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What We Know About the Shooting of Jacob Blake

The police shooting ignited protests in Kenosha, Wis. After separate investigations, the district attorney and the Justice Department decided not to charge the officer who shot Mr. Blake.

A vigil in support of Jacob Blake near the Kenosha County Courthouse on Jan. 4, the day before a prosecutor announced he would decline to bring charges against the police officer who shot Mr. Blake.Credit...Scott Olson/Getty Images

Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was left partly paralyzed after a white police officer shot him seven times in the back outside an apartment complex in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 23, 2020.

The shooting, which happened in front of three of Mr. Blake’s children, was captured by a neighbor in a video that circulated widely and rapidly on social media. Outrage spread quickly, rekindling the nationwide protests for racial justice that had followed the deaths of George Floyd, Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans after encounters with the police.

Protesters poured into Kenosha in the days after the shooting — as did counterprotesters. An Illinois teenager was charged with intentional homicide in the shooting deaths of two demonstrators. Professional athletes in several leagues, led by the Milwaukee Bucks of the N.B.A., joined the protests by refusing to play games

Four months after the shooting of Mr. Blake, the Kenosha County district attorney, Michael Graveley, announced that the officers involved in the shooting would not be charged. In October 2021, the Justice Department said it would not be pursuing federal civil rights charges against the officer who shot Mr. Blake, closing its investigation.

Here’s what we know about Mr. Blake’s shooting and its aftermath.

Mr. Blake, 29, a father of six, grew up in Evanston, Ill., and moved to Kenosha a few years ago to find work and to raise his family, an uncle told The Chicago Tribune.

“It was a safer location,” the uncle, Justin Blake, said. “He could work and try to save and build a better life.”

Mr. Blake’s family said he was working and training to become a mechanic at the time of the shooting.

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Mr. Blake’s sister Zanetia Blake and his father, Jacob Blake Sr., in Kenosha two days after the shooting.Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

In July, a warrant was issued for Mr. Blake’s arrest on charges of third-degree sexual assault, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. On Aug. 23, the woman who had filed the complaint that led to those charges called 911 to report that Mr. Blake was at her home, according to interviews and records.

State officials have said that police officers responded to what they described as a domestic complaint and tried to arrest Mr. Blake.

Before the police shot Mr. Blake, officers twice tried to use a Taser on him, state officials said. They also said that Mr. Blake had admitted that he had a knife, which was later found on the driver’s side floorboard of Mr. Blake’s car. There were no other weapons in the vehicle.

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Jacob Blake in the hospital on Sept. 5, 2020. He was transferred to a spinal-injury rehabilitation center in October. Mr. Blake’s family has said he is paralyzed from the waist down. Credit...Courtesy of Shermaine Laster

In a statement, the union representing Kenosha police officers suggested that Mr. Blake had forcefully resisted arrest, fought with officers, put one officer in a headlock and ignored orders to drop a knife he held in his left hand.

Ben Crump, a lawyer for Mr. Blake’s family, denied that Mr. Blake had been carrying a knife and said Mr. Blake had been trying to break up a disturbance involving two women when the police arrived.

A neighbor recorded the shooting with a cellphone. The video shows Mr. Blake being shot seven times in the back in front of his children as he tried to get into his car.

Mr. Blake’s family has said he is paralyzed from the waist down.

Protests over Mr. Blake’s shooting played out in the streets of Kenosha, in cities across the country and in the spotlight of professional sports in August. Athletes from the N.B.A., the W.N.B.A., Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer and at the Western & Southern Open tennis tournament refused to play, seizing on the shooting to take a stand against systemic racism and police brutality.

In Kenosha, anger was palpable during the first nights of the protests, as some demonstrators burned buildings and cars and threw fireworks, water bottles and bricks at police officers in riot gear. Officers responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

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Protesters and police officers clashed in Kenosha on Aug. 24, the day after Mr. Blake was shot.Credit...Carlos Ortiz for The New York Times

Protests spread across the country, to cities including Madison, Wis.; Portland, Ore.; Minneapolis; and New York.

In Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020, two people were fatally shot, and a third was wounded, as protesters clashed with counterprotesters, including a group of armed men who said they were protecting the area from looters. The two people killed were Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26. Mr. Huber’s friends said he was protesting against the shooting of Mr. Blake.

Kyle Rittenhouse, then 17, who is white, was arrested at his home in Illinois and charged with six criminal counts, including first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide, in connection with the shooting deaths of Mr. Rosenbaum and Mr. Huber and the wounding of the third demonstrator.

Mr. Rittenhouse, who is now 18, pleaded not guilty to the charges during a brief arraignment via videoconference on Jan. 5. His trial is expected to begin in November.

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The presidential candidates weighed in, visiting Kenosha in September. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spent much of his appearance at a church in Kenosha expressing empathy for Black Americans.Credit...Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times

In November 2020, prosecutors in Kenosha County Circuit Court dropped one count of third-degree sexual assault and agreed to drop one count of criminal trespass if Mr. Blake pleaded guilty to two counts of disorderly conduct, according to court records and Mr. Blake’s lawyer, Patrick Cafferty.

Mr. Blake, who made a virtual court appearance via a video call, pleaded guilty to the two disorderly conduct charges and was sentenced to two years of probation, Mr. Cafferty said.

The Walworth County district attorney, Zeke Wiedenfeld, who had prosecuted the case, said the sexual assault charge had been dropped in part because the woman who had accused Mr. Blake was not cooperating with the prosecution.

Mr. Blake had maintained that he did not commit sexual assault, and by dropping the charge, Mr. Cafferty said, prosecutors acknowledged that “ultimately, the state could not prove it in court.”

In January, Mr. Graveley announced that charges would not be brought against Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Mr. Blake.

The prosecutor concluded that a case against Officer Sheskey would have been hard to prove. He said it would be difficult to disprove an argument that the officer was protecting himself from Mr. Blake, who Mr. Graveley said had admitted holding a knife.

Mr. Crump reacted on Twitter, writing, “We are immensely disappointed and feel this decision failed not only Jacob and his family but the community that protested and demanded justice.”

More than nine months after that decision was made public, the Justice Department announced that it would not pursue federal criminal civil rights charges against Officer Sheskey, saying there was insufficient evidence to prove that had willfully used excessive force.

“Prosecutors must establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that an officer ‘willfully’ deprived an individual of a constitutional right, meaning that the officer acted with the deliberate and specific intent to do something the law forbids,” the department said in a statement.

“This is the highest standard of intent imposed by the law. Neither accident, mistake, fear, negligence, nor bad judgment is sufficient to establish a willful federal criminal civil rights violation.”

Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Julie Bosman, Michael Cooper, John Eligon, Marie Fazio, Katie Glueck, Neil MacFarquhar, Sarah Mervosh, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Marc Stein.

Christina Morales is a reporter covering news on food and culture. She joined The Times in 2020 as a member of the newsroom's second fellowship class. More about Christina Morales

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