(Photo credits: ABC News)
By Juan Ignacio Chávez
“Why did they shoot my dad in the back?” asked Jacob Blake Junior‘s children to their grandfather, Jacob Blake Senior. “I can‘t explain that to them,” he tells us.
Three weeks after his son Jacob Blake Jr. was shot in the back by a Kenosha police officer, Jacob Blake Sr., had an intimate conversation with family friend and BlogTalkRadio host Carla Giles, who kindly invited The New York Beacon to participate. Topics ranged from personal to political, from the latest news from Jacob‘s family to the upcoming tasks that they —and the whole country—have to face.
The facts
Rusten Sheskey fired seven times on Aug. 23 at Jacob Blake Jr. while he tried to get into his car. The scene was captured by a neighbor on a video that drew outrage on social media. In the following days, demonstrations —some violent— in Kenosha became a trending topic in social media. They traced a political battle between President Trump and Joe Biden, who showed up to back the police and the family, respectively.
Jacob Blake Jr. has since then become a symbol, as are Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, though he is also a survivor and a witness. Regardless of the severe medical challenges he faces and the difficult times his family is going through, they all stay strong to raise their voices, since there are still loose ends in the investigation.
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“The officers‘ body cameras were not on. We want to make it mandatory that body cameras are on constantly,” said Mr. Blake after asking for reforms in policing. “When you put seven shots in somebody, you are not trying to lay them down. You are not trying to apprehend them. When you shoot someone in the back seven times, you intend to kill that individual. Whether you admit it or not is another thing. But seven shots from a 40 caliber weapon in the back. So when it comes to that fact, what is your intention?”
According to Mr. Blake Sr., what is at stake are fundamental rights, the recognition of equality under the law that is still far from being respected. “There is one system for white people, and there is another system for black people. On the one that white people have, the justice lady is holding a scale and has a blindfold. With black people, she doesn‘t have a blindfold; she has bifocals. And you are guilty until you prove your innocence”, he said.
On a personal level, he shared that after the incident, Mr. Blake Jr.‘s children did not fully understand that their father was alive. “They thought they were not going to see daddy again. So once they got to hear his voice…if you had seen their faces when he got to speak to them…you could hear their expressions over the phone. «That‘s daddy on the phone; that‘s daddy!».”
He also shared that Jacob Blake Jr. is staying strong despite the difficulties. “His spirits are high. He got to speak to Lil Wayne the day before yesterday, and he said, «Dad, I am so happy I think I could jump and run across the room,» and I said, «Baby, that is all I want you to be.» He sounded like he was 12 years old. It was a beautiful thing to me. I could hear him smiling on the phone”.
At the end of the interview, we asked Mr. Blake Sr. to give a message to his grandchildren, as well as to the future children of the community. “We will carry out justice. We will find justice. It‘s somewhere out there. And we will find it,” he said.
