There will be no federal charges against the police officer who shot Jacob Blake, the video of which sparked rioting in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August on 2020.
Federal prosecutors announced Friday that they won’t file charges against a white police officer who shot Jacob Blake in Wisconsin last year — a shooting that sparked protests that led to the deaths of two men.
Officer Rusten Sheskey shot Blake, who is Black, during a domestic disturbance in Kenosha in August 2020. The shooting left Blake paralyzed from the waist down and sparked several nights of protests, some of which turned violent. An Illinois man shot three people, killing two of them, during one of the demonstrations.
State prosecutors decided not to file charges against Sheskey earlier this year after video showed that Blake, who was wanted on a felony warrant, was armed with a knife.
The U.S. Department of Justice launched its own investigation days after the shooting. The agency announced Friday that a team of prosecutors from its Civil Rights Division and the U.S. attorney’s office in Milwaukee reviewed police reports, witness statements, dispatch logs and videos of the incident, and determined there wasn’t enough evidence to prove Sheskey used excessive force or violated Blake’s federal rights.
“Accordingly, the review of this incident has been closed without a federal prosecution,” the Justice Department said in a news release.
Blake’s uncle, Justin Blake, called the decision “unconscionable” and said it “definitely steps on every civil right we can imagine this country owes every African American descendant.”
“If we had a heart to be broken, it would be,” he said. “But because we’ve been through all we’ve been, we’re not.”
The Justice Department’s findings dovetail with Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley’s determination in January that Sheskey could successfully argue that he fired in self-defense.
Sheskey and other officers encountered Blake after they responded to a call from a woman who reported that her boyfriend wasn’t supposed to be at her home. When they arrived at the scene the woman told them that Blake was trying to her kids and her SUV.
Blake fought the officers as they tried to take him into custody. Sheskey and another officer tried to shock him with their stun guns to no avail. Blake tried to get into the SUV with his young children in the backseat, prompting Sheskey to grab his shirt. Sheskey told investigators that he was afraid Blake would drive off with the children or use them as hostages.
Graveley said video shows Blake turning toward Sheskey with a knife and made a motion toward the officer with the knife, prompting Sheskey to fire.
Not surprising, the moment it was determined he had a knife, the shooting was going to be justified.Report
But if black people were all exercising their 2nd Amendment rights and carrying guns, surely the government wouldn’t dare oppress them.Report
Why is preventing a kidnaping “oppression”?
Drill down into the details of this case and we find Blake makes a very poor poster child.
Blake has a warrant for his arrest for trespassing, sexual assault, and various other domestic abuse related issues. The cops knew this. The woman who called 9-1-1 on August 23 to report that Blake had stolen her keys and wasn’t supposed to be there was the same woman who had previously filed the criminal complaint alleging that Blake had sexually assaulted her.
So the police are supposed to be there and are supposed to be dealing with him.Report
Wouldn’t the poorest poster child be the best example, though? Everyone can deal with the easy stuff on the job. It’s the tough ones that make or break you as good at it.Report
We had riots over this one. Social media presented this as two groups of women arguing and him trying to play peace maker and then getting shot.
In reality the cops were there because someone called 911 on Blake. They looked him up before they got there and found a warrant for his arrest. At it’s heart, this is a story of a rapist resisting arrest and pulling a knife on the cops while trying to take some small children hostage.Report
Would the outcome have been better if Blake had exercised his 2nd amendment rights and been armed with a Bushmaster?
Would our society be more polite?Report
You mean, would Blake have not been a rapist if he’d been armed? Would he have been more willing to be arrested for rape? Would he have been less willing to resist arrest?
What is it that you want to have done here? Do we let people unwilling to be arrested for rape just walk free? Maybe you’re suggesting rape not be an arrest-able crime?
This was an ugly situation before the cops got involved because of Blake. Him resisting arrest didn’t make it less ugly, nor do the cops seem out of line for wanting to arrest him. That’s why he makes a poor poster child.Report
The knife is weird. Blake’s lawyer said he didn’t have it. Blake said he wasn’t thinking clearly and while he picked it up during the fight with the cops he didn’t intend to use it.Report
Doesn’t matter, once that knife was in his hand, he was going to get shot, because that is how police are trained.Report
Especially after he had already shrugged off the non-lethal deployment before thatReport
Did he get tazed?Report