Friday, August 28, 2020

Jacob Blake woke up and asked his dad, 'Why did they shoot me so many times?'

 SHINGTON

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Jacob Blake woke up and asked his dad, 'Why did they shoot me so many times?'

(CNN)A heavily medicated Jacob Blake, paralyzed from the waist down and shackled to a hospital bed, clutched his father's hand and wept after regaining consciousness.
"Why did they shoot me so many times?' he asked Jacob Blake Sr.
"Baby they weren't supposed to shoot you at all,'" the father responded, recalling the exchange during an interview with CNN's Alisyn Camerota on "New Day."
Jacob Blake, a Black Wisconsin resident, was shot seven times in the back by a White police officer who tried to detain him this week in Kenosha.
    Blake's children, ranging in age from 3 to 8 years, watched the shooting from inside a car their father was stepping into as the officer opened fire. The oldest boy, who was supposed to celebrate a birthday the day his father was shot, also has questions.
    "Papa, why did they shoot my daddy in the back?" Jacob Blake Sr. recalled the boy asking him. "Where's daddy?"
    Blake, 29, is hospitalized in Wauwatosa, and family members say the sight of him tethered to the bed is heartbreaking.
    "Why do they have that cold steel on my son's ankle?" he asked. "He can't get up, he couldn't get up if he wanted to."
    Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said he "couldn't imagine" why Blake was handcuffed.
    "I would have no personal understanding why that would be necessary," Evers told reporters. "I would hope that we would be able to find a more, a better way to help him ... in recovering. That seems counterintuitive. It seems to be bad medicine."
    The Froedtert Hospital, where Blake is being treated, deferred CNN's questions to the Wisconsin Department of Justice. The Kenosha police and sheriff's department, as well as the district attorney's office, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    "There is no explanation for it," Blake family attorney Benjamin Crump said. "It follows the pattern of deliberate indifference and excessive force."
    "My son has not been afforded the rights of a human," Jacob Blake Sr. said.

      

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