NYACK, NY – Mondaire Jones, frontrunner for New York’s 17th Congressional District which represents Rockland and Westchester County, released the following statement after video footage was released of a police officer shooting Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, seven times in the back as he walked toward his car.

“It’s been a summer of Black pain and anger on full display, and still today I wake up to a video of an unarmed Black man being shot seven times point-blank by a White officer. It’s not enough to paint Black Lives Matter murals in the streets: we need substantive policy reform,” said Jones. “We need accountability. We need to fire the cop who shot Jacob Blake in cold blood and we need Congress to step up and do what’s hard — reign in police forces that are no longer acting to keep the public safe, but to keep them down. My prayers are with Jacob Blake now, and my vote will be with him and all our Black brothers and sisters like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor when I am in office.”

If elected in November, Jones will be the first openly gay, Black member of Congress as well as the first Black representative from New York’s 17th Congressional District. He currently lives in South Nyack.