MADISON, Wis. (AP) 鈥� Federal prosecutors announced Friday that they won鈥檛 file charges against a white police officer who shot Jacob Blake in Wisconsin last year.
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 . An Illinois man 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 had been armed with a knife. He was wanted on a felony warrant.
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鈥檚 office in Milwaukee reviewed police reports, witness statements, dispatch logs and videos of the incident, and determined there wasn鈥檛 enough evidence to prove Sheskey used excessive force or violated Blake鈥檚 federal rights.
鈥淎ccordingly, the review of this incident has been closed without a federal prosecution,鈥� the Justice Department said in a news release.
The Blake family鈥檚 attorney, Ben Crump, didn鈥檛 immediately reply to a message seeking comment. Blake鈥檚 uncle Justin Blake, who has been acting as the family鈥檚 spokesman, also didn鈥檛 immediately respond to a message.
The Justice Department鈥檚 findings mirror Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley鈥檚 that Sheskey could successfully argue that he fired in self-defense.
Investigators found that Blake had fought with three officers for several minutes before he was shot, at one point shrugging off a shock from a stun gun, and was trying to get into an SUV when Sheskey tried to stop him by pulling on his shirt. Graveley said video shows Blake turning toward Sheskey with a knife and made a motion toward the officer with the knife.
The Associated Press
