Blake spoke of the August 23 shooting that left him paralyzed from the waist down in part of an interview that aired on “Good Morning America” on Thursday.
“I was like, ‘He’s shooting me,’” he said Blake, a 29-year-old black man. “I couldn’t believe it, so I sat in the car a little bit … raised my hands because I didn’t want him to shoot me in the face or in the head or anything. .
‘My babies are here, my babies. So after he stopped shooting, I said, ‘Daddy loves you no matter what,’ he said. ‘I thought this would be the last thing I would say to them. Thank God it wasn’t. ‘
The shooting, captured on video, sparked protests over the summer over racial injustice and police brutality initially sparked by the death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
Resting Sheskey, the white officer who shot Blake, will not face criminal charges, Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley announced last week: noting Blake “actively resisting” arrest And his possession of a knife at the time of the shooting.
That Sheskey and two other agents were in a domestic fight was “urgently important,” Graveley wrote in his investigative report on the shooting. Police also had a warrant to arrest Blake after 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 kids after an argument broke out between Laquisha Booker, the mother of three of his kids, and a neighbor.
‘I wanted to leave. My son is in, tears are coming from his eyes and he said, ‘Daddy, are you sure? It’s my birthday. ” ‘Blake told ABC. “I’ll take them back to the store so they forget all about this.”
As he was preparing to leave, Booker called the police to tell a dispatcher that he had taken the keys to an SUV she had rented and that she was afraid he would crash it.
According to the investigative report, Booker said that Blake was “not supposed to be here,” but that she gave him a few hours to spend with his son on his birthday.
When police arrived, Blake said they did not explain why they were there and not that they had a warrant for his arrest – a statement disputed by the officers’ statement to investigators.
“That’s when I walk out,” he said. “I hadn’t done anything so I didn’t feel like they were there for me.”
Blake says he shouldn’t have picked up a knife
Blake had just put one of his sons in the SUV when he felt one of the officers grab his arm.
A physical disagreement broke out between Blake and the agents, who said they thought he was reaching for a weapon. Blake told investigators he had a knife that fell to the ground when Sheskey first grabbed it, but denied using it as a weapon against the officers. Sheskey unloaded his Taser, but Blake broke the wires with his hand.
Blake picked up the knife and began to walk to the driver’s door of the SUV, away from the officers.
“I shouldn’t have picked it up,” he said, adding, “I wasn’t thinking straight.” Blake said he intended to put the knife in the SUV and then lay on the floor to submit to the police officers.
“If they did it there and they killed me there, everyone would see.”
Blake told ABC he “couldn’t hear” the agents telling him to stop. ‘All I heard was screaming, screaming. My ears were ringing, so it was all muffled. ‘
In a video shot from a second-floor apartment across the street, Blake is seen walking around the front of the SUV with a knife in his hand. The officers have drawn their guns and a man’s voice is heard calling, “Drop the knife!”
Moments later, after the officer took Blake’s shirt, seven shots were fired. Blake had four access wounds on the back and three on his left.
“Officer Sheskey faced a difficult and dangerous situation and acted appropriately and in accordance with his training,” Kenosha Professional Police Association attorney Brendan Matthews said in a statement last week.
“The video remains difficult to watch, but that doesn’t change what actually happened. False and misleading narratives to the contrary must stop. Kenosha can and will continue with this. That process begins now.”
Lawyers for the Blake family expressed disappointment in a statement last week at the decision not to impeach Sheskey, saying the decision “failed not only Jacob and his family, but the community protesting and demanding justice.”
Speaking to Good Morning America, attorney Ben Crump said Blake’s past actions did not justify the shooting.
“If you’re a black person in America, and you’re not perfect, they say, ‘Oh, it was justified,’” he said. “It’s like our kids must be angels.”
According to ABC, Blake goes to physical rehab four days a week and prepares for his 37th surgery since the shooting.
As for his kids who witnessed the shooting, Blake said he explained, “Dad might die, but for some reason I didn’t do that day.”
CNN’s Melissa Alonso and Ray Sanchez contributed to this report.