2 of 3 Kenosha Officers On Leave Over Blake Shooting Return To Full Duty

[Gondwanaland]

Two of the three officers directly involved in the Jacob Blake shooting have been taken off of administrative leave and returned to active duty, after no charges were filed and a review found their actions justified. The third is awaiting the final results of the routine use of force investigation.

Officers involved in Jacob Blake shooting will not face charges 00:41(CNN)Two of the three officers involved in the Jacob Blake shooting have returned to full duty, according to a Kenosha Police Department news release.

Officers Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek resumed work on January 20 after they were put on administrative leave on August 23, 2020, the release said.
"Officers Arenas and Meronek were not charged with a crime and after review by the Kenosha County District Attorney and an independent investigator, former Madison Police Chief Noble Wray, the actions taken by the officers were reasonable and justified," read the release.

Rusten Sheskey, the officer who shot Blake seven times, is still on administrative leave "pending the findings of a Kenosha Police use of deadly force review board," the release read.None of the officers in Blake's shooting were charged, the Kenosha District Attorney Michael Graveley announced January 5.
The decision not to charge Sheskey followed by the decision to allow the two other officers return to work has happened amid anger over the repeated deaths of Black people at the hands of police.
Last summer saw protests in many cities calling for police reform and an end to police brutality, sparked by the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others.


Sheskey, a White officer, shot Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, seven times while responding to a domestic incident on August 23, 2020. Blake survived the shooting but was left paralyzed from the waist down.
That day Meronek was one of the primary officers who arrived at the scene in a marked Kenosha Police Department SUV, while Arenas served as the backup.

Sheskey told investigators that he used deadly force during the chaotic encounter because he was afraid Blake, while attempting to flee the scene, was trying to kidnap a child in the back seat of the vehicle.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice had said Blake had a knife in his possession and the weapon was found on the floorboard of his vehicle. Blake himself told authorities he possessed a knife, Graveley said.
An attorney for Blake's family disputed that Blake posed a threat."There was no point in the video that is articulable for an officer to say that he was under harm at that particular point. I think that's completely bogus and I think that is just a rationalization to try to show what is really, essentially, an intentional act," attorney B'Ivory LaMarr said after Graveley announced his decision

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/27/us/ja...oter_expansion

[Diogenes]

There will be more "peaceful protests", that's for sure.

[Cow Poke]

[rogue06]

Two of the three officers directly involved in the Jacob Blake shooting have been taken off of administrative leave and returned to active duty, after no charges were filed and a review found their actions justified. The third is awaiting the final results of the routine use of force investigation.

Just saw the New York Times story on this and intended on starting a thread. I'll add it since it covers a few more details.

Source: Jacob Blake Shooting: No Charges Against Officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin

The shooting last August sparked protests and rioting, making Kenosha a flash point in a summer of unrest that began with the killing of George Floyd.

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 flash point 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 on Tuesday afternoon 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 Mr. Blake had admitted to holding a knife -- even describing switching it from one hand to another as he moved to open a car door -- and that statements from officers and other witnesses indicated that Mr. 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 Mr. Graveley, who is white. "I have never in my life had a moment where I had to contend with explicit or implicit bias based on my race."

Mr. Blake’s family expressed anguish at the decision not to charge the officer, saying that video from the scene made it clear that Officer Sheskey had acted inappropriately. "It’s a gut-wrenching experience," Justin Blake, Mr. 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 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, Mr. 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.

Mr. Graveley said that shortly before announcing his decision he spoke by phone to Mr. Blake, who was hospitalized for weeks after the shooting. Mr. Blake was partially paralyzed; his family said he would probably never walk again.

Advocates for Mr. Blake, who is 29, have been holding regular demonstrations in Kenosha, and had called upon Mr. 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 N.A.A.C.P. 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 re-traumatizing," she said. "It regurgitates every unjustified Black death and shooting that has happened in history."

B’Ivory LaMarr, a lawyer representing Mr. 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.

Officer Sheskey’s lawyer, Brendan P. Matthews, said that the officers who responded to the call about Mr. 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," Mr. Matthews said in a statement. "The video remains difficult to view but that does not change what actually occurred."

The Kenosha police union on Tuesday called the decision vindication for the officers. Officer Sheskey, who has been employed by the Kenosha Police Department for seven years, was placed on administrative leave after the shooting.

