The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday closing the investigation into officer Rusten Sheskey, who shot and paralyzed Jacob Blake, “without a federal prosecution.”
The actions of the Kenosha Police Department (KPD) officer in an Aug. 23, 2020 incident did not amount to a willful use of excessive force and did not violate Blake’s federal rights, the DOJ concluded.
The decision was made after a review “of numerous materials, including police reports, law enforcement accounts, witness statements, affidavits of witnesses, dispatch logs, physical evidence reports, photographs and videos of some portions of the incident,” according to a press release by the DOJ.
The DOJ launched the investigation days after the shooting took place, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
BREAKING: Federal prosecutors have announced they won’t file charges against a white police officer who shot Jacob Blake in Wisconsin in 2020. Blake, who is Black, was shot during a domestic disturbance, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. https://t.co/dK14cbZfco
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 8, 2021
“Am I upset? Well they’ve already made my son paralyzed. So what other means do we have as African Americans? What other roads do we take when the justice system fails us?,” Blake’s father said of the DOJ’s decision, according to ABC’s Stephanie Wash.
Earlier this year, state prosecutors made a similar call, deciding not to file charges against Sheskey.
One of the videos analyzed as part of the investigation showed that Blake, who was wanted on a felony warrant at the time, was armed with a knife, according to AP.
Sheskey was reinstated at the KDP in early April following the results of an independent investigation.
A Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that was sparked by the incident turned violent, with an Illinois man shooting three, two of whom died.