KENOSHA, Wis. — An attorney representing Jacob Blake is responding to the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.
In a statement released Friday, B'Ivory LaMarr said the verdict makes it "increasingly difficult" to convince the community that the justice system is fair. This comes after a jury has found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts in the shooting in Kenosha last summer in which the then-17-year-old shot and killed two people and injured a third person amid protests and unrest over police brutality. The shootings took place during protests in Kenosha over police brutality following the death of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and the police shooting of Blake, LaMarr's client, in Kenosha.
"You cannot say that it is right for someone to kill two people, injure someone else and walk away unscathed," LaMarr said in a statement. "The larger narrative is that there is an inherent unfairness in this verdict and it is our hope that this will not set a precedent for future cases. Unfortunately, we are not surprised at the outcome. The civil unrest that occurred in Kenosha was on the heels of the shooting of my client Jacob Blake, and on behalf of the Blake family, we are urging people in cities around this country to remember why we are where we are today."
LaMarr said he hopes change will come.
"As we continue to fight for that change, we must make every effort to preserve freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protests by maintaining order in our communities," LaMarr said in a statement. "No one has a right to show up to a protest with weapons, and use this as an excuse to harm others. Even though what happened in the courtroom today was not an issue of race, it is still seen as a racial issue. I have said this before and I say it again - We ALL want to build a better country for our children’s children, but how long before we can truly say that we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL?”