The handcuffs that were restraining Jacob Blake to his hospital bed have been removed, according to CNN.
On Friday (Aug. 28), Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. David Wright said that Blake was hancuffed to the bed because he had outstanding warrants. “Jacob Blake has felony warrants for his arrest from crimes he committed prior to the shooting incident,” he said. “Anyone with this classification level that we are guarding in the hospital would be treated in this manner.” Those felony warrants have since been vacated.
Blake was shot several times by Kenosha Police officers after he reportedly tried to break up a fight between two women. A video of the shooting went viral and viewers watched as Blake was riddled with bullets in his back — as his kids watched from inside the car.
REVOLT previously reported that Blake’s father, whose name is also Jacob Blake, said his son was handcuffed to the bed, although he is completely paralyzed from the waist down.
“I hate it that he was laying in that bed with the handcuff onto the bed,” he said to the Chicago Sun Times on Thursday (Aug. 27). “He can’t go anywhere. Why do you have him cuffed to the bed?”
Blake Sr. said he didn’t know what his son was arrested for. He also said that hasn’t heard from the Kenosha Police Department or Mayor John Antaramian, but says Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers reached out.
When he went to see his son on Wednesday, he told the outlet that his son thought he was hallucinating. “I told him, ‘You thought Daddy wasn’t going to see my son?’” Blake Sr. said. “He grabbed my hand, held it real tight and started weeping, telling me how much he loved me.”
Blake Sr. said that seeing his son alive, was a feeling he “can’t describe.”