Jacob Blake has spoken for the first time publicly after being shot in the back seven times by a Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer almost two weeks earlier.
Blake’s lawyer Benjamin Crump posted a video of him speaking from his hospital bed to Twitter on Saturday night. Blake urged those watching to “change their lives” while describing the pain he has suffered due to his injuries, which have left him paralyzed from the waist down.
“I just want to say to all the young cats out there, and even the older ones, older than me, there’s a lot more life to live,” Blake said. “Your life, and not only just your life, your legssomething that you need to move around and move forward in your life can be taken from you like this.”
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“I promise you, the type of shit that you go through. StaplesI got staples in my back, staples in my damn stomach. You do not want have to deal with this shit,” added Blake. “24 hours, every 24 hours it’s pain, it’s nothing but pain. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep. It hurts to move from side to side, it hurts to eat.”
Blake went on to ask that viewers “stick together,” adding that time had been wasted but there was an opportunity to “make everything easier for our people.”
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This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
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