Kyle Rittenhouse Found Not Guilty of All Charges in Killing of Two White Men, Injuring Another. White Jury Found that the Teen Defended Himself Against White-On-White-Crime
/From [HERE] and [HERE] The saga of Kyle Rittenhouse has shown the extent of America’s political polarization. But the not guilty verdict returned by 12 unanimous jurors in his Kenosha, Wis. murder trial Friday shows that when presented deliberately with evidence and forced to reason with one another, Americans can still agree on basic facts.
And the facts presented at trial made it very hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Rittenhouse did not act in self-defense when he shot three men, killing two, who attacked him amid an anarchic scene in downtown Kenosha last summer when he was 17.
The encounters were captured on video. Joseph Rosenbaum sprinted after Mr. Rittenhouse, who ran away across a parking lot. Rosenbaum lunged toward the rifle before Mr. Rittenhouse, who was trapped against parked cars, fired. According to Mr. Rittenhouse and another witness, Rosenbaum had threatened to kill the teenager earlier in the night.
As Mr. Rittenhouse tried to flee toward police lines, he was pursued by a mob. The teenager eventually fell down, and fired when one man tried to kick him in the face, another tried to hit him with a skateboard, and another approached him and raised a pistol.
The prosecution said Mr. Rittenhouse was a “chaos tourist” who provoked the violence. Yet the teenager worked as a lifeguard in Kenosha, where his father lived. However bad his judgment in showing up with a weapon he didn’t own at a riot, his intention was to stand guard in front of businesses and administer first aid.
As all this was laid out in open court, the prosecution’s case appeared to flounder. Pundits baying for a guilty verdict blamed the Kenosha County Judge, Bruce Schroeder, for favoring the defense. Judge Schroeder’s real offense was weighing motions carefully to allow a fair trial. His admonishment of the prosecution for questioning Mr. Rittenhouse about exercising his right to remain silent was entirely appropriate. Remember when the civil liberties of criminal defendants were a liberal cause? [MORE]