3 officers in Jacob Blake shooting identified, placed on leave
All three involved officers have been placed on administrative leave
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Wisconsin Justice Department has identified two more officers who were present during the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha on Sunday.
Police were responding to a domestic violence call involving Blake, a Black man, on Sunday when Officer Rusten Sheskey, while attempting to arrest the 29-year-old, grabbed Blake's shirt and fired a service weapon seven times into his back, according to the state Justice Department.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Department said in a Friday press release that Kenosha police officers Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek were also present during the incident. All three officers have been placed on administrative leave.
Kenosha Police officer Rusten Sheskey in 2019. (John Sloca/The Kenosha News via AP)
The Wisconsin Justice Department's Division of Criminal Investigation is leading the investigation with the FBI, Wisconsin State Patrol and Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office cooperating, according to a statement.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sheskey has been an officer with the Kenosha Police Department for seven years, Arenas has been with Kenosha police since February 2019 and Meronek joined the team in January.
Sheskey fired at Blake, who remains in critical condition, after attempts to deploy a taser did not work and the suspect walked to the driver's side of his car and "leaned forward," an Aug. 26 press release from the Wisconsin Justice Department stated.
In this September 2019 photo taken in Evanston, Ill., Adria-Joi Watkins poses with her second cousin Jacob Blake. (Courtesy Adria-Joi Watkins via AP)
Blake admitted in an interview with officials afterward to having a knife in his possession while police attempted to arrest him. Investigators found a blade on the driver's-side floorboard of Blake's car, the Wednesday statement said.
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"Jacob Blake didn’t harm anyone or pose any threat to the police, yet they shot him seven times in the back in front of his children," Blake's attorney, Benjamin Crump, said in a statement released hours after the Wisconsin Justice Department reported discovering the knife, according to Fox News' Milwaukee affiliate.
Crump added, "Jacob did nothing to provoke police. He was a great father and was only intending to get his children out of a volatile situation. Witnesses confirm that he was not in possession of a knife and didn’t threaten officers in any way."
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