KENOSHA: The white police officer who shot black 29-year-old Jacob Blake in the back, triggering a new wave of violent protests in America, was named by US officials on Wednesday, as NBA players led an unprecedented wave of sports walkouts against racism and police brutality.
Anger and grief have built since Sunday, when a seven-year veteran of the police force in Kenosha, Wisconsin shot Blake seven times at point blank range while three of his children watched in the Midwestern city.
The US Department of Justice announced late Wednesday it was opening a civil rights investigation into Blake’s shooting.
Local law enforcement had maintained silence as nightly protests descended into violence, and two people were shot dead when armed vigilantes clashed with demonstrators on Tuesday night. A 17-year-old teenager has since been arrested for murder.
But on Wednesday the Wisconsin Department of Justice gave its first official account of Blake’s shooting, saying he had a knife “in his possession” when officer Rusten Sheskey fired his gun into his back.
It was not clear from the statement if the knife, recovered from inside the car, was in Blake’s hands when he was shot or at any other point during the altercation. He survived, but may be paralyzed for life.
Officers were sent to a residence in Kenosha following a domestic disturbance and during the incident “attempted to arrest” Blake, unsuccessfully tasering him, the statement said.
“Mr Blake walked around his vehicle, opened the driver’s side door, and leaned forward. While holding onto Mr Blake’s shirt, Officer Rusten Sheskey fired his service weapon 7 times. Officer Sheskey fired the weapon into Mr Blake’s back,” it said.
Subsequently, the statement said, agents “recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of Mr Blake’s vehicle.”
Blake’s shooting comes just three months after another African American man, George Floyd, suffocated beneath the knee of a white officer in Minneapolis, igniting the most widespread civil unrest in the country in decades.
On Wednesday frustrated sportsmen and women took a new stand with NBA basketball players, tennis star Naomi Osaka, baseball and soccer players all pulling out of fixtures in protest.
“Despite the overwhelming plea for change, there has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball,” players for the Milwaukee Bucks, whose base is just to the north of Kenosha, said in a statement after boycotting their game.
Kenosha city officials ordered a 7:00 pm to 7:00 am curfew through Sunday in hopes of bringing calm after Tuesday’s deadly violence, which occurred as mostly white armed vigilantes flocked to the site of protests, saying they were there to defend private property.
Videos showed one of the vigilantes shooting at protesters with an assault rifle. The man then walks down the street freely, gun slung across his chest, while protesters scatter and police vehicles drive past him. Two men were killed and one wounded in the arm in the shooting.
Police in Antioch, Illinois, southwest of Kenosha, said Wednesday they had arrested a 17-year-old on murder charges following the killings.
The suspect has been identified as Kyle Rittenhouse, a local youth whose social media accounts reportedly pointed at an affinity for guns and law enforcement.—
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