Jacob Blake Jr. is opening up about being shot by a Kenosha police officer which left him partially paralyzed.
Blake, 29, was shot last August by police officer Rusten Sheskey, who was responding to a domestic violence call. In an exclusive interview with Good Morning America, Blake remembers that he “kinda went limp,” after being shot seven times. The injuries have left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Read More: Families of George Floyd, Jacob Blake and Eric Garner speak out: ‘Two systems of justice’
GMA released a teaser of the interview on Wednesday evening where he also touches upon his two sons witnessing the shooting. Their well being was at the forefront of his mind.
“All I remember at that point was kinda leanin’ back, lookin’ at my boys,” Blake tells Good Morning America co-anchor Michael Strahan. “I said, ‘Daddy loves you no matter what.’ 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,” adds Blake. “Thank God it wasn’t.”
Blake’s shooting occurred against the backdrop of the rejuvenated Black Lives Matter movement over Black people being killed by police. His shooting was captured on bystander video and went viral.
Read More: No charges against Wisconsin officer who shot Jacob Blake
There were protests that called for the arrest of Sheskey and for charges to be filed against him. At one point, Gov. Tony Evers needed the assistance of 500 national guardsmen in Wisconsin. During one protest, Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two protesters, Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz.
Rittenhouse’s been charged with two felony homicide charges, felony attempted homicide, possession of a dangerous weapon while under the age of 18, and reckless endangerment.
However, the officer who shot Blake will not be facing charges. theGrio reported last week Assistant District Attorney Michael Graveley declined to do so. He stated that Sheskey could claim self-defense and that Blake admitted to being armed with a knife during the incident.
“Jacob Blake, while actively resisting, arms himself with a knife,” Graveley said. “It’s absolutely incontrovertible that Jacob Blake was armed with a knife during this encounter. … All the discussion that he’s unarmed contradicts even what he himself has said multiple times.”
Blake’s lawyer disagreed that he was a threat.
“There was no point in the video that is articulable for an officer to say that he was under harm at that particular point. I think that’s completely bogus and I think that is just a rationalization to try to show what is really, essentially, an intentional act,” attorney B’Ivory LaMarr said after Graveley’s decision, CNN reported.
“It’s not against the law to have a knife, people have knives for a variety of different reasons. Jacob Blake is privy to having a knife.”
Have you subscribed to theGrio’s podcast “Dear Culture”? Download our newest episodes now!
TheGrio is now on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and Roku. Download theGrio today!