coaches and team governors regarding next steps to further our collective efforts and actions in support of social justice and racial equality,” said the statement signed by the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver, and Michele Roberts, the executive director of the players’ union.

The announcement came two days after N.B.A. players staged a dramatic work stoppage in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., on Sunday. Some staffers in the N.B.A.’s league office also chose not to work on Friday to spend time on social causes instead, though it was not clear exactly how many people participated in the action.

The joint plan also includes, according to the statement, the creation of “a social justice coalition, with representatives from players, coaches and governors, that will be focused on a broad range of issues, including increasing access to voting, promoting civic engagement and advocating for meaningful police and criminal justice reform.”

Establishing more polling locations was a key goal of More Than A Vote, the initiative led by Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James and other athletes aimed at protecting voter rights and increasing civic engagement, particularly among Black people.

The National Hockey League also announced plans to resume its playoffs on Saturday, and W.N.B.A. games will be played again Friday.

Credit...Adam Rogan/The Journal Times, via Associated Press

Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenager who took to the streets of Kenosha, Wis., armed with a military-style rifle this week and is accused of killing two people in a shooting that took place amid a skirmish between demonstrators and counterprotesters, is being held for the time being in Lake County, Ill.

Mr. Rittenhouse, 17, was arrested at his home in Antioch, Ill. this week. He faces six criminal counts, including first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide.

A judge in Lake County held a brief hearing on Friday morning to address Mr. Rittenhouse’s extradition to Wisconsin. At the request of a lawyer for Mr. Rittenhouse, the judge agreed to delay the matter until late September.

Mr. Rittenhouse did not appear during the brief hearing, which took place by video because of the coronavirus pandemic.

He is accused in the deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, whose friends said were protesting against the shooting of Mr. Blake by the police in Kenosha on Sunday. He also faces a charge of reckless endangerment in the injury of a third man.

Mr. Rittenhouse, who had showed strong support for the police and President Trump on social media, had portrayed himself as a helper to injured people and defender of property when he arrived on the streets of Kenosha during demonstrations earlier this week.

But as demonstrators and counterprotesters clashed late Tuesday night, video footage showed Mr. Rittenhouse in the streets of Kenosha, as the situation turned violent. Several people chase him, some shouting, “That’s the shooter!”

Even after shots rang out, Mr. Rittenhouse appears to go unnoticed by police officers. In one video, he can be seen, weapon in full view, hands up, walking toward groups of officers — who drive around him as they respond to the confusing scene.

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Thousands gathered in Washington at the Lincoln Memorial on the 57th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech to call for racial justice and encourage voting and census participation.CreditCredit...Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times

Fifty-seven years after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. galvanized the civil rights movement by proclaiming a dream of racial equality from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a new group of advocates for racial justice returned to the same spot on Friday, hoping to rekindle some of that passion.

This time, families of victims of police violence pleaded for an overhaul of what they called a system steeped in racism.

“There are two systems of justice in the United States. There’s a white system, and there’s a Black system,” said Jacob Blake Sr., the father of Jacob Blake, the Black man shot by a police officer in Wisconsin on Sunday. He added, “We’re not taking it anymore.”

Letetra Widman, the younger Mr. Blake’s sister, urged people to fight racism with kindness and unity. “You must stand, you must fight. But not with violence and chaos,” she said.

“We will not dress up this genocide,” she added, “and call it police brutality.”

Dr. King’s son, Martin Luther King III, implored voters to show up at the polls to support change. “We must march to the ballot box — and the mailboxes,” he said. “There’s a knee upon the neck of democracy.”

He also recalled the death of his father and grandmother. “Not only do I come as a protester,” he said, “but I come as a victim.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton urged the Republican-controlled Senate to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, named after the Black man killed by a Minneapolis police officer earlier this summer, which would overhaul law enforcement training and create new standards designed to limit police misconduct and racial bias.

“Demonstration without legislation will not lead to change,” Mr. Sharpton said.

He criticized President Trump for not directly addressing the multiple Black people who have been shot or killed by police in recent months, and for pushing changes to the U.S. Postal Service that could jeopardize mail-in voting.

“Mr. Trump, look right down the block from the White House — we’ve come to Washington by the thousands,” he said. “We’ll never let America forget what you’ve done.”

Dr. King’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom drew an audience of a quarter-million in 1963. The Friday protest, called the Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks, was expected to attract a small fraction of that, in part because the city is requiring quarantines for visitors from 27 states.

Still, by 9 a.m., the pavement around the Lincoln Memorial was packed with several hundred people, though speakers addressed the crowd from an area marked off in grids occupied by small knots of attendees, to limit the spread of the coronavirus during the pandemic.

Like the N.B.A., the National Hockey League will resume its playoffs on Saturday after halting play Thursday under pressure from players who said that “moments of reflection” were not enough amid a sports-wide walkout against social injustice.

“It makes me so proud to be an N.H.L. player and see that this is player-driven action,” Matt Dumba, a defenseman for the Minnesota Wild, told Sportsnet on Thursday.

The Tampa Bay Lightning will face off against the Boston Bruins at noon on Saturday, followed by Thursday’s postponed games: the New York Islanders against the Philadelphia Flyers and the Las Vegas Golden Knights playing the Vancouver Canucks.

The W.N.B.A. plans to resume play on Friday night, the league announced, after players took a day of reflection on Thursday in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake.

“We wanted to stand with our brethren yesterday, and we did,” said Nneka Ogwumike, a forward for the Los Angeles Sparks, who serves as president of the players’ association, in an interview with ESPN. “But we came here for a reason, and that was to amplify our voices. The only way that that happens is if we’re out here.”

Teams set to tip off Friday are the Minnesota Lynx against the Atlanta Dream, the Sparks against the Connecticut Sun and the Washington Mystics against the Phoenix Mercury.

