No charges in Kenosha police shooting of Blake
The top prosecutor in Kenosha, Wis., declined to bring charges against the police officer who shot and gravely wounded Jacob Blake outside an apartment building in August, an episode that sparked protests and rioting and made the city an instant flashpoint in a summer of unrest that began with the killing of George Floyd.
The decision not to file charges against the officer, Rusten Sheskey, was announced Tuesday by Michael Graveley, the Kenosha County district attorney. He said that investigators had reviewed 40 hours of video and hundreds of pages of police reports before making the decision.
The prosecutor said a case against the officer would have been very hard to prove, in part because it would be difficult to overcome an argument that the officer was protecting himself. He said Blake had admitted to holding a knife — even describing switching it from one hand to another as he moved to open the car door — and that statements from officers and other witnesses indicated that Blake had turned toward an officer with the knife immediately before he was shot.
The case involved a white officer shooting a Black man, circumstances which the prosecutor said made it especially difficult. “I feel in many ways completely inadequate for this moment,” said Graveley, who is white. “I have never in my life had a moment where I’ve had to contend with explicit or implicit bias based on my race.”
Blake’s family expressed anguish at the decision not to charge the officer, saying that video from the scene made it clear that Sheskey had acted inappropriately. “It’s a gut-wrenching experience,” Justin Blake, Blake’s uncle, said during a news conference in Kenosha after the decision was announced. “This is bigger, greater than little Jake. This is about all the little Jakes. That’s why the people keep coming out and supporting us. You know why? Because it could have been them.”
The case came during a year of protests over police shootings of Black people in cities across the country. It drew the attention of President Donald Trump, who voiced support for a white teenager, Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot three protesters on the streets of Kenosha, two of them fatally, as part of an armed group that sought to confront protesters.
Even before revealing his decision to forgo charges against the officer, Graveley pleaded with the community — and the country — to keep the peace.
“Rather than burning things down, can moments of tragedy like this be an opportunity to build things?” he asked.
Graveley said that shortly before announcing his decision, he spoke by phone to Jacob Blake, who was hospitalized for weeks after the shooting. Blake was partially paralyzed; his family said he is unlikely to ever walk again.
Advocates for Blake, who is 29, had been awaiting the decision for months and holding regular demonstrations in Kenosha, calling upon Graveley to file charges against the officer.
“This decision does nothing but shore up that message that Black people are not safe in the United States of America in 2021,” Corey Prince, chair of the criminal justice committee of the NAACP in neighboring Racine, said Tuesday. “They continue to devalue Black lives, Black humanity, Black freedom, even when we’re with our kids.”
Dominique Pritchett, a community activist and mental wellness clinician in Kenosha, said the news was difficult to hear. “It’s retraumatizing,” she said. “It regurgitates every unjustified Black death and shooting that has happened in history.”
B’ivory LaMarr, a lawyer representing Blake’s family, said they would probably sue. “We will be looking at bringing a civil action in the near future to seek justice for Jacob,” he said.
Sheskey’s lawyer, Brendan P. Matthews, said that the officers who responded to the call about Blake “did an outstanding job under challenging circumstances.”
“At the end of the day, Officer Sheskey was presented with a difficult and dangerous situation and he acted appropriately and in accordance with his training,” Matthews said in a statement.