Kenosha Prosecutor – No Charges Against Police In Jacob Blake Shooting (Update)
Blake also will not be charged in his resisting arrest and fighting with police.
(On August 23, 2020, Jacob Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after resisting attempts to arrest him pursuant to a felony arrest warrant.
We covered the shooting at the time. See these posts for background:
- Kenosha, WI Under Siege By Antifa/BLM Rioters
- WI DOJ Investigation Updates: Knife Found In Front Driver’s Side Floorboard of Jacob Blake Vehicle
As we wrote in the link above:
The initial video released of the Jacob Blake police incident picked up as Blake headed to his vehicle apparently in defiance of police orders to stop. Since its release, we now have more information about the incident, including video of the earlier part of the confrontation between Blake and police.
This newly-released video shows Blake brawling with police officers before detaching himself and walking to the driver’s side of his vehicle. Reports indicate that he had a knife, and that the knife was later found in the vehicle. Blake’s attorney denied that his client had any weapons in the vehicle, something contradicted by a later Wisconsin Department of Justice update….
An attempt to use nonlethal force failed when a taser reportedly “was unsuccessful.” It is not clear at this time if the taser device failed or if it discharged properly but had no impact on the target.
WARNING GRAPHIC ⚠️ Police in Kenosha, Wisconsin shoot an unarmed man in the back pic.twitter.com/ZPdixPNwJY
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) August 24, 2020
What followed the shooting was intense rioting and looting, putting Kenosha on the political map for weeks.
Agitators, including Wisconsin’s leftist Governor, made much of the fact that Blake was shot “in the back,” but the circumstances were murkier and fast moving. Blake was shot in the back as he reached into the vehicle for something, later revealed to be a knife.
The District Attorney just held a lengthy press conference in which the prosecutors and police laid out the facts. The National Guard was placed on alert ahead of the press conference.
He announced that no Kenosha officer will be charged, and neither will Blake. The D.A. has asked the U.S. DOJ to conduct an independent civil rights investigation.
He went through the evidence and step-by-step timeline. Blake resisted arrest, fought by police, and by his own admission, was carrying a knife, after multiple attempts to subdue him, including taser, failed. Blake was shot when he made a move with the knife, having switched it to his right hand, towards the police officer. Contrary to the popular narrative, Blake was not shot seven times in the back, three of the shots were to his side consistent with the twisting motion with the knife towards the officer. The officer’s seven shots were objectively reasonable because police are trained to keep firing until the threat is removed, which in this case was when Blake dropped the knife.
Blake lied when he said he didn’t know there was a warrant for his arrest, his phone internet records proves he knew, which would provide motive for his to resist arrest in front of his children, and makes him a not credible witness at trial. There also was a 2010 incident in Chicago where Blake similarly displayed a knife resisting arrest, and actually slashed at the officer.
UPDATE
The prosecutor has released an 87-page report of his findings and decision not to prosecute.
With these facts established, 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 which is the legal standard the State would have to meet to obtain a criminal conviction in this case. I also do not believe that there are any viable criminal charges against Officer Meronek or Officer Arenas neither of whom fired a shot in this case.
REACTIONS
Thanks, @AP, for zero context and extra racism. There was a warrant for Jacob Blake's arrest. He visited his alleged sexual assault victim, who called 911. He then resisted arrest, and allegedly reached for a knife. He pleaded guilty to lesser charges. You guys rooting for riots? https://t.co/sJOZMNxprf
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) January 5, 2021
HOLY SHIT — the Kenosha cop who shot Jacob Blake in the back 7 times will NOT be charged with anything. NOTHING.
This is why we kneel.
This is why we march.This is FUCKED UP.
— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) January 5, 2021
BREAKING: Kenosha DA Michael Gravely will NOT charge the officers involved in the August shooting of Jacob Blake. We are immensely disappointed and feel this decision failed not only Jacob and his family but the community that protested and demanded justice.
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) January 5, 2021
If you’re surprised that no charges will be brought against the police officer who shot and paralyzed Jacob Blake, or any other officers involved, you haven’t been following American history.
— Joy-Ann Pro-Democracy & Masks Reid ? (@JoyAnnReid) January 5, 2021
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Well at least this prosecutor had a little backbone for not trumping up some bogus charges to placate the burn, loot, murder mob.
