Blake talked about the August 23 shooting that left him paralyzed from the waist down in part of an interview that aired on Thursday in “Good Morning America”.
“I was like, ‘He’s shooting at me,'” he said Blake, a 29-year-old black man. “I couldn’t believe it, so I kind of sat in the car … put my hands up, because I didn’t want him to shoot me in the face or in the head or anything. He just kept shooting, kept shooting.
“My babies are right here, my babies. So after he stopped shooting at me, I said, ‘Daddy loves you, no matter what,'” he said. “I thought it would be the last thing I would say to them. Thank God it wasn’t.”
The shooting, videotaped, sparked protests last summer against racial injustice and police brutality, initially triggered by the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police.
Rusten Sheskey, the white officer who shot Blake, will face no criminal charges, Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley announced last week, pointing to Blake “actively resisting” the arrest it’s him possession of knife at the time of shooting.
The fact that Sheskey and two other officers were on a domestic disturbance call was “urgently important,” Graveley wrote in his investigative report on the shooting. The police also had a warrant for Blake’s arrest in a previous domestic incident, Graveley said.
The incident started with a call to the police
Blake said he was trying to leave his son’s birthday party with his children after an argument broke out between Laquisha Booker, the mother of three of her children, and a neighbor.
“I wanted to go. My son is inside, with tears streaming from his eyes and he said, ‘Daddy, are you sure? It’s my birthday.'” Blake told ABC. “I’ll take them to the store again, make them forget about all of this.”
As he prepared to leave, Booker called the police, telling a dispatcher that he had taken the keys to an SUV she had rented and that she was afraid he would break it.
According to the investigative report, Booker said Blake “shouldn’t be here”, but she allowed him to spend a few hours with his son on his birthday.
When the police arrived, Blake said they did not explain why they were there and did not say they had an arrest warrant – a statement contested by the officers’ testimony to investigators.
“At that time, I’m leaving,” he said. “I hadn’t done anything, so I didn’t feel like they were there for me.”
Blake says he shouldn’t have taken the knife
Blake had just put one of his kids in the SUV when he felt one of the cops grab his arm.
A physical altercation broke out between Blake and the police, who said they believed he was taking a gun. Blake told investigators that he had a knife that fell to the ground when Sheskey first grabbed it, but denied that he would use it as a weapon against police officers. Sheskey unloaded his Taser, but Blake broke the wires by hand.
Blake he picked up the knife and started walking towards the SUV driver’s door, away from the cops.
“I shouldn’t have taken it,” he said, adding, “I wasn’t thinking clearly.” Blake said he intended to put the knife in the SUV and then lay on the floor to submit to the police.
“If they did it there and killed me there, everyone would see it.”
Blake told ABC that he “couldn’t hear” the cops telling him to stop. “All I heard was screaming, shouting. My ears were ringing, so it was all muffled.”
In a video captured from a second-floor apartment across the street, Blake is seen walking in front of the SUV with a knife in his hand. The cops have their guns drawn and a male voice is heard shouting, “Drop the knife!”
Moments later, after the policeman grabbed Blake’s shirt, seven shots are heard. Blake had four entry wounds on his back and three on the left side.
“Officer Sheskey was faced with a difficult and dangerous situation and acted appropriately and in accordance with his training,” said Kenosha Police Association lawyer Brendan Matthews in a statement last week.
“The video remains difficult to see, but that does not change what really happened. False and misleading narratives to the contrary need to be stopped. Kenosha can and will move forward from that. This process begins now.”
Blake’s family lawyers in a statement last week expressed disappointment at the decision not to prosecute Sheskey, saying the decision “failed not only with Jacob and his family, but with the community that protested and demanded justice”.
Speaking to Good Morning America, attorney Ben Crump said Blake’s previous actions did not justify the shooting.
“If you’re black in America and you’re not perfect, they say, ‘Oh, it was justified,'” he said. “It is as if our children were angels.”
According to ABC, Blake is going into physical rehabilitation four days a week and has been preparing for his 37th surgery since the shooting.
As for the children who witnessed the shooting, Blake said he explained, “Dad may die, but for some reason I didn’t die that day.”
Melissa Alonso and Ray Sanchez of CNN contributed to this report.