The 18-year-old white man who shot three men and killed two of them during an anti-racist rally in Kenosha, USA, in August 2020, was found not guilty of all charges by the jury this Friday (19).
Kyle Rittenhouse was tried for shooting an AR-15 rifle at Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz — the first two died from their wounds. At the time, he was 17 years old.
The trial — which pitted the prosecution’s argument that Rittenhouse recklessly shot the men with the teenager’s claim that he acted in self-defense — polarized America, exposing open wounds in American society around controversial issues like gun rights.
After more than three days of deliberation, the 12-member jury announced the verdict in the case this Friday afternoon. He was cleared of two counts of murder, one of attempted murder and two of a threat to public safety.
The acts in Kenosha, Wisconsin, began after Jacob Blake, a black man, was shot in the back by a white agent during a police raid two days earlier, in an action filmed by witnesses. Three months earlier, George Floyd had been murdered by another white policeman.
Rittenhouse lived in Antioch, Illinois, about 20 miles from Kenosha. He crossed the border into the neighboring state in response to the call of civil groups, formed mostly by white people, who organized themselves on social networks to summon activists against the protest agenda.
These groups claimed to protect property from looting and depredation during the demonstrations. Rittenhouse was armed with an AR-15 rifle. Images recorded by witnesses recorded the moment when protesters tried to disarm him after he shot one of them. The teenager then fired point-blank shots at his pursuers, which resulted in two deaths.​
When making his defense in court, last Wednesday (10), Rittenhouse wept copiously. According to him, the murders were an act of self-defence. He said he had been twice threatened with death by Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and that he was in the middle of the act to protect a used car dealership along with other armed men.
The accused also said his aim was to provide medical help to the wounded — even though he was carrying an AR-15 rifle, prohibited for anyone under 18 in Wisconsin. Questioned, he replied that he had taken the weapon for his protection.
However, for the prosecutor, the defendant “was looking for excitement” and “knew that there would be violence that night”. He asserted that the accused “caused the incident” and that, under Wisconsin law, “you cannot claim self-defense against a danger that you create yourself”
A video shown in court showed the moment when Rittenhouse shot Rosenbaum four times. At the scene, it is possible to see that, at the time of the shootings, the accused was followed by the anti-racist protester, but, as reported by NBC News, the forensic expert Doug Kelley told the court that he concluded that Rosenbaum was not a threat at that time.
In late October, Kenosha County Judge Bruce Schroeder ruled that the prosecution could not refer to those shot as victims because, in his view, the term is laden with pretrial.
In return, prosecutor Thomas Binger asked that the Rittenhouse defense also be banned from describing Rosenbaum, Huber and Grosskreutz as “troublemakers, looters or arsonists.”
For him, the terms are as or more value-judgmental than “victims” and should be banned, because there is no evidence that those shot were committing crimes when they were shot.
Judge Schroeder denied the request, but conditioned the use of adjectives considered pejorative to the presentation of evidence to prove the claims of the defendant’s lawyers.
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