Hear.
Hear.
Now time for Blake to Sue the Democrat Party and its criminal Pols who OWN BLM and Auntie-Fey.
Expect an investigation from the Biden DOJ by month end, however
He announced that no Kenosha officer will be charged, and neither will Blake.
I guess it’s now legal to resist arrest in Kenosha.
Absurd.
Considering his permanent physical disabilities seems a far deal. He will have a hard time running from the law ever again.
Now to free Kyle from the Commintern.
It looks like he pled down. I’m a little confused as to whether that plea agreement is void or if he means he won’t charge him beyond the plea agreement.
There was nothing legally wrong with this shooting. There was also nothing morally wrong. I understand how people do not understand the former, self-defense law isn’t widely known. But the latter? No one even questioned Jacob Blake’s provocation of the police, and the lives he endangered, including kids in that car. It is the height of irresponsibility to let someone who was being held at gunpoint, who ignored police commands, who shrugged off a taser, and who was perceived to arm himself (with a knife or the vehicle itself) and drive away. Gee, how about a high speed chase with kids in the car. Fun times.
How many police shootings are from genuine, rogue cops who actually commit murder? It happens, unfortunately, but it is extremely rare and those cops are sent to prison. You want to know the quickest way to prevent shootings, and subsequently, riots? Stop doing reckless, stupid shit with the police! How brainless do you have to be?
Rhetorical question.
Meanwhile, the relentless blitzkrieg against police will do nothing but drive up crime in America.
It’s going to be a hot time in the old town tonight
But it’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t as Sundowner is going to find out if he is installed.
Good start. NOW it’s time to drop the charges against Kyle Rittenhouse who was only defending his life against that mob of Lefty thugs.
I’m confused as to why the officers present didn’t attempt to physically restrain him before he entered the car.
He had a knife, he resisted arrest, officers used tasers, unsuccessfully, twice. This is not the person you try to grab and restrain.
Hmm idk *scratches head .. appreciate the point but you would have thought police officers training would kick in. Subduing the subject before he gets to the car is the safer option surely. I watched the video of the arrest he wasn’t resisting at that stage just ignoring commands.
1.) The video doesn’t start when the police get there. It starts when they are already confronting him. We never see everything the officers did before that point.
2.) Two tasers didn’t subdue him.
3.) How about you try to physically restrain (whatever that means) someone armed with a knife and get back to us.
Appreciate your points, although he wouldn’t have had the knife until he got until the car that’s kinda my point. He was less of a threat until then. Hard one I don’t disagree that it may have been lawful just a gut feeling that it could have been handled better. That said it was a difficult situation and am by no means saying it was the wrong decision once he reached the car and then became a threat.
Mark: Go back and watch the video closely. He clearly had the knife in hand on the way to the car, he did not retrieve it from the car.
I have no idea what sort of magical training you imagine police receive that would have magically have resolved the situation earlier. Please elaborate. No hand waving the issue away with vague references to “police training;” what specific techniques are police officers in other jurisdictions trained to use that the Kenosha PD is failing to impart to its officers.
Keep in mind that the prosecutor determined the number of shots fired were objectively reasonable given that police officers are trained to keep shooting until they remove the threat. In other words, the prosecutor decided not to charge the officer precisely because his office investigated the cop’s actual training. They weren’t measuring his performance in accordance with some imaginary standard.
Also it appears you are not aware of what constitutes “objectively reasonable.” Reasonableness is an essential element in any self-defense claim. The actions of an ordinary citizen are evaluated according to the “reasonable person” standard. Some random guy on the internet or off the street might qualify as a reasonable person. For police officers given that they’re obligated to put themselves in situations that ordinary citizens aren’t, and that they receive training to equip them to deal with those situations, the standard is different. They’re held to the “reasonable officer” standard; what would a reasonable officer who had received the training this Kenosha officer received have done in order to affect the arrest. If you haven’t had any law enforcement training then you aren’t qualified to offer an “objectively reasonable” opinion. No matter how reasonable your opinion is in your own, your wife’s, or your mothers eyes.* Note: there’s no question that the Kenosha officers had to arrest this dangerous man. They couldn’t let him just drive off armed with a knife and kids who weren’t even his in the car.