The case incited emotions in large part because of the gruesome scene captured by a cellphone video: A Black man being shot in the back multiple times as he moved away from the officer. Even those arguing that the officers acted appropriately conceded that law enforcement needed to figure out how to reach better outcomes in such situations.

Noble Wray, the former police chief of Madison, Wis., who analyzed the shooting for the district attorney’s office, said that he, too, was initially pained by the video. "I would totally concur with how this came across," he said after a reporter from a German news outlet said that many Europeans saw the video as an example of police abuse. "I felt that way. But the flip side of that, is that it is not necessarily true that in a use-of-force situation, that it would only take one shot to stop a threat."

Mr. Wray, who was Madison’s first Black police chief, also addressed the racial implications. "The criminal justice system is a difficult system," he said. "It is hard, it is harsh, it is difficult. It has the history of racism on top of racism and we are trying to work through this."

In a statement following Mr. Graveley’s announcement, Gov. Tony Evers said that the state and the country had failed to deliver on promises of justice, equity and peace for Black people. "Today’s decision is further evidence that our work is not done -- we must work each day in earnest toward a more just, more fair, and more equitable state and country, and to combat the racism experienced by Black Wisconsinites," he said.

But he stopped short of criticizing the district attorney, instead blasting lawmakers for failing to provide "meaningful, common-sense reform to enhance accountability and promote transparency in policing in our state."

The community simmered with tension before the announcement, as residents and officials anxiously sought to prevent the unrest that unfolded after the shooting last summer. On Tuesday evening, a crowd of a few dozen people marched through the streets, shouting through megaphones and bundled in heavy coats as the temperature dropped below freezing.

Many businesses in Kenosha were boarded up Tuesday in anticipation of the charging decision, and some streets were closed. National Guard members stood near the Kenosha County Courthouse, which was surrounded by an iron fence. At a Subway sandwich shop two blocks from the courthouse, fresh plywood was installed Tuesday, as it had been during the summer unrest. "If the decision goes in the cop’s favor, we’re thinking it’s going to turn how it was before," an employee, Tyler Blazek, said.

The City Council unanimously passed an emergency declaration Monday that would allow the mayor to implement a curfew once the charging decision was made public. The sheriff for Kenosha County also declared a state of emergency that he said would allow him to change the schedules of his deputies.

The shooting, on Aug. 23, unfolded after three officers arrived at an apartment complex in Kenosha in response to a domestic complaint.

As the officers attempted to take Mr. Blake into custody, he walked along the passenger side of a four-door S.U.V., away from the officers, as three of his children waited in the back seat of the vehicle. The officers used a Taser in an effort to subdue Mr. Blake. Officer Sheskey then grabbed Mr. Blake’s shirt and fired his gun several times into Mr. Blake’s back.

Two other officers were pointing their guns at Mr. Blake during the incident.

For several days in August, protests and destruction erupted on the streets of Kenosha, as rioters burned buildings, cars and garbage trucks, smashed streetlamps and spray-painted graffiti on schools and businesses. Hundreds of National Guardsmen were summoned to the city in an attempt to restore order, using tear gas and rubber bullets to subdue protesters.

Two days after the shooting of Mr. Blake, Mr. Rittenhouse, who was then 17, shot and killed two men on a downtown street in what his lawyer has described as an act of self-defense. He was charged with six criminal counts, including first-degree intentional homicide.

On Tuesday, Mr. Rittenhouse, now 18, pleaded not guilty to the charges during a brief arraignment that was done via videoconference. His case is scheduled to proceed in March.

Outside the courthouse on Tuesday afternoon, two protesters said they were there to support Mr. Rittenhouse.

"Self -defense is not a crime," said Tim Conrad, 34, who drove 90 minutes from Joliet, Ill., to be in Kenosha.

His friend, Emily Cahill, 32, from Plainfield, Ill., carried a poster that read "IGY6 Kyle" meaning "I got your back, Kyle," she said.

The state Department of Justice and its Division of Criminal Investigation led the investigation into the shooting of Mr. Blake. The Justice Department has opened a separate civil rights investigation into the case.

At the time of the shooting, Mr. Blake was facing charges stemming from a July incident. On Nov. 6, prosecutors in Kenosha County Circuit Court dropped one count of third-degree sexual assault and agreed to drop one count of criminal trespass if Mr. Blake pleaded guilty to two counts of disorderly conduct, according to court records and Mr. Blake’s lawyer, Patrick Cafferty.

Mr. Blake pleaded guilty to the two disorderly conduct charges and was sentenced to two years of probation.

