Jacob Blake: Black man shot by Wisconsin police ‘paralysed from the waist down’

The man shot in the back by Wisconsin police is paralysed from the waist down and has ‘eight holes’ in his body, his father says.

Jacob Blake Sr, father of Jacob Blake Jr, speaks during a press conference outside of the County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Picture: AFP

The father of a black man who was shot in the back by Wisconsin police in an incident that has led to violent protests has said that his son is paralysed from the waist down and has “eight holes” in his body.

Jacob Blake said he did not know if the paralysis would be permanent. His son, also called Jacob Blake, 29, is in intensive care in a Milwaukee hospital after surgery. “I want to put my hand on my son’s cheek and kiss him on his forehead, and then I’ll be OK,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. “I’ll kiss him with my mask. The first thing I want to do is touch my son.”

Jacob Blake, 29, is in intensive care in a Milwaukee hospital after surgery.

Mr Blake was shot in front of his three young sons in Kenosha, a city of about 100,000 between Milwaukee and Chicago, on Sunday. Video filmed by a neighbour shows him walking around the front of his parked car towards the driver’s door, followed by two police officers, with a third briefly visible. After Mr Blake opens the car door he is shot repeatedly from behind.

Raysean White, the man who shot the video, told CNN that before he began filming he had seen police wrestle and punch Mr Blake and fire a Taser at him.

According to Ben Crump, a lawyer representing the family, Mr Blake had been attempting to break up a fight between two women. His sons, aged 3, 5 and 8, were in the car and there was “no indication he was armed”.

Mr Blake was struck by four out of the seven shots heard on the video, all of which were fired by a single officer, Mr Crump said. The “eight holes” referred to by Mr Blake’s father may pertain to the bullet entry and exit wounds.

The three officers at the scene have been placed on administrative leave. No details about the reason for opening fire have been released. Police have not disclosed the race of the officers.

The video was shared widely on social media within hours, igniting a fresh wave of social justice protests and unrest in numerous American cities less than three months after the killing of another black man, George Floyd, in police custody. That incident spawned a broad reckoning on race and police brutality that has spread around the world.

Demonstrators march through the city during a protest in New York against the shooting of Jacob Blake. Picture: AFP

The governor of Wisconsin, one of the most racially divided states in the country, has called in the National Guard to support police efforts to maintain order in Kenosha. The city was braced for a third round of unrest on Tuesday after protests degenerated into looting and arson, and violent clashes between officers in riot gear who deployed tear gas and citizens who defied a dawn-to-dusk curfew.

“Essentially, our city was burnt to the ground, building by building,” Zach Rodriguez, a member of the Kenosha county board of supervisors, said on Tuesday. “Enough is enough.”

Flames roar from cars torched by protesters a few blocks from the County Court House during a demonstration against the shooting of Jacob Blake. Picture: AFP

David Beth, the sheriff of Kenosha county, said police were outnumbered by protesters and needed more support. “We’ve got 200 officers, I don’t know how many armoured vehicles,” he told The New York Times. “It’s not enough.”

Demonstrations linked to the shooting of Mr Blake also turned violent in other cities, including in Madison, the state capital, where police dispersed crowds with tear gas; in Minneapolis, where Mr Floyd was killed in May; in Portland, where nightly racial justice protests have continued for nearly three months; and in Seattle, where 200 people marched in solidarity with the protesters in Kenosha and rioters threw rubbish and then fireworks at a police station and broke shop windows.