SEATTLE -- A man who was shot in the face by Seattle police in May is speaking out for the first time and wants to know why officers shot him.

Seattle police were called to an apartment at Greenwood Avenue North and North 125th Street in Seattle back in May for a report of a possibly suicidal man who may be holding his son hostage.

Nathaniel Caylor was the man the report was referring to. Caylor insists he was not suicidal and that his only gun was an old shotgun dismantled and in a closet.

"I've fought long and hard to make it to 29, and there's no way I could take my own life, ever. I'm a high-rise window cleaner. I've had millions of opportunities to do that and it's never even been an issue,” Caylor said.

He said he was despondent after the sudden death of his longtime girlfriend and mother to his 20-month-old son Wyatt.

He was sad and wanted to be left alone, so when he didn’t return phone calls an out-of-state brother asked police check on Caylor. When officers arrived he wouldn't let them in.

"The reason why I didn’t let them in is I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want a bunch of uneducated jerks out there who had nothing to offer me. They weren't therapists, they weren’t grief counselors, they couldn’t understand the pain I was feeling. They couldn’t imagine what I was going through," he said.

Police persisted and they said Caylor threatened them.

“The individual said he had a gun on the table, out of sight of the officers and said if you come in it's gonna be a bloodbath," said Sean Whitcomb of the Seattle Police Department in May, just after the incident.

Police talked with Caylor in the patio behind his apartment. At one point when he tried to re-enter his apartment an officer fired one shot, hitting the side of his face, Whitcomb said. Police said they feared he was going for a gun.

The bullet hit Caylor in the jaw and exited through the opposite side.

"The fact is he shot me in the face and I was unarmed," Caylor said.

An X-ray showed his jawbone replaced by something that looks like a chain.

"It's incredibly painful all the time," he said.

More than the physical agony, Caylor said he is hurt by the knowledge that he was shot within view of his son.

"And fell literally at my son's feet spitting out pieces of my jaw and teeth and tongue and blood all the while my son's standing over me sobbing like I'd never seen him cry like that in my life. It will haunt me forever," Caylor said.

Nathaniel's father, Steve Caylor, said he and his wife are livid that a police welfare check resulted in their son being shot.

"I think they grossly misinterpreted whatever was going on that day. There's no way that Wyatt was in danger from anyone except perhaps from the police," Steve Caylor said.

"I feel they went in with blinders on their eyes. They had a preconceived notion, they had expectations and they acted on those. They didn’t see reality," said Nathaniel’s mother, Anne MacAlpin.

After undergoing surgery and spending a month at Harborview Medical Center, Nathaniel was transferred to jail and charged with criminal mistreatment, unlawful imprisonment and felony harassment.

In a plea deal that would allow him to leave jail and return to his son, Caylor pleaded guilty to harassment last month. He said he felt trapped.

"I have these cops all ganging up on me saying one thing and I have no one to say anything for me," Nathaniel said.

Now out, he is starting the process of getting his son back. He still doesn’t understand why police shot him. It's a question he asked the officer right after it happened.

“I was holding my face and talking like this and saying ‘Why did you shoot me?’ He just told me to be quiet. I said you could have tazed me or maced me. He just kept saying be quiet," Nathaniel said.

Seattle police continue to defend what happened that day. The officers had reason to believe Caylor might have a gun and they feared Nathaniel was a threat to himself, the child, or to the officers themselves.

An internal police shooting review board found the shooting to be justified.