“Please, I’m telling you, change y’all lives out there,” Jacob Blake, the victim of of a police shooting that left him paralyzed, pleaded from his hospital bed in a video released by his attorney, ABC News reports.
Blake was shot seven times in the back by a police officer after he went back to his car during a domestic dispute in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blake, a Black man, was shot by the white officer even though Blake was not armed. Three of Blake’s children were in the car when he was shot.
“I just want to say, man, to all the young cats out there, and even the older ones older than me, it’s a lot more life to live out here, man. Your life and not only just your life, your legs, something that you need to move around and move forward in life, can be taken from you like this, man,” he says snapping his right fingers.
President Trump has pointed to the sometimes-violent anti-police abuse protests in Kenosha as a sign of the lawlessness of American cities. While Trump has yet to speak out about the shooting of an unarmed person, he has defended a 17-year-old man who traveled from Illinois and killed two people during a night of protests.
Blake and his family, however, has been vocal in calling for peace, warning of the consequences of violence.
“I’ve got staples in my back, staples in my damn stomach. You do not want to have to deal with this s—, man,” Blake says in the video. “Every 24 hours, it’s pain, it’s nothing but pain. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move from side to side. It hurts to eat.”