Officer Who Shot and Paralyzed Jacob Blake Suspended after Service Weapon is Stolen

The Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake seven times and left him paralyzed was punished for losing his gun.

Rusten Sheskey has faced no charges for shooting Blake but is now being disciplined for losing his service weapon.

Sheskey was suspended for three days earlier this year because his borrowed service weapon was stolen a few weeks after shooting Blake. An investigation into the missing weapon has taken officials seven months to sort out, and the weapon has still not been recovered. 

Sheskey shot Jacob Blake on August 23, 2020. Investigators seized the weapon involved in that shooting from the Wisconsin Department of Justice. He was then given a loaner weapon while he actively remained on the job.  Sheskey then reported that the borrowed Glock 17 was stolen from his girlfriend’s car on September 15.

Sheskey told investigators he regularly left the gun in his girlfriend’s locked vehicle. He claimed he had secure locations for firearms at his home in Kenosha but moved suddenly because he was receiving death threats. Once he moved in with his girlfriend, he “did not have an opportunity to provide a safe location inside the home in which he was now living in.”

The investigation into the gun theft came in April 2021, three months after Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley announced that Sheskey would not face criminal charges for shooting Blake.

He was suspended for three days without pay for the lost weapon.