The Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake last month has reportedly told investigators he believed Blake was armed and in the process of kidnapping a child when he arrived on scene.
Officer Rusten Sheskey said he watched Blake put a child in a SUV, according to his lawyer Brendan Matthews. Sheskey also heard a woman say, “He’s got my kid, he’s got my keys.”
Sheskey and two other officers attempted to restrain Blake by tasing him twice, but that failed to subdue him. Matthews says Sheskey opened fire on Blake when he refused commands and turned toward him with a knife.
“The question would have been ‘Why didn’t you do something?'” Matthews said if Sheskey had allowed Blake to leave with the child and the other two children that were already in his car.
Blake survived the shooting but is paralyzed from the waist down. His shooting touched off widespread civil unrest in Kenosha for several days afterward.