“Why do they have that cold steel on my son’s ankle?” the father asked as he described talking to his son, who was shot seven times by the police in Kenosha, Wis.
Jacob Blake, the Black resident of Kenosha, Wis., who was shot by a white police officer, is shackled to his hospital bed, his father said on Friday morning, adding that his son remains paralyzed from the waist down. In an interview with CNN, Jacob Blake Sr. said that he had been able to speak with his son at the hospital on Wednesday, but that conversation was limited because his son was heavily medicated and in intense pain. “My son is fighting for his life,” he said. It was unclear why Mr. Blake would be confined to his hospital bed with an ankle shackle. The authorities have said that the police were arresting Mr. Blake on Sunday afternoon when an officer shot him seven times, but they have not said what charges he was facing or offered other details of the shooting. The shooting set off demonstrations in Kenosha and in cities across the country. “When I got to his side, he grabbed my hands and began to weep,” the elder Mr. Blake said of his son. He said his son asked, “‘Why did they shoot me so many times?’ And I said, ‘Baby, they weren’t supposed to shoot you at all.’” Three of Mr. Blake’s children — ranging from 3 to 8 years old — were in the back of the car that Mr. Blake was climbing into as he was shot. “In his mind’s eye, he just wanted to get his sons out of harm’s way, but before he could get them out of the car he was just counting shots,” Mr. Blake’s father said his son had told him. “He said he was counting them. I guess he lost consciousness around number four or five.” He said he did not know why his son had been shackled to the bed. “Why do they have that cold steel on my son’s ankle?” he said. “He couldn’t get up if he wanted to. So that’s a little overkill to have him shackled to the bed.” A lawyer for the family, Ben Crump, said that Mr. Blake’s injuries are severe, including damage to his bowels, shattered vertebrae and bullet fragments in his spinal cord. He has undergone several surgeries, Mr. Blake’s father said, and it was unclear whether the paralysis would be permanent. Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenager who took to the streets of Kenosha, Wis., armed with a military-style rifle this week and is accused of killing two people in a shooting that took place amid a skirmish between demonstrators and counterprotesters, is being held for the time being in Lake County, Ill. Mr. Rittenhouse,17, was arrested at his home in Antioch, Ill. this week. He faces six criminal counts, including first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide. A judge in Lake County held a brief hearing on Friday morning to address Mr. Rittenhouse’s extradition to Wisconsin. At the request of a lawyer for Mr. Rittenhouse, the judge agreed to delay the matter until late September. Mr. Rittenhouse did not appear during the brief hearing, which took place by video because of the coronavirus pandemic. He is accused in the deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum,36, and Anthony Huber,26, whose friends said were protesting against the shooting of Mr. Blake by the police in Kenosha on Sunday. He also faces a charge of reckless endangerment in the injury of a third man. Mr. Rittenhouse, who had showed strong support for the police and President Trump on social media, had portrayed himself as a helper to injured people and defender of property when he arrived on the streets of Kenosha during demonstrations earlier this week.