The Walworth County district attorney, Zeke Wiedenfeld, who had prosecuted the case, said the sexual assault charge had been dropped in part because the woman who had accused Mr. Blake declined to cooperate with the prosecutors. Mr. Blake had maintained that he did not commit sexual assault.



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[Gondwanaland]

Two of the three officers directly involved in the Jacob Blake shooting have been taken off of administrative leave and returned to active duty, after no charges were filed and a review found their actions justified. The third is awaiting the final results of the routine use of force investigation.

One thing i should note is that while CNN very passively describes the knife part as if it is the claims of the police that Blake had a knife and said hehad a knife...earlier this month Blake himself with his own mouth said he had a knife,dropped it while there with the police, picked it back up, and carried it to the car where he was shot. Not the story and "he said she said" picture that CNN tried to paint.

[Cow Poke]

One thing i should note is that while CNN very passively describes the knife part as if it is the claims of the police that Blake had a knife and said hehad a knife...earlier this month Blake himself with his own mouth said he had a knife,dropped it while there with the police, picked it back up, and carried it to the car where he was shot. Not the story and "he said she said" picture that CNN tried to paint.

And, as Rogue and I both like to point out -- people often claim that a knife is not 'deadly enough' at that distance to a police officer, but they fail to understand the 27 foot rule. (the number varies)
That the person with the knife, if standing within (a certain range) can easily charge and stab an officer before the officer can draw his weapon.

Then there's the nutty "well, why didn't they shoot the knife out of his hand" or "shoot him in the arm" or something like that.

Sounds like there was quite a bit of study, research, review, consideration.....

[rogue06]

One thing i should note is that while CNN very passively describes the knife part as if it is the claims of the police that Blake had a knife and said hehad a knife...earlier this month Blake himself with his own mouth said he had a knife,dropped it while there with the police, picked it back up, and carried it to the car where he was shot. Not the story and "he said she said" picture that CNN tried to paint.

That was something that the NYT article brought up

Mr. Blake had admitted to holding a knife -- even describing switching it from one hand to another as he moved to open a car door -- and that statements from officers and other witnesses indicated that Mr. Blake had turned toward an officer with the knife immediately before he was shot.

[Ronson]

One thing i should note is that while CNN very passively describes the knife part as if it is the claims of the police that Blake had a knife and said hehad a knife...earlier this month Blake himself with his own mouth said he had a knife,dropped it while there with the police, picked it back up, and carried it to the car where he was shot. Not the story and "he said she said" picture that CNN tried to paint.

CNN is the armpit of journalism (or rather a more unmentionable part of the anatomy).

[Cow Poke]

CNN is the armpit of journalism (or rather a more unmentionable part of the anatomy).

You mean belly button?

[rogue06]

You mean belly button?

Stinkier

[rogue06]

And, as Rogue and I both like to point out -- people often claim that a knife is not 'deadly enough' at that distance to a police officer, but they fail to understand the 27 foot rule. (the number varies)
That the person with the knife, if standing within (a certain range) can easily charge and stab an officer before the officer can draw his weapon.

Then there's the nutty "well, why didn't they shoot the knife out of his hand" or "shoot him in the arm" or something like that.

Sounds like there was quite a bit of study, research, review, consideration.....

I was told never, under any circumstances, let someone get within 10' of you armed with a knife -- and that is when you've got a firearm in hand and aimed. Even if you fire the instant they move, momentum can carry them far enough for them to stab you. And it is only in the movies where a handgun instantly drops someone^[1] or the force of the bullet knocks them backwards.

I'll also note that my training wasn't in law enforcement where you have to worry about repercussions and law suits.


1. A headshot is the only exception and even then placement is crucial.

[Cow Poke]

I was told never, under any circumstances, let someone get within 10' of you armed with a knife -- and that is when you've got a firearm in hand and aimed. Even if you fire the instant they move, momentum can carry them far enough for them to stab you. And it is only in the movies where a handgun instantly drops someone^[1] or the force of the bullet knocks them backwards.

I'll also note that my training wasn't in law enforcement where you have to worry about repercussions and law suits.


1. A headshot is the only exception and even then placement is crucial.

And, yes, a headshot can best be done by a sniper with a rifle -- police with handguns are always taught to aim for center mass -- less chance of missing, less chance of hitting an innocent bystander, more chance of actually stopping the aggressor.

And for those who often cite the infamous "shoot to kill" intent of a cop - it's "shoot to STOP", not shoot to kill.

