Jacob Blake, the man who was left partially paralyzed after being shot by police several times, spoke out about the incident in an interview with “Good Morning America” co-anchor Michael Strahan.
The interview is Blake’s first since the August shooting, which sparked nationwide protests as it came on the heels of the police killing of George Floyd earlier in the year.
“I didn’t want to be the next George Floyd,” Blake said in the interview. “I didn’t want to die.”
Police were originally responding to a 911 call from a woman who said Blake took her car keys and would not return them. They were told that Blake previously had an arrest warrant for sexual assault and domestic violence.
Blake told Strahan that he felt someone grab his arm as he was trying to put one of his sons in the car. He said his “knee-jerk” reaction was to move his arm, but that was when he realized it was the police.
Blake said officers never told him why they were there and that there was a warrant for his arrest. Officers said he had a knife during the encounter.
“I shouldn’t have picked it up, only considering what was going on,” Blake said of his decision to get the knife. “At that time, I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Officers deployed stun guns at Blake twice as they attempted to arrest him, but claim they were not able to get him to comply. Blake then walked around his car and opened the door when Officer Rusten Sheskey shot him seven times in the back, leaving him partially paralyzed.
Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley last week announced that no charges would be filed against any of the officers involved, finding that the officers’ actions were justified as self-defense.
A federal civil rights investigation into the shooting is currently being overseen by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and the Department of Justice’s civil rights division.