‘Geeked’ Blake takes a few steps
CHICAGO – A Black man who was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer in Wisconsin expects to be walking soon, an accomplishment he says is tempered by fears of it happening again.
Jacob Blake Jr. was shot seven times by a Kenosha police officer in August 2020, three months after George Floyd was killed by police in Minnesota. Blake’s shooting set off days of violent protests in the city of about 100,000 people located midway between Chicago and Milwaukee.
Blake told CNN he was able to take a few steps during his son’s birthday celebration this past week. Although he was “so geeked” by the moment that followed months of physical rehabilitation, he is not claiming victory.
“Yeah, I’m here, and yeah I’m about to be walking, but I really don’t feel like I have survived because it could happen to me again,” Blake told the network. “I have not survived until something has changed.”
Blake said he continues to relive not only his own shooting, but other gun violence in the Black community. Last month, during Fourth of July fireworks when Blake was in Chicago with family, he called 911 over what he later realized was an anxiety attack.
“I’m hearing these booms (fireworks) and it’s not scaring me because I got shot, it’s scaring me because all of those people have gotten shot so every time a boom went off, I’m kind of imagining people dying,” Blake said.