New details emerge in Kenosha cases
Rittenhouse opts to postpone hearing
New details emerged Friday about the police shooting of Jacob Blake, with state Justice Department investigators saying officers used a taser twice on the 29-year-old man but were unable to subdue him and later shot him seven times in the back.
Also Friday, Kyle Rittenhouse opted not to attend a court hearing and will remain in Lake County jail on homicide charges until at least late September as he assembles his legal team, which includes high-profile national lawyers.
The 17-year-old is charged with shooting three people, two fatally, during the Kenosha protests Tuesday night. He and others were acting as self-appointed security against rioting, heeding a call by a militia group.
Rittenhouse is due in court Sept. 25 to face extradition to Kenosha County.
One of Rittenhouse’s lawyers said on social media the 17-year-old did not own the AR-15 he was carrying the night of the shooting or bring it across the Illinois/Wisconsin line.
“Kyle did not carry a gun across state line,” L. Lin Wood said in a tweet Friday morning. “The gun belonged to his friend, a Wisconsin resident. The gun never left the state of Wisconsin.” Wood is part of the Texas-based #FightBack Foundation Inc. that is raising money for Rittenhouse’s defense.
Kenosha chief defends actions
Also Friday, Kenosha law enforcement defended itself against criticism for not immediately arresting Rittenhouse after the shooting Tuesday, even though at least one person can be heard on video yelling that he was the shooter.
Critics have said Kenosha police
clearly treated Rittenhouse and Blake differently. On Friday, civil rights groups called for the resignations of Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth and Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis.
Miskinis defended his officers’ actions, saying he didn’t think it was a lapse in judgment for police to drive by Rittenhouse, given the chaotic scene.
“The totality of the circumstances, nothing suggested this person or anybody else who was armed around them was the person” who did the shooting, Miskinis said at a news conference.
He said with other noise, including from the police radio, officers would have been “very unlikely” to have heard yelling from the crowd that Rittenhouse had shot people.
Miskinis said Rittenhouse walking toward police after the shooting with his hands up wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary in that situation. He said he heard officers in a recording telling Rittenhouse to get out of the way.
“Clearly they’re not seeing him as a suspect or a threat of any kind,” Miskinis said. “He’s allowed to leave, where he goes to Antioch and turns himself in because we have no idea that he’s involved.”
Other officers in Blake case identified
The Wisconsin Department of Justice on Friday identified three officers on the scene where Blake was shot. Police had been called to the scene for family trouble. There was a warrant for Blake’s arrest from earlier third-degree felony sexual assault and domestic violence charges.
Kenosha police officers Rusten Sheskey and Vincent Arenas both used Tasers on Blake, according to the Department of Justice, which is conducting a probe in coordination with a federal civil rights investigation by the FBI.
Video shows what appears to be a scuffle on the ground and then Blake gets up and walks around the front of vehicle with Sheskey and Arenas following, their guns drawn. Sheskey grabs Blake by the shirt as he leans in the SUV and fires seven times from behind.
A third officer on the scene was Brittany Meronek, the state DOJ release says.
The department said Blake admitted to agents he had a knife and they found one on the driver’s side floorboard of the SUV Blake was trying to enter. But it was unclear from the statement when Blake had the knife — or whether two knives were being referenced — and officials declined to elaborate.
Video taken by onlookers shows something in Blake’s hand but it is grainy and difficult to make out. The man who made the widely shared cellphone video of the shooting said he heard officers yell, “Drop the knife! Drop the knife!” but he said he didn’t see a knife in Blake’s hands.
Blake’s attorneys have said witnesses did not see a knife.
There is no body camera video because Kenosha police do not have body cams.
An attorney for the Kenosha police union issued a statement Friday saying Blake did have a knife and officers followed protocol in escalating force.
In a full-throated defense of the officers’ conduct, union attorney Brendan Matthews said Blake refused to follow commands and violently resisted, despite being tasered twice, and at one point put an officer in a headlock.
“The officers first saw him holding the knife while they were on the passenger side of the vehicle,” he said.
It is unclear from Matthews’ statement when the knife would have been drawn by Blake, before or after the fight on the ground.
Officers repeatedly ordered Blake to drop the knife, but he did not comply, he said.
“None of the officers involved wished for things to transpire the way it did. It is my hope that truth and transparency will help begin and aid in the healing process,” Matthews said.
The officers are on paid administrative leave during the investigation, which will be completed in a month. It then goes to the Kenosha County district attorney who will decide if the shooting was justified or if any charges should be issued.
The union attorney statement criticized the information released by Blake’s attorneys and even the state Department of Justice, which is staffed by several former veteran Milwaukee Police Department supervisors.
The DOJ’s statement Friday “is riddled with incomplete information, and omits important details that would help to paint a more complete picture of the incident,” Matthews said.
Kamala Harris weighs in
Blake, who is reportedly paralyzed as he recovers at Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa, had been shackled to his hospital bed and sheriff ’s deputies were posted near his room, his family said.
The measures were taken because there was still a warrant for Blake’s arrest from the earlier charges.
But Friday the restraints were removed and the sheriff ’s deputies left after his attorney arranged a bail payment, according to the attorney and the Milwaukee County Sheriff ’s Office.
His attorney, Patrick Cafferty, confirmed the warrant was vacated earlier Friday after $500 bail was posted. The criminal case remains open.
“The charges are still pending and we will be dealing with those,” Cafferty told the Journal Sentinel.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, a former California attorney general, said Friday that a Kenosha police officer should be charged based on what she knows about the shooting of Blake.
“I believe there should be a thorough investigation, and based on what I’ve seen, it seems that the officer should be charged,” she said in an interview with “The Today Show” on NBC.
Harris said Blake’s alleged refusal to comply with police, and the discovery of a knife, warrants due process but suggested it wasn’t enough to warrant firing a gun at close range into Blake’s back.
“Everybody should be afforded due process – I agree with that completely. But here’s the thing, in America we know these cases keep happening. And we have had too many Black men in America who have been the subject of this kind of conduct and it’s got to stop,” she said.