Oh, and then there’s this, which further convinces me that you aren’t qualified to offer an “objectively reasonable” opinion:
“I watched the video of the arrest he wasn’t resisting at that stage just ignoring commands.”
Hmm idk scratches head; how did you miss the part that ignoring commands IS resisting arrest. Specifically, resisting arrest without violence. In Texas and in most jurisdictions that is taking any action to “resist, interfere, or oppose” an arrest when a police officer is acting within his/her legal authority to affect an arrest or execute due process. This can include failing to pull over for an officer when the bubble gum machine lit up on his cruiser and the siren blaring, providing a false ID, or simply complying too slowly with the officers commands. Capisce? Had Blake been complying with the officers’ commands but veerrry slooowlyyy he’d have been resisting arrest. In this case Blake was not complying at all, as you state, which definitely crosses the line and becomes resisting an officer.
Fleeing the crime scene is also resisting arrest; that’s what Blake was doing when he tried to get into his car. You missed that part, too. You watched a Class A misdemeanor in progress and somehow you missed the entire thing.
Of course, Blake wasn’t simply resisting arrest without violence. The prosecutor reviewed the evidence for the press and for the public. That presumably includes you, mark, fat lot of good it did. ” Blake resisted arrest, FOUGHT by police, and by his own admission, WAS CARRYING A KNIFE…”
In Texas and again in most jurisdictions that pass laws that accord with the ABA’s Model Penal Code fighting with police constitutes assault on a public servant. That is a Class C felony. Since Blake not only had a knife in his hand and moreover admitted he was carrying a knife (seriously, how did you miss those; ctgarric is right when he says you need to actually watch the video) that elevates it aggravated assault on a public servant. Aggravated assault is when the perpetrator causes severe bodily injury to the victim (in this case a police officer) or uses or displays a deadly weapon. Pace that font of idiotic legal and tactical advice, Joe “just shoot ’em through the door; why didn’t the police shoot him in the leg” Biden, Blake wasn’t “unarmed except for a knife.” A knife is a deadly weapon, Blake had one in his hand, and he attempted to use it when the cop shot him. Again, class A felony. What part of this is hard to understand, mark?
“No matter how reasonable your opinion is in your own, your wife’s, or your mothers eyes.*”
The asterisk indicates I meant to follow up.
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And prudent in their own sight!”
Isaiah 5:20-21
I guess you missed the part where he fought with the police. That was the “attempt to physically restrain” portion of the encounter.
Didn’t work out.
A couple of reasons they “didn’t try to physically restrain him” prior to the car door opening:
1) if they actually beat him (as they should have) we’d have had riots linking it to Rodney King and the cops would have lost their jobs,
2) if they shot him early on (as they likely should have) we’d have had riots linking him to Amadou Diallou and the cops would have lost their jobs.
Police options for response to a criminal who doesn’t want to be in jail have been continuously reduced over the last 4-5 decades. Always because of emotional responses to clipped videos and a disbelief in the idea that a very jazzed person (armed or not) absolutely can hurt cops even when there’s a bunch of cops.
The problem with this is that Blake caused the whole situation by knowingly resisting a lawful arrest with violence, including threatening officers with a drawn deadly weapon and is NOT charged. WTH??? The DA just hung the officers and the city out to dry, in civil court. The officer was justified in shooting Blake because he RESISTED arrest with violence. This is insane.
Yeah. Blake should have been charged. The DA in trying to avoid “trouble” is just making more trouble.
If (recent) history is any indicator, the BLM/Antifa terrorists just need riot hard enough and the DA will capitulate and charge the cop(s). That how the American “justice” system works now.
Cops getting any kind of punishment even in blatant cases of wrong doing is pretty rare.
Not true, as of late.
Thanks again for another opinion that is not merely uninformed, but unmoored from any semblance of reality.
https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-police-officer-afraid-to-use-gun-beaten-eddie-johnson/1543015/
“…’She thought she was going to die. She knew that she should shoot this guy, but she chose not to, because she didn’t want her family or the department to have to go through the scrutiny the next day on national news,’ Supt. Johnson said.
A nearby business captured surveillance video of the incident. The owner didn’t see the incident firsthand, but saw how the incident unfolded on the surveillance video.
‘It is terrible. It is total disregard for law enforcement. They put their lives forward every day for us and to see somebody do this, to pummel the police officer is terrible. It is a terrible thing,’ business owner Louie Rainone said.
