KENOSHA, Wis. – The police officer who shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back, provoking outrage and triggering a federal civil rights investigation, known Wednesday night as Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran who claims Blake was armed with a knife.
In his first update on the shooting since a weekend report, Attorney General Josh Kaul gave authorities the account of Sunday night’s showdown in Kenosha.
He claimed that the officials had been sent to a space where a woman had reported that a boyfriend was providing it and that he did not intend to be there. Officers tried to arrest Blake, 29, and deployed a no-effect Taser pistol, Kaul said. Blake overlooked his car, opened the driver’s side door and leaned forward, according to Kaul. While holding Blake’s shirt, Sheskey fired seven times.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice said Blake admitted he had a knife, and Officials from the Criminal Investigation Department recovered a knife from the driver’s floor of his vehicle, according to Kaul.
Kaul did not say whether Blake was the same user who showed up at the woman’s house, but Ben Crump, a lawyer for Blake’s family, said in the past that Blake stopped his car to interrupt a fight when officers approached and shot him. in front of their children. Crump also stated that Blake did not have a gun on him.
Sheskey’s video grabbing the back of Blake’s blouse while shooting at point-blank range went viral on Sunday, prompting violent protests: police fired tear fuel to disperse crowds and a gunman, allegedly 17. Blue Lives Matter fan, killing two other people on Tuesday. Night.
When President Trump threatened to send troops to ease the unrest and the U.S. Department of Justice said a federal civil rights investigation had been opened, the main points of Sheskey’s record emerged.
On at least two social media accounts, Sheskey used a black-and-white flag with a blue bachelor stripe, a totem of pro-police solidarity in the face of public reporting of brutal police violence, as a profile picture.
A message on a social media account carrying his call said, “I would be judged from 12 to 6.”
A Flickr account belonging to Sheskey, son of a teacher, who participated in the worker-backed protests of 2011 and opposed to the government at the time. Scott Walker’s efforts to repeal the collective bargaining rights of top public service unions.
In an interview with a local news site last year about his club at Kenosha P.D. motorcycle unit, Sheskey said he wanted to be a policeman.
“What I love most is that you’re dealing with other people on the worst day of their lives and you can help them as much as you can and make this day a little better,” he told Kenosha News.
“And that, for the most part, other people accept as true that we do it for them. And it’s a huge responsibility, and I actually like looking to help other people. We may not be able to rectify the situation.” or better, but maybe we can make it less difficult during that time.
Sheskey was sued for $50,000 in 2015 after allegedly making an illegal left turn in her police car, hitting a teenage girl driving a Jeep. He claimed that he suffered head, neck and back injuries. The trial was settled out of court and dismissed, but did not challenge the lack of denunciation of a charge, according to court records.
According to the Journal Times, Sheskey was detailed on the site of alleged hate crimes while he was a police officer at the University of Wisconsin—Parkside in 2012. After a student reported that he had located an elastic rope in his bedroom, leaflets with the black names of scholars and threats opposed to their lives appeared. Additional university police officers were brought in as special main points in connection with the incident, Sheskey among them.
Sheskey himself attended the same university, a LinkedIn profile corresponding to his name.
On Wednesday night, things kept quiet in downtown Kenosha before 7 p.m. Curfew. But the locals were far from happy that Sheskey’s call was public in spite of everything.
“It’s still not acceptable, they have to identify everyone involved,” Joyful Garringer, 18, from Kenosha, told the Daily Beast.
“It’s like they want to do better, ” he continued. “Like, “Oh, yes, we got the cop. “No, we all need the police.”
About ten minutes after the curfew, a county sheriff’s organization approached the protesters, hitting a car parked in the process, and handed them firearms from their vehicle.
Two other people had driven a U-haul to Civic Center Park, filled with water and medical supplies. The marshals stopped the vehicle, threatening to avoid it, and then took the U-haul, taking all the materials with it.