(unfortunately, with semi-auto handguns being the norm for law enforcement, it's far less likely to fire one or two "shoot to stop" shots, but to reactively fire multiple rounds)

[Ronson]

I was told never, under any circumstances, let someone get within 10' of you armed with a knife -- and that is when you've got a firearm in hand and aimed. Even if you fire the instant they move, momentum can carry them far enough for them to stab you. And it is only in the movies where a handgun instantly drops someone^[1] or the force of the bullet knocks them backwards.

Hmmm. It's in the movies where I see people taking bullets and continuing to fight.

I was told that bullet strikes to the torso or head usually drop people "like a sack of potatoes." The reason it came up was because we were talking about John Lennon's murder. Witnesses said he continued walking after taking several hits, even walking from the sidewalk into a doorway. They said that was most unusual because bullets hitting those regions usually cause instant shock and the body goes limp. There are several self-defense videos on Youtube that show similar.

[rogue06]

Hmmm. It's in the movies where I see people taking bullets and continuing to fight.

I was told that bullet strikes to the torso or head usually drop people "like a sack of potatoes." The reason it came up was because we were talking about John Lennon's murder. Witnesses said he continued walking after taking several hits, even walking from the sidewalk into a doorway. They said that was most unusual because bullets hitting those regions usually cause instant shock and the body goes limp. There are several self-defense videos on Youtube that show similar.

Only the hero. The people he shoots almost always die instantly from a single shot.

I had originally written "it is only in the movies where the bullet knocks them backwards" and then added the comment about instantly dropping someone without modifying the first part (probably because I was adding the footnote about the only way to guarantee a light's out situation). To knock someone backwards you typically either need a really large caliber round at very high velocity for that, or multiple rapid hits like from automatic fire. Something the typical handgun won't provide.

The drop like a sack of potatoes is not something you can count on or should count on. As you said "usually." There are more than a few instances where someone has taken a lethal shot and kept going for a few seconds longer. Often it is adrenaline or the like. In the case with the knife, I was taught that even a dead man can still kill you. If they're lunging toward you their momentum can still carry them to you where the weight of the body can be enough to drive a knife into you. That was why I mentioned that you aren't going to shoot them and stop that momentum -- knocking them backwards

In situations like that relying on "usually" will often end getting you killed. It's like having a gun that "usually" works.



As for heads shots, it depends on where. People have survived head shots. When my father had his first heart attack there was someone they brought in around the same time who tried to commit suicide. He put the gun up against his temple and pulled the trigger. Apparently he succeeded in shooting himself through both eyes and even damaged the very front of his brain. Others have had their jaw essentially shot off.

[Ronson]

Only the hero. The people he shoots almost always die instantly from a single shot.

I had originally written "it is only in the movies where the bullet knocks them backwards" and then added the comment about instantly dropping someone without modifying the first part (probably because I was adding the footnote about the only way to guarantee a light's out situation). To knock someone backwards you typically either need a really large caliber round at very high velocity for that, or multiple rapid hits like from automatic fire. Something the typical handgun won't provide.

The drop like a sack of potatoes is not something you can count on or should count on. As you said "usually." There are more than a few instances where someone has taken a lethal shot and kept going for a few seconds longer. Often it is adrenaline or the like. In the case with the knife, I was taught that even a dead man can still kill you. If they're lunging toward you their momentum can still carry them to you where the weight of the body can be enough to drive a knife into you. That was why I mentioned that you aren't going to shoot them and stop that momentum -- knocking them backwards

In situations like that relying on "usually" will often end getting you killed. It's like having a gun that "usually" works.

Agreed. And I never thought anyone went 'backwards' from a gunshot. That sounds like Hollywood. I might expect that from getting hit with a bazooka shell. Hollywood does all sorts of garbage and produced more myths than can be counted. Like "quicksand" and the "fast-draw" old west are Hollywood fabrications.

As for heads shots, it depends on where. People have survived head shots. When my father had his first heart attack there was someone they brought in around the same time who tried to commit suicide. He put the gun up against his temple and pulled the trigger. Apparently he succeeded in shooting himself through both eyes and even damaged the very front of his brain. Others have had their jaw essentially shot off.

Back in the 80s, there was an attempted murder where there were two people sitting the front seat of a car. The shooter unloaded a .22 handgun at the head of his victim, and the victim survived. One bullet missed, one penetrated the skin and traveled around the outside of his skull, and the others bounced off. One lucky dude.