![]() A Black boy might never have had the audacity to go to protests with a rifle on his back. The Second Amendment may be written in a race-neutral way, but in practice Black Americans do not have the same rights that their white compatriots do. At the police station, detectives cut off his interview when he plainly did not understand Miranda rights.Īs many commentators have pointed out, a young Black man in the same situation would almost certainly not have been afforded all-or perhaps any-of these indulgences. After the shooting, he then went home, where his mother persuaded him to turn himself in. Just a few minutes before he shot the three men, footage showed police greeting Rittenhouse and giving him a bottle of water. Rittenhouse was 17 when he self-deployed to the streets of Kenosha, not far from his home in Illinois, carrying an AR-style rifle. The most striking element of Rittenhouse’s experience, and one of the reasons it became such a focal point for national attention, was the way he was treated by police. But the case could never serve as a plain assessment of race in America, in part because the three men Rittenhouse shot were all white. The United States was already in the midst of huge protests following the May murder of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer. The shootings occurred during protests after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, on August 23, 2020. Ultimately, the not-guilty verdict means simply that Rittenhouse’s self-defense argument was convincing to the jurors.įrom the start, the events that led to Rittenhouse fatally shooting Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and injuring Gaige Grosskreutz, are incomprehensible without considering the role of race in how things unfolded. The trial itself turned on narrow and prosaic questions: Beyond a reasonable doubt, did Rittenhouse commit homicide or reckless homicide and recklessly endanger people? During the trial, the judge also dismissed two misdemeanor charges, for breaking curfew and unlawfully possessing a dangerous weapon while younger than 18, citing errors by prosecutors. These are political matters, not judicial ones. Read: The Second Amendment’s second-class citizens The jury could never have rendered a yea-or-nay verdict on the saturation of guns in American society. It couldn’t say something about the state of race relations in America. It couldn’t produce a plain answer as to whether Rittenhouse was a hero or a villain. ![]() The predicament of the Rittenhouse trial was that it could never do what many Americans, especially on the left, wanted. Much of that attention offered little insight, and sidestepped the point. The trial was inevitably a media circus, spurring intense criticism of the judge and prosecutors from commentators across the political spectrum. Jurors deliberated for more than three days before delivering the verdict this afternoon, accepting his attorneys’ argument that Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. ET on November 20, 2021.Ī jury has found Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who shot three men during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the summer of 2020, not guilty of the charges against him. White supremacy cannot be reformed.Updated at 12:54 p.m. This only further validates the need to abolish our current system. He ended up shooting and killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz.Īfter the verdict, Hollywood took to social media to express their thoughts and anger over the decision.Ĭolin Kaepernick tweeted, "We just witnessed a system built on white supremacy validate the terroristic acts of a white supremacist. Rittenhouse claimed that he "intended to help protect local businesses and provide first aid," the outlet reports. 25, 2020, after police shot and wounded Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time and armed with an AR-15 style rifle, opened fire during a protest in Kenosha on Aug. He faced five charges, including first-degree intentional homicide, and a sentence of life in prison. ![]() The verdict was read on Friday, after Rittenhouse's attorney argued that he opened fire in self-defense. The 18-year-old was acquitted on all charges in the August 2020 shootings of three men, two of whom died, CBS News confirms.
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