Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old black Wisconsin man shot in the back by a white cop, is paralyzed from the waist down – and doctors don’t know if his injury is permanent, his father said in a new report.
“I want to put my hand on my son’s cheek and kiss him on his forehead, and then I’ll be OK,” the dad, also named Jacob, who is making his way to Kenosha from Charlotte, North Carolina, told the Chicago Sun-Times.
“I’ll kiss him with my mask. The first thing I want to do is touch my son,” he added.
He said that when he spoke with his son early Sunday, the younger Blake was preparing for a day of celebration for his son’s eighth birthday.
Hours later, he learned that Jacob had been gunned down by a cop as he tried getting inside his SUV. And just 18 minutes later, he said, he saw the shocking viral footage of the shooting.
“What justified all those shots?” the father told the paper, saying the young man has “eight holes” in his body. “What justified doing that in front of my grandsons? What are we doing?”
Some witnesses have said Jacob was just trying to break up a fight Sunday evening.
Jacob, who has seven brothers and five sisters, was a “happy little dude” when he grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, his dad told the Sun-Times.
He has been living in Kenosha for about three years and is the father of six kids between ages 3 and 13, he said, adding that family is “definitely” important to him.
“If you were in need of something and my son had it, he would not hesitate to give it to you,” the dad said. “He’s a very giving individual.”
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said Monday that he had seen no information to suggest Blake was carrying knife or another weapon, but that the case remains under investigation.
Police were “the flint as well as the gasoline” that sparked the violent protests in Kenosha, his dad said.
“Those police officers that shot my son like a dog in the street are responsible for everything that has happened in the city of Kenosha,” he told the paper. “My son is not responsible for it. My son didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t have a gun.”
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