Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha, Wis., police officer, spoke to supporters from his hospital bed over the weekend for the first time since the shooting.
“Your life, and not only just your life, your legs, something you need to move around and forward in life, can be taken from you like this,” Blake said in a video posted to Twitter by his lawyer, Benjamin Crump. “Every 24 hours, it’s pain, nothing but pain. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move from side to side, it hurts to eat.”
He refrained from speaking about details surrounding the shooting or any criminal charges he might face. He pleaded not guilty Friday via videoconference to several charges, including sexual assault, NBC News reported.
However, in urging Black people to stick together, Blake, reportedly the father of six children, said “make some money, make everything easier for our people out there, man, because there’s so much time that’s been wasted.”
Blake, 29, was shot by Officer Rusten Sheskey during an Aug. 23 arrest attempt. He is now paralyzed from the waist down, though it isn’t known if the paralysis is permanent.