ABC7 reached out to the Fraternal Order of Police but did not get a comment.”
You’re falling for a false narrative. “Cops getting any kind of punishment even in blatant cases of wrong doing is pretty rare.” By any objective standard not only is it common for police officers to be punished for blatant wrong doing, it’s common for police officers to receive draconian punishments for doing nothing wrong at all. For even acting in their own defense when the law is entirely on their side. Because the police brass, the prosecutors, and the mayor isn’t on their side. The mob calls for a revenge lynching, which is what they mean when they call for “Justice for (insert name of perp who got what they deserve here).” The administration thinks they can appease the mob by throwing an innocent person to the wolves. So the un-personed cop goes to prison for a non-crime. Of course, all the cowards are doing by feeding them is breeding more wolves to form the next mob.
If you were paying attention, mark, you’d know this is so common that there have actually been cops like this one who really does have a reasonable fear for their life (or grievous bodily harm) but don’t act out of a greater fear. They’re going to be brutally punished for DARING to imagine their own life has value and is a worthwhile thing to defend. It isn’t, as Amiri Baraka explained years ago back in the 1960s.
“You can’t steal nothin from a white man, he’s already stole it, he owes you anything you want, even his life.”
At this point you may be forgiven for wondering, “Who the hell is Amiri Baraka and why should anyone care, Arminius.”
The state of New Jersey has an official poet laureate. Baraka was the second official poet laureate chosen by the state. McGreevey said he selected Baraka to pay recognition to the “African American Community” (I am amused when the term “community” is applied to groups of people who are busy attacking each other, such as the LGBT “community, because they hate each other; you might as well call a shark feeding frenzy a community). So it’s official; at least one U.S. state gave its stamp of approval to this piece of work who said what a lot of black revolutionaries/separatists/supremacists have said. It’s impossible for a black person to commit a crime against a white person because, reparations.
Since white people owe blacks anything and everything they want, there’s no such thing as lawful self-defense. When a black person is in the process of extracting reparations from a white person in the form of, as in this case, beating one to death should the white person offer any resistance that is unprovoked violence against black people. Had this cop shot the perp, as she knew she should if we were still a nation of laws, that would have been another example of “white supremacy.”
Mark311 demonstrates the truth of the old adage. Ignorance really is bliss.
After I wrote my earlier comment I decided to google Amari Baraka. I’m going against my usual practice and I’m going to cite Wikipedia because the story of NJ’s poet laureate is more comical that way.
The 1999 law that created the position of the official poet laureate for the state of New Jersey was formally the New Jersey William Carlos Williams Citation of Merit. I say was because Amiri Baraka was not only NJ’s second poet laureate he was such an embarrassment the state abolished the position before his two year “term” was over due to his post-9/11 public recitation of his poem, “Somebody Blew Up America” (foreshadowing Ilhan “some people did something” Omar’s public display of stupidity at a post-9/11 conclave of the CAIR coven).
“Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away?
…
Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion
And cracking they sides at the notion”
OMFG! “Some people did something!” And thanks to the Muslim Brotherhood Hamas-linked front group CAIR and their black separatist/nationalist/supremacist allies we know who those “some people” are. The Joooooz!!! Also known as the usual suspects among rabid, unhinged Joooo haters.
And New Jersey pols, Gov. McGreevey (celebrated for abandoning his wife and family after having an extramarital affair because it’s heroic to have gay extramarital affairs) chief among them, were shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that Baraka was capable of such hatred and was indulging in such “conspiracy theories.”
Or, given Baraka’s nearly forty year track record, just another day ending in “y.” I don’t think the guy let a day go by without vomiting hatred on a sheet of paper against Jews, whites, women, and gays. “Somebody Blew Up America” is a summary of his entire body of work in a nut (pun intended) shell. Nobody in NJ knew this? Maybe I’m being too harsh; given the public school system maybe none of the pols could have read or comprehended anything the guy wrote. If it even occurred to anyone involved in the process that maybe they should crack a book now and then before handing out poet laureate awards.
So after being “surprised” by the glaringly obvious they abolished the position.
