A 20-second video shot by a bystander doesn’t show what led up to the shooting and Wisconsin authorities have given few details
The Kenosha, Wis., police union issued a statement Friday on the police shooting of Jacob Blake, an incident last Sunday that sparked protests and rioting in the city this week that led to at least two deaths.
Authorities have said Blake, 29, was shot in the back seven times by Kenosha police Officer Rusten Sheskey while being taken into custody. On Friday he remained paralyzed in a Kenosha hospital.
Video of the incident shot by a bystander set off violent nightly protests — including Tuesday night’s unrest, in which a 17-year-old from Illinois allegedly fatally shot two people and wounded a third.
In Sunday’s incident, Blake was “armed with a knife” and “forcefully fought” with officers, putting one of them in a headlock, Brendan Matthews, an attorney for the Kenosha Professional Police Association, said Friday, according to Kenosha News.
State investigators, however, said Blake had a knife “in his possession,” and it was later recovered from the floorboard of his vehicle, FOX 6 of Milwaukee reported.
Matthews said officers first tried unsuccessfully to subdue Blake with stun guns.
Blake’s lawyer claimed his client was trying to break up a domestic dispute before his arrest and he was unarmed at the time.
The police union statement added that most accounts of the shooting were “wholly inaccurate” and “purely fictional,” Kenosha News reported.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/kenosha-police-union-gives-its-account-of-jacob-blake-shooting