On January 5th, Michael D. Graveley, District Attorney of the County of Kenosha, Wisconsin, called a news conference to explain why charges would not be brought against Officer Rusten Sheskey for shooting Jacob Blake on August 23, 2020. During August anti-racism protests in response to a black man being shot seven times by a white police officer, rioting had led to two deaths and to fifty million dollars in damage to over one hundred businesses in Kenosha, including forty that were shut down for good with the loss of many jobs.
Graveley was joined at the podium by Noble Wray, former Madison, Wisconsin Police Chief and head of Police Practices and Accountability in the Obama Administration. An expert in police procedures and an African American, Wray was selected by the Wisconsin Attorney General’s office, which had been mandated by Graveley to review the use of force in that incident.
Both District Attorney Graveley and Noble Wray emphasized that the police had been called by the mother of Blake’s three children, who expressed her fear that Blake was going to take her SUV vehicle and one or more of her children, without her permission. Also, the police were aware that Blake had a warrant for his arrest from a prior domestic abuse incident. read more
h/t NAAC