Jacob Blake.Photo: Ben Crump/Twitter
Jacob Blakeis speaking out about the August incident in which a police officer shot him in the back several timesin front of two of his children. The shooting left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Speaking toGood Morning America, Blake recalled lying on the ground after being shot – and making eye contact with his sons. “All I remember at that point was kinda leaning back, looking at my boys,” Blake told Michael Strahan in an exclusive interview.
“I said, ‘Daddy loves you no matter what,'” he recalls. “It was the last thing I said to them at that point. I thought it was gonna be the last thing I say to them. Thank God it wasn’t.”
Blake, who is Black, was hospitalized on Aug. 23 afterRusten Sheskey, a white police officer at the Kenosha Police Department, shot him multiple times in the back while responding to what authorities said was a domestic disturbance. His children were in the car and witnessed the shooting.
Sheskey and two other officers at the scene, Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek, were placed on administrative leave.
Blake, 29, spent six weeks in the hospital before being moved to a spinal injury rehabilitation center in Chicago. He remains paralyzed from the waist down.
- Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage?Click hereto get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.
The protests followed earlier demonstrations over the killings of other Black citizens includingGeorge Floyd,Breonna TaylorandAhmaud Arbery.
Last week, Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley announced that Sheskywould not face criminal chargesin the shooting.
During a news conference, Graveley said the officer would be able to successfully argue self-defense in front a jury. He said that his decision was based on evidence that could not be seen in cellphone video of the incident.
source: people.com
