Jacob Blake, who was partially paralyzed after a Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer shot him in his back several times, said he thought he was going to die in the Aug. 23 incident.

“All I remember at the point was kinda laying back, looking at my boys, I said ‘daddy loves you, no matter what, ‘“ the 29-year-old told Michael Strahan on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “I thought it was going to be the last thing I’d say to them. Thank God it wasn’t.”
Blake was reportedly attempting to break up an altercation between two women, one of them his child’s mother, when according to a Wisconsin state criminal investigation, she called the police telling them that he had a warrant out for his arrest. When police arrived, they attempted to take Blake into custody, but confronted him without telling him why they were arresting him, he said.

RELATED: Officer In Jacob Blake Shooting Not Charged, D.A. Announces
Rusten Shesky was one of several police officers who responded. Blake admits that he resisted arrest, but did so by trying to prevent from being choked to death the way George Floyd was in Minneapolis months earlier.
“I resisted to getting beat on,” Blake told Strahan, while sitting in a wheelchair. “What I mean by that is not falling, not letting them put their hand on my neck.” 

Police wrestled with him, then used a taser to try to subdue him. He was able to pull the plugs out of the device, and move to get into his car. Blake says that’s when Shesky pulled on his shirt, then fired at him, striking him seven times in the back and the side. Blake’s two sons were in the car. Like Floyd’s death, Blake’s shooting was captured in a disturbing cellphone video that went viral.

“I was counting down my breath, my blinks, I was like, God, I’m coming,” he said. “I guess this is it for me.”
The shooting touched off several days of unrest in Kenosha, adding to the months of massive demonstrations nationwide over police violence involving Black people. Two days after the shooting, protests turned tragic when two people, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26 were shot and killed. Gaige Grosskreutz, 22 was also injured. Kyle Rittenhouse, 18, was arrested at his home in Antioch, Ill., and charged with five felonies including first degree murder. He was released after posting $2 million bail. Earlier in January, he pleaded not guilty to the charges, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
RELATED: Jacob Blake Case: Kenosha Protests Peaceful After Decision Not To Charge Police In Shooting
Kenosha County District Attorney Mike Graveley announced on Jan. 5, that neither Shesky, nor any of the other officers at the scene would be charged in the shooting. He said that a case against Shesky could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and that state statutes on police shootings dictated that the officer reasonably defended himself because Blake was perceived to have a weapon.
That weapon was a pocketknife, that Blake said was on his person, but had dropped out of his pocket when wrestling with an officer. He denies the allegation that he thrusted the knife at Shesky. 

“So I picked it up after I got off of him — because they tased me and I fell on top of him.” When he went to the driver’s side door of his vehicle, he didn’t think he’d be shot.
“I shouldn’t have picked it up, considering what was going on,” he continued. “At that time, I wasn’t thinking clearly.” He said that once he placed the knife in the car he intended to lie on the ground and assume an arrest position, with his hands behind his back, “because if they...killed me there, everybody would see it.”
Blake says that he believed because he was walking away from the officer, he wouldn’t be fired upon and that the loud screaming taking place around him prevented him from hearing officers’ orders. “My ears was [sic] ringing, so it was all muffled,” he said. 

Benjamin Crump, one of Blake’s attorneys contends that the police investigation made public the warrant against Blake and his past incidents of resisting arrest —which were dropped — are not relevant to this case.

“If you’re Black in America and you’re not perfect, then they say it was justified,” he told Strahan. “It’s like our children have to be angels.”

Crump and co-counsels Patrick A. Salvi II and B’Ivory LaMarr, blasted the district attorney’s decision not to charge Shesky. 

The District Attorney’s decision not to charge the officer who shot Jacob in the back multiple times, leaving him paralyzed, further destroys trust in our justice system,” the lawyers said in a statement. “This sends the wrong message to police officers throughout the country. It says it is OK for police to abuse their power and recklessly shoot their weapon, destroying the life of someone who was trying to protect his children.”
Meanwhile, Blake has had to reconcile his physical limitations as he slowly recovers from the shooting in rehab facility in Chicago. His lawyers say that he received injuries to his arm, kidney, liver and spinal cord. As for his sons, Blake says he has had a heart-to-heart with them about what happened that day.
“I’ve explained to them and broke it down to them, like, daddy can die,” he said, “but for some reason, I didn’t that day.”
BET has been covering every angle of the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks and other social justice cases and the subsequent aftermath and protests. For our continuing coverage, click here.