[ad_1]
The Kenosha Police Union in the U.S. on Friday offered the most detailed accounting to date on the officers’ perspective of the moments before police shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back, saying he had a knife and that he fought with the officers, placing one of them. into a headlock and shrugging off two attempts to stun him.
The statement from Brendan Matthews, an attorney for the Kenosha Professional Police Association, goes into more detail than anything that has been released by the Wisconsin Department of Justice, which is investigating.
Adria-Joi Watkins / AP
FILE – In this September 2019 archive selfie taken in Evanston, Illinois, Adria-Joi Watkins poses with her second cousin Jacob Blake. She is recovering from multiple shots fired by Kenosha police on August 23.
Sunday’s shooting of Blake, a black man, brought the nation’s attention to Wisconsin and sparked a series of peaceful protests and violence, including the killing of two people by an armed civilian on Tuesday.
Blake is paralyzed from the shooting, his family said, and recovering at a Milwaukee hospital.
READ MORE:
* Thousands of people gather in March for the Washington commemorations.
* Steven Adams’ OKC Joins Boycott As NBA Playoff Games Are Canceled Amid Player Protests
* The US police officer who shot Jacob Blake, as Joe Biden leads, calls for justice.
* Kenosha Protests: Teen Arrested for Killing Two People in a Violent Protest Over the Jacob Blake Shooting
* Kenosha protests: Shots, two people killed in third night of riots after Jacob Blake police shooting
Cell phone video shows Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey and another officer following Blake with their guns drawn as he walks through the front of a parked SUV while responding to a domestic dispute.
According to Matthews, the agents were sent there due to a complaint that Blake was attempting to steal the keys and vehicle of the caller. Matthews said officers knew Blake had an open warrant for serious sexual assault before they arrived.
Uncredited / AP
This undated photograph provided by the Wisconsin Department of Justice shows Kenosha Police Officer Vincent Arenas. State authorities identified Arenas as one of the officers who deployed a Taser at Jacob Blake before Blake was shot.
Uncredited / AP
This undated photograph provided by the Wisconsin Department of Justice shows Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey. State authorities identified Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department, as the officer who shot Jacob Blake.
Blake was armed with a knife, but officers did not initially see him, Matthews said.
“Officers first saw him holding the knife while they were on the passenger side of the vehicle,” he said.
The passerby who videotaped the shooting, 22-year-old Raysean White, said he saw Blake fight three officers and heard them yelling, “Drop the knife! Drop the knife! “Before the shots broke out. He said he didn’t see a knife in Blake’s hands.
State investigators have only said that officers saw a knife on the floor of the car. They haven’t said if Blake threatened anyone with it.
Matthews said officers made multiple requests to Blake to drop the knife, but he was unwilling to cooperate. He said officers used a taser gun on Blake, but did not incapacitate him.
“Blake fought vigorously with the officers, even putting one of the officers in a headlock,” said Matthews.
A second stun from a Taser didn’t stop him either, he said.
When Blake opened the driver’s door of the truck, Sheskey put on Blake’s shirt and then opened fire. All three of Blake’s sons were in the back seat.
Russell Contreras / AP
The vehicles are parked in Kenosha, Wis., Where Jacob Blake, a black man, was shot by police on August 23. The city and the surrounding county remained under a curfew amid protests in the city.
“Based on the inability to achieve compliance and control after using verbal, physical and less lethal means, the officers drew their firearms,” said Matthews.
“Sir. Blake continued to ignore the officers’ orders, even with the threat of deadly force now present.”
The Wisconsin Department of Justice did not immediately comment on the union’s version of events. An attorney for Blake’s family did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
The state agency has released almost no information on Sheskey or the other two officers, Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek.
An annual report from the Kenosha Police Department indicates that Sheskey was hired as an officer in 2013.
In an August 2019 interview with Kenosha News, Sheskey said that he had always wanted to dedicate himself to law enforcement, noting that his grandfather served the city as a police officer for 33 years.
“What I like the most is that you are dealing with people maybe on the worst day of their lives and you can try to help them as much as you can and make that day a little better,” Sheskey told the newspaper.
“And that, for the most part, people trust us to do that for them. And it’s a huge responsibility, and I really like trying to help people.
“We may not be able to fix or improve a situation, but we may be able to make it a little easier for them during that time.
Sheskey, who appears to be white based on photos and video, was transferred to the bike patrol in 2017, according to the Kenosha News interview.
He was among a group of officers named in a handwritten federal lawsuit filed last year by a man at the Kenosha County Jail, Lathan Steven Ward, who accused officers of damaging his door while breaking it down to execute a warrant for Do not touch. in August 2018.
He also accused the officers of using racial profiling and causing him pain and embarrassment. United States District Judge JP Stadtmueller dismissed the case and ruled that Ward’s allegations were insufficient to support the claim.
Before Sheskey joined the Kenosha Police Department, he worked for the campus police department at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside at Kenosha from fall 2009 to spring 2013.
He served in various roles, including as a dispatcher, enforcing parking regulations and as a police officer, university records show.
Investigators have not said how many complaints have been filed against Sheskey, whether his superiors ever disciplined him or whether he earned any praise.
Arenas has been with the Kenosha Police Department since February 2019 and previously served in the U.S. Capitol Police Department from June 2017 to January 2019, authorities said. Arenas served in the Marines from 2012 to 2017 and did not make any combat deployments, the Marine Corps said.
Meronek joined the Kenosha Police Force in January.
He received a technical diploma from the criminal justice law enforcement academy at Gateway Technical College in May, according to school records.
The Associated Press has filed a request under Wisconsin’s open records law with the state Department of Justice and the Kenosha Police Department for officers’ service records. Government agencies typically take weeks or months to deliver documents in response to such requests.
Sheskey and Meronek did not respond to emails sent to possible addresses for them and Arenas did not return a phone message left on a possible phone number for him.
No one returned the messages left at the possible phone numbers of the agents’ relatives. No one answered the door Thursday at Sheskey’s house.
Associated Press reporters Stephen Groves in Kenosha, Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, Amy Forliti in Minneapolis, and researchers Monika Mathur in Washington, DC, and Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.
