When the police arrived, they tried to detain Mr. Blake without first stating a reason or giving any verbal commands, according to the lawsuit. Officer Sheskey grabbed Mr. Blake “by the wrist and began to apply physical force to his arm as he was in the process of placing one of his sons into the back of the S.U.V.,” the lawsuit said.
At one point, Officer Sheskey and other officers at the scene “began to physically attack” Mr. Blake, putting him “in a headlock, punching and choking him, and shocking him with a Taser on three occasions,” it said.
Afterward, Mr. Blake walked away from the officers, picked up a folding utility knife he had dropped on the ground earlier, and walked to the driver side of his car, it said.
“At no time from the point at which Plaintiff BLAKE began to walk away from the officers until the time he reached the driver’s side door did Plaintiff BLAKE attempt to strike any of the officers,” the lawsuit said. He did not “initiate any type of physical confrontation” and once he opened the driver side door, “he immediately threw the folding knife onto the floorboard,” the lawsuit said.
As Mr. Blake proceeded to sit in the driver’s seat, Officer Sheskey was pulling on his shirt and fired seven shots, striking Mr. Blake six times, according to the lawsuit. Mr. Blake was hit in his arms, back and left side, the suit said.
Kenosha saw several days of protests and violence after the shooting of Mr. Blake. Kyle Rittenhouse, an Illinois teenager, traveled to Kenosha and was captured on video shooting three people with a military-style semiautomatic rifle, the Kenosha County sheriff has said. Two of them died. Mr. Rittenhouse was arrested and charged with killing them.
Mr. Rittenhouse, who is white, has become a polarizing figure and a hero among conservatives who contend he was acting in self-defense.