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NEW YORK (AP) – Jacob Blake, the black man who was shot in the back by a white police officer in Wisconsin last month, spoke for the first time from his hospital bed as protests in mourning for racial justice and surveillance continued to shake American cities.
In a video posted on Twitter, Blake, dressed in a green hospital gown, described feeling constant pain after the shooting that left him paralyzed from the waist down.
“I have staples in my back, staples in my damn stomach,” he said in the video posted by his attorney, Ben Crump, Saturday night. “It hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move from one place to another, it hurts to eat.”
The August 23 shooting of 29-year-old Blake reignited protests over racism and police brutality that have swept the United States since May when another black man, George Floyd, died after a Minneapolis police officer seized himself. He knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.
Protesters participate in a protest over the death of a black man, Daniel Prude, after police covered his head with a hood during an arrest on March 23 in Rochester, New York, on September 5, 2020 (Photo : REUTERS / Brendan McDermid)
The demonstrations have coincided with widespread upheaval over the social and economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed nearly 190,000 people in the United States, the highest death toll in the world.
The protests have also moved to the forefront of President Donald Trump’s campaign for reelection on November 3.
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At the beginning of the three-day Labor Day weekend, police in Rochester, New York, used tear gas to disperse some 2,000 protesters on the fourth night of rioting over the death of Daniel Prude, a black man who later died. of an encounter with the police. in March.
Protesters clash with police officers during a protest over the death of a black man, Daniel Prude, after police covered his head with a hood during a March 23 arrest in Rochester, New York, on September 5. 2020 (Photo: REUTERS / Brendan McDermid)
Nine people were arrested and three police officers were treated at local hospitals for injuries sustained during the clashes, the Rochester police department said Sunday.
In Louisville, Kentucky, armed police supporters clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters before the famous Kentucky Derby horse race on Saturday.
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Louisville has become a source of tension due to outrage over the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman killed in March by police who broke into her apartment with a so-called “no hit” warrant that did not require to be announced.
The violent clashes also rocked the city of Portland, Oregon, for the hundredth day overnight. The protesters threw stones and firebombs at the police, who in turn used tear gas, injuring at least one person and leading to more than 50 arrests.
The Pacific Northwest city remains another hotspot in part, according to some civic leaders, due to the deployment of federal troops there in July.
