Police officers Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek resumed work on January 20, after being placed on administrative leave on August 23, 2020, the statement said.
“Police officers Arenas and Meronek were not charged with a crime and, after review by Kenosha County District Attorney and an independent investigator, former Madison Police Chief Noble Wray, the actions taken by the officers were reasonable. And justified, “the statement said.
Rusten Sheskey, the officer who shot Blake seven times, is still on administrative leave “pending the conclusions of a lethal force review council by the Kenosha police,” the statement said.
The decision not to accuse Sheskey followed by the decision to allow the other two officers to return to work came amid anger at the repeated deaths of blacks at the hands of the police.
DA says Blake was armed with a knife
Sheskey, a white officer, shot Blake, a 29-year-old black man, seven times while responding to a domestic incident on August 23, 2020. Blake survived the shooting, but was paralyzed from the waist down.
Sheskey told investigators that he used deadly force during the chaotic encounter because he was afraid that Blake, in trying to escape the scene, was trying to kidnap a child in the back seat of the vehicle.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice said Blake had a knife and the gun was found on the floor of his vehicle. Blake himself told authorities he had a knife, Graveley said.
A lawyer for Blake’s family contested that Blake posed a threat.
“There was no point in the articulating video for a policeman to say he was under danger at that specific point. I think this is completely false and I think it is just a rationalization to try to show what is really, essentially, an intentional act,” attorney B’Ivory LaMarr after Graveley announced his decision.
“It is not against the law to have a knife, people have knives for a variety of different reasons. Jacob Blake is aware of having a knife.”
CNN’s Ray Sanchez and Brad Parks contributed to this report.