The Kenosha police officer who shot and partially paralyzed Jacob Blake will not be prosecuted due to “insufficient evidence,” the Justice Department announced.
DOJ said Friday “it will not pursue federal criminal civil rights charges” against Officer Rusten Sheskey for his August 2020 shooting of Blake in the back and left side seven times last year. DOJ said it had told Blake’s family on Friday and that prosecutors made the decision “because the evidence obtained is insufficient to prove that the KPD officer willfully used excessive force.”
“A team of experienced federal prosecutors determined that insufficient evidence exists to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the KPD officer willfully violated the federal criminal civil rights statutes,” DOJ said.
Protests in the wake of Blake’s shooting often resulted in violence and rioting, with clashes with police, large-scale looting, and citywide arson. Hundreds of members of the National Guard eventually had to be called in to control the streets. Kenosha Supervisor Terry Rose estimated that there had been $50 million worth of damage to buildings and businesses last year.
Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley released a January report saying the facts established that Sheskey and two other responding officers knew Blake had a felony warrant involved with domestic violence and sexual assault charges. It said they also knew Laquisha Booker flagged them down and indicated Blake was trying to take her car while her kids were in it, that Blake physically resisted arrest while armed with a knife, that Sheskey and another officer repeatedly tried to subdue Blake with a taser to no avail, that Blake was walking to the car with a knife, and that Sheskey, another officer, and two citizen witnesses saw Blake turning toward Sheskey with the knife when Sheskey then shot him.
The district attorney concluded: “I do not believe the State could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Sheskey was not acting lawfully in self-defense or defense of others.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Blake admitted in a January interview he’d been armed with a knife, saying: “I realize I had dropped my knife. I had a little pocket knife. So I picked it up after I got off of him because they tased me, and I fell on top of him … I shouldn’t have picked it up.”
Then-candidate Joe Biden visited with Blake’s family and spoke with Blake in September 2020, and said, “He talked about how nothing was going to defeat him, how whether he walked again or not, he wasn’t going to give up.”
Now-Vice President Kamala Harris also visited Blake’s family and spoke with Blake last September. Blake’s lawyer, Ben Crump, said, “The senator told Jacob that she was also proud of him and how he is working through his pain.”
Just days after the shooting, Harris said, “Based on what I’ve seen, it seems that the officer should be charged … 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.”
