The jury found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all charges related to the death of two white men and the injury of another. The crimes happened during the protests of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, WI in 2020.
The jurors acquitted the now 18-year-old on five felony charges in total: first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety. Rittenhouse killed unarmed victims Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, along with injuring armed 28-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz.
The defendant’s lawyers argued that Rittenhouse’s actions were in self-defense. Rittenhouse shot and killed Rosenbaum after the victim chased him, while a video caught Huber attacking the defendant with a skateboard. After Rittenhouse’s initial shots, Grosskreutz advanced on him with a gun, which soon led to his own shooting. Defense attorney Mark Richards said, “Every person who was shot was attacking Kyle. One with a skateboard, one with his hands, one with his feet, one with a gun.”
On the other hand, the prosecution argued that the teenager provoked the shootings given his choice of actions ahead of the crimes. The defendant traveled from Antioch, Illinois to Kenosha with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle. Rittenhouse later described he intended to protect the local property owners from the protesters. Prosecutor Thomas Binger described the shooter as a vigilante taking the opportunity to be a hero.
Controversy with Judge Bruce Schroeder
The public has criticized Judge Bruce Schroeder regarding Rittenhouse’s trial for taking controversial actions that jeopardized his impartiality.
In October, Schroeder prohibited prosecutors from referring to the people Rittenhouse shot as “victims.” Meanwhile, the defense attorneys were allowed to refer to them as “arsonists,” “looters” or “rioters.” “The word ‘victim’ is a loaded, loaded word. And I think ‘alleged victim’ is a cousin to it,” explained Schroeder. “And if the evidence shows that any or more than one of these people were engaged in arson, rioting, or looting — then I’m not going to tell the defense they can’t call them that.”
The public also targeted the judge for allowing Rittenhouse to pick his own jurors at random. “I would admit that there are not a large number of courts that do that, maybe not any,” said Schroeder.
The shooting of Jacob Blake
The crimes occurred during a protest in Kenosha against the police shooting of Jacob Blake just days earlier. A white police officer shot Blake, a 29-year-old Black father of six, seven times in the back. The injury left him paralyzed from the waist down. Rusten Sheskey shot Blake right outside the victim’s vehicle, where his three young children sat, witnessing the shooting. A bystander captured the entire altercation on video that later went viral on social media.
The Black Lives Matter movement was arguably at its peak at the time. After all, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many other Black victims had all recently fallen victims of police brutality just months ahead of Blake’s shootings.