It reminds me of when then mayor of London Ken Livingstone invited Muslim Brotherhood Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi to participate in a conference on the hijab. Livingstone advertised Qaradawi as the face of moderate Islam. Or moderate Islamism, which is even more ridiculous. He was going to show those knuckle dragging British versions of Hillary! Clinton’s deplorables what for. That they were WRONG about Islam being a religion of violence, terror, and oppression. Livingstone even met Qaradawi at Heathrow.
Boy, Red Ken lived up to his nickname in every possible way during the course of Qaradawi’s London excursion. As moderate Qaradawi advocated for everything from suicide bombings to executing homosexuals and men beating their wives as Muslim obligations. You could see Red Ken turning redder by the second as Qaradawi confirmed it was Livingstone and the left in the UK, not the knuckle dragging Neanderthals of the “right,” who were the gullible idiots.
Here’s an amusing video of Livingstone attempting to gaslight the people of London a few years later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh1ep7jC_oQ
Livingstone of course lies and says he knew nothing of Qaradawi before the guy opened his mouth at that hijab conference in London. Gee, Red Ken seemed to know a lot about Qaradawi when he was advertising the Sheikh as the face of moderate Islamic terrorism or whatever Livingstone thought he was and met him at the airport.
I especially like the part where Red Ken demonstrate that he’s an idiot. He tries to do the moral equivalence thing. The “all religions” play that secular leftists think will work. And Livingstone claims that Qaradawi expressed his personal views in a private meeting. That he’s personally opposed to his Allah and his prophet on key theological doctrines.
How convenient it was according to Red Ken a private meeting because someone is lying. Like the NJ pols who tapped Jooo hater, white hater, and he-man wymyns hater Baraka to be their poet laureate, it never occurred to Red Ken to crack a book. Such as Qaradawi’s own body of work, which show that like Amiri Baraka spewing hatred is just par for the daily course.
Or maybe cracking open the Quran to Surah 22 Ayah 36:
“It is not for a believing man or a believing woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decided a matter, that they should [thereafter] have any choice about their affair. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly strayed into clear error.”
Talk about your settled science. Muslims aren’t allowed to have their own opinions on matters that Allah and Muhammad have already decided. Moreover, if they have the slightest resistance to any of Allah’s or Muhammad’s decisions they are apostates. So if Allah and/or Muhammad are all in on sex slavery, wife beating, throwing gays off tall buildings or hanging them from cranes, then every Muslim from Muhammad’s death in 632 A.D. until judgement day have to be enthusiastic cheerleaders for all of the above, too.
So who was lying? Livingstone when he claims Qaradawi expressed personal opinions that would have “excommunicated” him from Islam as an apostate merely for thinking them. Or Qaradawi when he recognized the gullible fool leftist as the easy mark that he and all leftists are, hungry for sweet Islamic lies.
Who cares. Due diligence means going beyond the headlines and actually cracking open a book now and then. Or at least looking past the narrative before mistaking something that flies in the face of reality for actual truth.
“Cops getting any kind of punishment even in blatant cases of wrong doing is pretty rare.”
Sure. Riiight.
I’m sorry, but where in police officers’ job description is it written that they have to put their lives at maximum risk granting the benefit of the doubt to someone who has ignored numerous commands again and again (after physically wrestling with officers) who then proceeds to (an officer must assume) go for a weapon?
In dangerous situations in which a split-second of hesitation can cost an officer his or her life, officers nonetheless almost always issue commands repeatedly past the point of any reasonable expectations of duty.
It seems that people on the left will not be satisfied until fatal interactions between police officers and violent criminals result in at least half of the deaths being police officers.
Another example of today’s definition of “equity.”
Like this situation.
Why is Blake not being charged? Being shot is punishment enough? That’s an argument for sentencing.
Lawless thug got what was coming to him. Cop did his job. DA shows he has a pair. End of case until/unless cowardly guv steps in.
What in the hell was the prosecutor babbling about that he doesn’t have the “experiences” of Blake or the police? Is that now that legal standard for a prosecutor to file charges? Shall we now ask police if the have such experiences before they filed an affidavit? Good God man, you have the education, experience and vote of the people to do your job not “gee, can I relate to them”!
blake should be charged and have verdict added to his record. as far as jail time…no. no free room/board/medical care.
This is why we kneel.
This is why we march.
Yes, for lies. And that is why so many won’t listen to you, even when you’re right. “Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”