Jacob Blake is no longer handcuffed to a hospital bed, lawyer says – CNN

(CNN) –– The handcuffs holding Jacob Blake to a hospital bed were removed, his attorney Patrick Cafferty told CNN late Friday.

In addition, the court order that authorities used to explain why Blake was in handcuffs was revoked, Cafferty said, and Blake is no longer in security custody at the hospital.

Blake, a black Wisconsin resident, was paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer as he tried to arrest him this week in Kenosha. Family members noted hours earlier that seeing Blake handcuffed to the bed at a hospital in Wauwatosa was heartbreaking.

“Why do you have that cold steel on my son’s ankle?” Asked his father, Jacob Blake senior, this Friday morning during an interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day.” “He can’t get up, couldn’t get up even if he wanted to.”

Sgt. David Wrigh, a spokesman for the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department, explained Friday that Blake was handcuffed to the bed because he “has felony warrants that he committed prior to the shooting incident.”

“Anyone with this level of classification that we are protecting in the hospital would be treated this way,” Wright said in a statement.

In response to the Sheriff’s Office statement, Justin Blake, Blake’s uncle, told CNN: “Show what little class and compassion the sheriff has.”

At the time of the violent encounter with the police last Sunday, Blake had an arrest warrant related to a call for domestic abuse earlier this year.

A dispatcher appeared to warn officers responding to the warrant against Blake: he referred to “family problems” at the Kenosha residence and an “alert at this address for ninety-nine.” Police code 10-99 can refer to a suspect who is wanted.

It is unclear if those officers knew why a warrant was pending against Blake when they arrived at the residence.

On May 3, Blake illegally entered the home and sexually assaulted a woman in her bedroom before leaving with her vehicle, according to the criminal complaint obtained by CNN. The woman also dropped a temporary restraining order against Blake.

CNN does not typically identify victims of sexual assault.

The criminal complaint filed on July 6 listed the charges of third degree sexual assault, a misdemeanor of trespassing on private property and disturbing public order. The warrant for Blake’s arrest was issued the next day.

Hours earlier this Friday, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said he “couldn’t imagine” why Blake was handcuffed at the hospital after the shooting.

“I would not personally understand why that would be necessary,” Evers told the media. “I hope we can find a better way to help him… in his recovery. That seems contradictory. It seems to be a bad treatment, ”he added.

Froedtert Hospital, where Blake is being treated, deferred CNN’s questions to the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Kenosha police and the district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“There is no explanation for that,” said Blake family attorney Benjamin Crump. “Follow the pattern of deliberate indifference and excessive force.”

“My son is fighting for his life”

Jacob Blake, under the influence of strong medicines, squeezed his father’s hand and cried after regaining consciousness.

“Why did I get shot so many times?” He asked Blake of his father.

“Honey, they weren’t supposed to shoot you in the first place,” replied Jacob Blake senior, as he recalled during an interview with CNN.

Blake’s children, who are between the ages of 3 and 8, saw the shooting from inside a car that their father was getting into when the police opened fire. The older boy, who was supposed to celebrate a birthday the day his father was shot, also has questions.

“Dad, why was my dad shot in the back?” Said Jacob Blake senior that the boy asked him. “Where is dad?”.

Senior Jacob Blake said his son has recounted what happened piecemeal. Crump claimed that Blake had multiple surgeries and suffered serious injuries, including damage to the intestines and internal organs, gunshot fragments to the spinal cord and a broken vertebra.

“My son is fighting for his life,” Blake’s dad said. “He is resisting.”

Senior Jacob Blake also shared that his son touches his arms, caresses his face, and tells him he loves him. At one point, they talked about Blake’s paralysis and the young man said he wanted a dog.

“We’ll get you a dog, darling,” replied the father.

Blake’s father also mentioned a conversation he had this week with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris, likening it to “talking to my uncle and one of my sisters.”

“They were so comforting that you almost forget how the situation was developing,” he said, referring to Biden and Harris, whom he called president and vice president.

