It is still in process.
This happened the other day:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/kyle-rittenhouse-trial-new-fbi-aerial-surveillance-video-shows-never-before-seen-actions-before-teen-shot-3-people/ar-AAQhblp?li=BBnbcA1
At first it seemed to me an open and shut murder case. Illinois nut leaves his house in Illinois, travels to Wisconsin to “patrol” the streets. Nut is provided a shooting weapon on arrival in Wisconsin, what the actual fuck? Shoots and kills people. What the fuck?
Then I read that the judge ruled that the dead can be referred to as “rioters” and “looters” but not “victims”, and I thought: This dude is getting away with murder.
Is that legal? I thought you could legally do that. I thought I could legally do that.
Thought that was legal, too.
Sometimes that’s legal, too, isn’t it?
If you’re white I guess.
Carrying a weapon is not necessarily a threat. Self defense when being attacked by anarchists isn’t illegal because one has the means to defend oneself from said anarchists.
I can pass.
I predict he’s gonna walk. There will be enough conflicting witness accounts to make the “defending himself from a mob” story plausible, which should be all the reasonable doubt the jury needs.
Personally, I think someone who goes looking for trouble while carrying a firearm ought to be held responsible for injuries or deaths he inflicts with that firearm, regardless of whether he felt threatened. If you don’t want to feel threatened, don’t go looking for trouble. But I’m aware the law isn’t set up that way.
Preventing trouble is not looking for trouble.
If this dude wanted to prevent trouble, he could have stayed his bloodthirsty ass home.
Speaking as a law-abiding citizen who’s free to walk around in public, I don’t feel like blaming the innocent for what the guilty do.
Kenosha has police, yes? Were they calling for rando FIBS to come and help out?
Why should anyone have to stay home because looters and anarchists are in action?
Is that a requirement for exercising one’s rights?
Anyway, he’s lucky he’s white.
Firstly, the judge has a general policy of not allowing prosecutors to use “victim” for alleged victims. Secondly, if one reads the articles instead of just the headlines, the judge’s ruling was that the defense could use “rioter” or the like if there was evidence at trial to support the characterization.
There have been several articles in the national and local media that make it clear the judge’s general policy is to allow the defense a lot of leeway in presenting its case at trial.
If my man was a black man he’d have paid with his life if he tried to pass a counterfeit $20. Cue John MellonHoosier:
Oh, but ain’t that America
You and me
Ain’t that America
Somethin to see, Baby
You keep saying “anarchists,” what exactly is it about desiring a non-hierarchical society that you find deserves the death penalty? Or looting for that matter, last time I checked we don’t execute people for stealing something.
Why should anyone have go out of their way to kill “looters” and “anarchists”, unasked? There are plenty of ways people can help in these situations, no matter what side of the conflict you’re on. Wading into a riot alone with a gun is not one of them, and now people are dead because of it.
Defending oneself is a natural right. I have no problem with self defense. I do have a problem with violent rioters and anarchists.
The question isn’t whether it’s okay to kill them, unasked, for being looters and anarchists; it’s whether it’s okay to (a) go there unasked, and to (b) shoot them if they attack you.
Non-sequiturs aside, at least my reading on the case description as we know it today raises a lot of doubt that they’ll be able to convict him of murder. I’m not even clear he committed any real hostile act and it seems like he may have a genuine self defense claim.
Under our laws, just because someone is a right-wing asshat and an idiot, does not mean they forfeit their rights. Whatever the wisdom (or even legality) of a minor walking the streets of a city to “safeguard businesses” with a rifle, doing so does not mean you waive the right to defend yourself.
From what I can tell there’s a lot of clear evidence his initial shooting of Rosenbaum (the first person he killed) has a credible self-defense claim. The aerial surveillance video @Snowboarder_Bo posted seems to (as the people who interpreted it suggest) show Rittenhouse walking away from Rosenbaum and Rosenbaum moving toward him, and Rittenhouse firing on him. That is consistent with Rittenhouse attempting to either leave or back away, and being pursued. I can’t say that’s precisely what happened, nor can I say if Rittenhouse was in credible fear for his life, but nothing in that aerial video contradicts that claim.
Additionally, the earlier parts of the aerial video seem to line up with the defense narrative that Rittenhouse was walking through town and Rosenbaum confronted him, which would likewise raise doubt that Rittenhouse was actually the initial aggressor.
According to the Wikipedia “timeline of events”, a witness named McGinniss has testified that from his view, it appeared that Rittenhouse was attempting to move away from Rosenbaum, and Rosenbaum and “other protesters” were actually moving towards him. This same witness says that Rittenhouse continued to flee until he heard the sounds of a gunshot–another person named Joshua Ziminski had fired a “warning shot” in the air for reasons that don’t seem to be publicly stated (he had been seen previously near Rosenbaum in earlier parts of the protest, but his role or motivations, AFAIK, are unknown.) The witness, McGinniss, says that Rittenhouse did not stop and aim his weapon at his pursuers until he heard the sound of gunfire. Additionally, Kenosha prosecutors in their version of events say that Rosenbaum then caught up with Rittenhouse and grabbed his rifle in an attempt to disarm him, which is when Rittenhouse fatally shot him.
Yeah, with this construction of events, I find it very hard to imagine a murder conviction. The defense attorney is going to say Rittenhouse had fear for his life from hearing gunfire, that he would have suspected was aimed at him, then one of his pursuers attempted to disarm him. I think there’s a very strong self defense argument that the prosecution is going to have to deal with in some way.
The events following the initial shooting of Rosenbaum are more convoluted and more legally murky to me. It appears that after the shooting, Rittenhouse fled again, and was caught by several protesters specifically one Anthony Huber. According to witnesses, shouts of “get him”, and “beat him up”, followed by Rittenhouse tripping and being kicked by one pursuing protestor, then Huber reaching him and hitting him with a skateboard and then attempting to disarm him, during which Rittenhouse shot and killed him.
Both fatal shots occurred while people who by at least some obvious interpretations could be considered the aggressors, were attempting to disarm him. In self-defense conception, someone who is attacking you and trying to take away your firearm is a lethal threat, and can be met as such.
What’s murky about the second incident is it appears at least somewhat likely Huber and the protestors with him were under the impression Rittenhouse had unlawfully killed Rosenbaum, and were likely in their minds “attempting to stop a murderer.” That means they may not have been acting with criminal intent themselves. But from the legal perspective of Rittenhouse, he had shot someone in self defense, and an angry group of men were still charging him, he attempted to escape, was assaulted and again attempts were made to disarm him, and he fired again.
The third person he shot, had a handgun on him, but put his hands up and backed away after Huber was shot and killed. Rittenhouse appeared to disengage from that man, but then the man (Gaige Grosskreutz) reportedly started moving towards Rittenhouse, who shot him in the arm, and Gaige survived his wound.
Like I agree there is very little admirable that Rittenhouse was doing in Kenosha that night. But I also think it’s very hard to say beyond a reasonable doubt that none of his shootings were in self-defense, crazy as it can be on spec. Like the default assumption is “right wing idiot kid shows up at protests with a rifle and shoots three people” that he was the aggressor, but it seems like the evidence of that is quite thin. Now like any criminal case, we won’t as the public have a good understanding of all the specifics until the public trial has further progressed and more of the case is fully understood.