Shooting of Jacob Blake
2020 police shooting in Kenosha / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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On August 23, 2020, Jacob S. Blake, a 29-year-old black man, was shot and seriously injured by police officer Rusten Sheskey in Kenosha, Wisconsin.[2] Sheskey shot Blake in the back four times and the side three times[3] after Blake opened the driver's door of an SUV belonging to the mother of his children, and attempted to reach inside.[4][5] Sheskey said that he believed he was about to be stabbed, since Blake was holding a knife.[6][7] Earlier during the encounter, Blake had been tasered by two officers, but the tasers failed to disable him and he continued toward the vehicle.[8][9]
Date | August 23, 2020; 3 years ago (2020-08-23) |
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Time | c. 5:15 pm[1] (CDT) |
Location | Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S. |
Coordinates | 42°36′02.3″N 87°50′35.8″W |
Type | Police shooting |
Participants | Officer Rusten Sheskey of the Kenosha Police Department |
Non-fatal injuries | Gunshot wounds; paralyzed from the waist down; damage to stomach, kidney, and liver; most of small intestines and colon removed. |
Charges | None |
Blake had a warrant for his arrest from July, based on charges of third-degree felony sexual assault[note 1] and trespassing and disorderly conduct for domestic abuse in May.[10] Both Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis and the Kenosha Professional Police Association stated that the officers dispatched on August 23 were aware of the pending warrant for Blake before they arrived on scene; dispatch records confirm this.[11][12][13][14]
The police shooting was followed by unrest, which included rallies, marches, property damage, arson, and clashes with police. Two men were fatally shot in a confrontation with an armed civilian, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse from Antioch, Illinois. Blake's name was invoked in protests in other cities as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, which resurged in the wake of several high-profile killings by police officers in 2020.[15]
In January 2021, Kenosha County prosecutors announced that the officers involved in the shooting would not be charged, and Sheskey returned to regular police duty in April 2021.[16]
Prosecutors also announced that Blake would not face any new charges.[17][18] They dropped previous sexual assault and trespassing charges against Blake in exchange for him pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct for domestic abuse, for which he was sentenced to two years of probation.[19][20]