He added: “President Biden told me about his own problems with his family. Who identifies with what I am going through. He didn’t have to keep telling her anything. He knew. It felt like he knew. It felt like they got over what’s going on. And they didn’t act like they were in a rush to go anywhere. They spent time with us.

When asked if President Donald Trump had tried to communicate with his family, Jacob Blake senior said, “That’s negative.”

Blake’s father, who recalled his own father’s involvement in the civil rights movement, expressed his gratitude for the wave of protests among American athletes this week, from the National Basketball Association to the National Football League and the Major. Baseball Leagues.

But he expressed his rejection of violence and looting in the wake of police brutality and racism.

“That’s not going to make my son get out of that bed and walk,” she said. Only God could lift him out of bed.

A jersey signed by members of the Milwaukee Bucks made Blake smile this week. But his father has not spoken to him about the riots and violence on the streets of Kenosha or anything that could delay his recovery.

“No fuss, baby,” she told her son this week. “Without complications”.

“I’ve got you, Dad,” Blake replied.

Investigators issue their first version of events

Witnesses recorded the shooting on cellphone video and shared the images widely on social media, making the city of Kenosha the scene of nightly protests against police brutality.

Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey shot Blake in the back Sunday as the black man tried to enter a vehicle with his three children watching from the back seat.

“In his mind, he just wanted to get his kids out of harm’s way, but before he could get them out of the car he said he was just counting shots,” said Blake’s father. ‘He said he was counting them. I guess he passed out around number four or five.

This Friday, the Kenosha Professional Police Association disagreed on the public narrative presented in the Blake case. In a statement, the association said there was an arrest warrant for Blake and that he put an agent in a headlock. Blake also had a knife, according to the statement, and refused to put it down when ordered by police.

Local officials haven’t discussed many details about the Blake shooting, but they have addressed the late-night protests in Kenosha, especially after two people were killed and a third was injured. A 17-year-old was arrested Wednesday and faces multiple homicide charges in the deaths and injuries from the shooting.

This Wednesday, state investigators released their first version of Sunday’s events, but with large gaps in the timeline.

The incident began when a woman called police and said that “her boyfriend was present and was not supposed to be there,” the Criminal Investigation Division (DCI) of the Department of Justice said. Wisconsin.

In a police call, a dispatcher names Blake, says “he’s not supposed to be there” and adds that he took the complainant’s keys and refused to leave. The dispatcher explains later that he has no further details because the caller is “uncooperative.”

About five minutes after the initial report, a dispatcher received reports of gunfire, police said.

The officers tried to arrest Blake and used a stun gun in a failed attempt to arrest him, the DCI said. The man walked around his vehicle, “opened the driver’s side door and leaned forward,” the agency added.

Cop Sheskey has been with the department for seven years. No other agent fired their weapon.

Blake admitted he had a knife in his possession, and authorities said they recovered a knife from the floor on the driver’s side of his vehicle, according to the agency.

State investigators did not indicate why police moved to arrest Blake, whether he brandished or threatened to use the knife, or why Sheskey shot Blake’s back so many times. He does not mention his children in the vehicle or other family members who are a few meters away.

Sheskey and another agent were placed on administrative leave.

This Friday, the Wisconsin Department of Justice issued a statement identifying two additional police officers involved in the incident as Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek of the Kenosha Police.

Arenas – who also used his stun gun in a failed attempt to apprehend Blake, the statement said – has been with the Kenosha Police Department since February 2019, having previously served with the US Capitol Police. In Washington. Meronek joined the department in January, according to the statement.

Videos of the incident show a fight between Blake and the police. Then he walks around the front of an SUV and tries to get in through the driver’s side door. An officer is seen tugging on Blake’s tank top and seven shots are heard.

His lawyers told CNN that Blake did not have a gun in the car.

“I can’t speak directly to what he had, but what I can say is that his three children were in the car,” Patrick Salvi Jr. told CNN. That was on his mind. That is the most important thing for him in his life: his family and his children.

CNN’s Casey Tolan, Brad Parks, Sara Sidner, and Raja Razek contributed to this report.