Judge Tosses Case After Jacob Blake Agrees to Dismiss Lawsuit Against Police Officer Who Shot Him

Jacob Blake

Lawyers for Jacob S. Blake, Jr. on Friday filed a stipulation to dismiss their excessive force lawsuit against Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Blake seven times in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Aug. 23, 2020. U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller dismissed the case as requested on Monday.

From the judge:

On May 6, 2022, Plaintiff and Defendant signed and filed a stipulation of dismissal of the action with prejudice and without costs. ECF No. 32. The Court will adopt the parties’ stipulation. Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii).

Accordingly,

IT IS ORDERED that the parties’ stipulation of dismissal, ECF No. 32, be and the same is hereby ADOPTED; and

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that this action be and the same is hereby DISMISSED with prejudice and without costs as to all parties.

The shooting in the summer of 2020 followed just months after George Floyd’s murder sparked nationwide Black Lives Matter protests. Blake’s shooting, also at the hands of a white police officer, sparked similar protests, but there was also destruction and deadly violence in Kenosha.

Blake was left paralyzed from the waist down. He first filed suit in March 2021, claiming: “Throughout the entire course of all seven shots being fired, Plaintiff BLAKE was moving away from – and not toward – Defendant SHESKEY into a seated position, as evinced by the fact that the t-shirt Plaintiff BLAKE was wearing was continuously stretched by Defendant SHESKEY’S grasp of it, even after the seventh shot occurred and Plaintiff BLAKE’S spinal column was severed.”

Blake claimed that though he did have a knife he did not threaten officers nor point the knife at them.

Blake “threw the folding knife onto the floorboard of the SUV” in a movement that was “fully visible” to Sheskey, the lawsuit claimed.

No charges were brought against Sheskey in connection with the shooting. He claimed that he “feared Jacob Blake was going to stab him with the knife” in order to escape police in an SUV with young children inside. The district attorney concluded that the Sheskey’s self-defense claim would be insurmountable in court.

Law&Crime reached out to Blake’s attorneys Patrick Salvi, II, Ben Crump, and B’Ivory Lamarr for comment. Salvi is the attorney who signed the stipulation.

Read the stipulation and the ensuing order below:

[Image via ABC News screengrab]

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