The Department of Justice announced that it will not pursue civil rights charges against Rusten Sheskey, the white Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer who shot the unarmed Black man Jacob Blake in the back, setting off days of protests, the Associated Press reports.
The August 2020 shooting of Blake happened at the end of the summer during which the American public had been protesting racial injustice in policing. It caused protests in the streets of the city, during which Illinois teen Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people, killing two.
The Justice Department opened an investigation immediately after Blake’s shooting. Police were attempting to subdue Blake after receiving a call that a woman’s boyfriend was not supposed to be at her home. When police attempted to detain him, he went to his SUV, where his children were. Sheskey reportedly shot Blake because he feared Blake would would use the children as hostages.
Blake’s uncle, Justin Blake, called the decision “unconscionable” and said it “definitely steps on every civil right we can imagine this country owes every African American descendant. If we had a heart to be broken, it would be,” he said. “But because we’ve been through all we’ve been, we’re not.”