Fury at Jacob Blake handcuffed in hospital as thousands march on Washington on anniversary of MLK speech

Jacob Blake, the man shot seven times in the back by Wisconsin police on Sunday, was handcuffed in his hospital bed despite being paralyzed and charged with no crime, it has emerged.

Mr Blake, 29, had the handcuffs removed on Friday after outrage from politicians and demonstrators alike.

The news came as thousands of people gathered in Washington DC to protest against police brutality on the 57th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a Dream" speech.

Addressing the crowd, the civil rights leader's 12-year-old granddaughter, Yolanda Renee King, invoked one of the best-known lines of the civil rights leader's speech, where King envisioned a time his children would "not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character".

"My grandfather predicted this very moment," she said. "He said we were moving into a new phase of the struggle. The first phase was the civil rights and the new phase is genuine equality".

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the shooting of Mr Blake sparked fury and deadly violence, anger spread quickly at the news of his handcuffing.

"How the f**k do you handcuff Jacob Blake that you paralyzed to a hospital bed after you shot him in the back seven times?" tweeted Rashida Tlaib, congresswoman for the neighboring state of Michigan.

Tony Evers, governor of Wisconsin, was asked if he's concerned about Blake being handcuffed.

"Hell yes," he said.

Jacob Blake Sr told the Chicago Sun Times that he had just been to see his son in hospital.

"I hate it that he was laying in that bed with the handcuff onto the bed," he said. "He can't go anywhere. Why do you have him cuffed to the bed?"

Kenosha police said told the BBC that Mr Blake was in custody for previous warrants and the handcuffs were policy.

The Blake family attorney, Benjamin Crump, later said the handcuffs had been removed after a date for a court hearing relating to those warrants was agreed with police.

Mr Crump said it would take a 'miracle' for Blake to recover use of his legs.

Mr Crump's legal partner, Patrick Salvi, confirmed that a bullet went through his spinal cord. He had bullets in his stomach, and had to have almost his entire colon removed. He had a bullet in the kidney, and in the arm.

Mr Blake's shooting sparked five nights of unrest in Kenosha, which on Tuesday night culminated in a Trump-supporting 17-year-old, Kyle Rittenhouse, shooting dead two protesters.

Rittenhouse is currently in jail his hometown of Antioch, Illinois - 20 miles from Kenosha - and on Friday a planned extradition hearing to send him to Wisconsin for trial was delayed until September 25.

On Thursday night it emerged that he was now being represented by lawyer L. Lin Wood, nicknamed "attorney for the damned".

Mr Wood represented the security guard falsely accused in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta in 1996, the parents of missing child beauty pageant star JonBenet Ramsey, and Nicholas Sandmann, the teenager who sued for defamation suit against The Washington Post following a confrontation with a Native American elder.

Addressing the crowd in Washington DC, Mr Blake's father said: "There are two systems of justice in the United States. There’s a white system and there’s a black system. The black system ain’t doing so well.”

He added "we're going to hold court today on systematic racism", rattling off the names of other African Americans killed by police in recent years.

Reaching the end of his list, he declared the system "guilty".

The March on Washington, called "Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks," was planned in the wake of George Floyd's death, the unarmed African American killed by a white police officer who pressed his knee into his neck until he became immobile.

Kendra Postelle, who travelled two hours from Newcastle, Delaware to attend told The Telegraph she made the decision to attend as soon as the march was announced at a memorial service for Mr Floyd in June.

"I'm here because I have three black sons, and I want to make sure my sons are safe at night," she said.

Another protester, Sabrina, said she had come all the way from Florida to show her support.

"I had to be here," she said, adding that it was "sad" that she felt it necessary, 57 years on from Rev King's historic March on Washington.

Dexter, who came from Baltimore, said: "It's like history repeating itself. We've been here before, but it's time to make a change this time. Now you have people all over the world, and that's a big difference."

In all, around 50,000 people were estimated to have attended the march, organised by civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton and his National Action Network organisation.

After speeches at the Lincoln Memorial, participants walked to the Martin Luther King memorial about a half mile away.

Rev. Sharpton said he chose to hold the rally at the Lincoln Memorial to honor King's 1963 march, but also to highlight the broken promises President Abraham Lincoln had made.

“He promised us full citizenship if we fought to save the Union," he said.

"We never got the full citizenship. We never got the reparations. We’ve come to Lincoln because you promised, Mr Lincoln, and the promise has been broken.”

The civil rights activist also launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump, who has declined to address the video of Mr Blake's shooting, or mention the 29-year-old by name.

"Well, Mr Trump, look right down the block from the White House," he said. "We’ve come to Washington by the thousands. We’re going call their name. We’re going to call their name. We’ll never let America forget what you’ve done."

He added: "We didn't just come today to have a show. Demonstration without legislation would not lead to change. We come to let you know, if we will come out in these numbers in the heat, and stand in the heat, that we will stand in the polls all day long."

Mr Floyd's sister, Bridgett Floyd, told the crowd: “I want you to ask yourself: What will be your legacy? Will future generations remember you for your inaction, complacency, or for your empathy, leadership, for weeding out injustices?”

Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, expressed optimism about the marchers' potential as she addressed them virtually, saying: “If we work together to challenge every instinct our nation has to return to the status quo … we have an opportunity to make history, right here and right now”.