Source: Brandon Bell / Getty
Jacob Blake, 29, was shot in the back multiple times while walking away from cops. Now, the Black man and latest victim of police brutality is out of emergency surgery, but he is reportedly paralyzed from the waist down.
As previously reported, on Sunday (August 23) police in Kenosha, Wisconsin were responding to a domestic violence call. Two women were arguing, but witnesses say Blake was trying to stop them.
Blake, a father of six who was celebrating his 8-year-olds birthday that day, placed three children in his car. When the unarmed man tried to get in the SUV, an officer got into an altercation with him, shooting him reportedly 8 times in the back, at point-blank range. Some reports say seven shots were heard—but overkill is overkill especially considering he wasn’t armed nor even acting aggressively.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that according to Blake’s father, his son is now paralyzed from the waist down, and doctors are unsure if he will ever regain use of his legs.
“I want to put my hand on my son’s cheek and kiss him on his forehead, and then I’ll be OK,” said his father, who is travelling from Charlotte, North Carolina to visit his son in the hospital. “I’ll kiss him with my mask. The first thing I want to do is touch my son.”
That makes for two egregious shootings of Black men this past weekend, with Trayford Pellerin being shot and killed in Louisiana. It’s still 2020, and despite all the protests and pleas to stop police brutality, cops are still shooting Black in the back, on camera.
Both incidents have sparked protests locally and nationally.