The Mystics’ pregame protest, in which players wore shirts spelling out Jacob Blake’s name with marks signifying bullet holes on their backs, was one of several actions followed by walkouts in many major North American sports on Wednesday.

But hockey continued to play its games on Wednesday after the Milwaukee Bucks of the N.B.A. refused to come out of the locker room for a playoff game. The N.H.L. then suspended its games on Thursday at the urging of several players.

“It’s incredibly insulting as a Black man in hockey, the lack of action and acknowledgement from the N.H.L.,” wrote Evander Kane, a left-winger for the San Jose Sharks, in a post on Twitter, “just straight up insulting.”

Mr. Kane, Mr. Dumba and several other players lead the Hockey Diversity Alliance, which called on the league’s teams to commit to promoting communities of color through education, business and grass-roots initiatives and other “rule changes to make the culture of the game more inclusive.”

Instead of walking out, players at the Wednesday game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins stood for seven seconds of silence and listened to an address to “end racism,” with the phrase written across screens around the rink. The Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars played their game without acknowledgment of the unrest.

The W.N.B.A.’s players have been using games to support social justice causes. The season is dedicated to Breonna Taylor, and jerseys bearing her name have been worn since the season started.

“I have to go there and play like it’s my last game because she did not know that would be the last day she would live,” said Kristine Anigwe, a Sparks player, in an interview with The New York Times.

Some of the league’s athletes, including the entire roster of the Atlanta team as well as other stars, recently endorsed an opponent of Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican from Georgia who is a co-owner of the Dream, because she criticized the Black Lives Matter movement and the W.N.B.A. players’ social activism.

Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Trump made only a glancing reference to Kenosha, Wis., in his speech on Thursday accepting the Republican nomination for a second term, linking it to other American cities where protests against systemic racism and police brutality have sometimes turned violent.

Mr. Trump’s mention of Kenosha, the scene of several chaotic nights of demonstrations this week, and the other cities was shorthand for what he claims is a creeping lawlessness that will blanket the United States if his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., is elected.

But, like Vice President Mike Pence, who hit the same theme on Wednesday, Mr. Trump did not say what touched off the unrest in Kenosha: the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer in an episode that has drawn widespread condemnation and is being investigated by state authorities and the Justice Department.

“When there is police misconduct, the justice system must hold wrongdoers fully and completely accountable, and it will,” Mr. Trump said, without citing specific examples of such misconduct. “But we can never have a situation where things are going on as they are today, we must never allow mob rule. We can never allow mob rule. “

He continued: “In the strongest possible terms the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities all, like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago and New York, many others, Democrat-run.”

Mr. Trump’s election four years ago was aided by his narrow victory in Wisconsin, and he won Kenosha County by fewer than 250 votes. Some local Democrats have said the violence that flared amid the Kenosha protests could lift his re-election prospects.

Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

In some ways, what has unfolded on the streets of Kenosha, Wis., over the past week has had a wearying sense of familiarity.

Another demoralizing shooting of a Black man by the police. Another angry outcry in the streets. Another disturbing trail of destruction with the potential to overshadow the message of the need to end police violence and racism.

But as the demonstrations for Jacob Blake, the man shot in Kenosha, spread, and with a huge March on Washington set for Friday, the latest surge of protests reflects something greater: the remarkable way the Black Lives Matter movement has become a lever for change and a guiding voice on issues of race in America.

Black Lives Matter protests — or even the possibility of them — have changed the way people in power respond. Elected leaders now tend to engage instantly and insistently with matters that in the past were primarily dealt with by the police. Officers are named, details are shared and thorough investigations are promised. In some instances, officers are charged or fired much more quickly than ever before.

“You’ve created an environment so whenever any incident of injustice or perceived injustice takes place, it’s going to be amplified,” said Daniel Gillion, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies protest movements.

But there is also increasing concern that images of vandalism, looting and arson are becoming inextricably linked with the protests, undermining efforts to win systemic reforms and public support. While the Black Lives Matter movement enjoyed broad approval in the weeks after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody, Democrats worry that the unrest, regardless of who is responsible, could help President Trump find a receptive audience for his argument that he will deliver “law and order.”

Credit...Frank Franklin II/Associated Press

Two days after leading the sport of tennis into a social justice work stoppage, Naomi Osaka won a semifinal match on Friday in the Western & Southern Open. She had been willing to forfeit the match to spark a broader conversation in the tennis world about racism.

Osaka beat Elise Mertens of Belgium after walking to the court in a black T-shirt with a picture of a clenched fist and the words “Black Lives Matter” displayed across the front.

Osaka had won a hard-fought, three-set quarterfinal Wednesday afternoon. About five hours later, she announced that she would not play her semifinal, initially scheduled for Thursday, to draw attention to the issue of police violence against Black people.

Osaka’s announcement accelerated discussions that tennis officials had been having Wednesday evening about how tennis needed to react to the sudden halt in sports following the shooting of Jacob Blake, said Chris Widmaier, the chief spokesman for the United States Tennis Association. U.S.T.A. officials and organizers of the Western & Southern Open had not decided on a course of action until Osaka announced her willingness to withdraw.

Two hours later, tennis officials suspended play, in part to ease the onus of taking a stand from a single player. “In my mind that brings more attention to the movement,” Osaka said.

Reporting was contributed by Alan Blinder, Gillian R. Brassil, Michael Cooper, Sopan Deb, John Eligon, Jacey Fortin, Matthew Futterman, Ruth Graham, Aishvarya Kavi, Tyler Kepner, Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, Sarah Mervosh, Richard Perez-Peña, Bryan Pietsch, Ed Shanahan, Marc Stein, Michael Wines, Neil Vigdor and Alan Yuhas.

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