Kyle Rittenhouse found not guilty on all counts in trial over Kenosha shootings
Rittenhouse claimed self-defence in deadly shooting that became flashpoint in U.S.
Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges Friday after pleading self-defence in the deadly Kenosha, Wis., shootings that became a flashpoint in the nation's debate over guns, vigilantism and racial injustice.
Rittenhouse, 18, began to choke up, fell forward toward the defence table and then hugged one of his attorneys as he heard a court clerk recite "not guilty" five times. A sheriff's deputy immediately whisked him out a back door.
"He wants to get on with his life," defence attorney Mark Richards said. "He has a huge sense of relief for what the jury did to him today. He wishes none of this ever happened. But as he said when he testified, he did not start this."
The verdict in the politically volatile case was met with anger and disappointment from those who saw Rittenhouse as a vigilante and a wannabe cop, and relief and vindication from those who regarded him as a patriot who wanted to stop lawlessness and exercised his Second Amendment right to carry a gun and to defend himself. Supporters donated more than $2 million US toward his legal defence.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, the longtime civil rights leader, said the verdict throws into doubt the safety of people who protest in support of Black Americans.
"It seems to me that it's open season on human rights demonstrators," he said.
Rittenhouse was charged with homicide, attempted homicide and recklessly endangering safety for killing two men — Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber — and wounding a third, Gaige Grosskreutz — with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle in the summer of 2020 during a tumultuous night of protests over the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white Kenosha police officer.
Rittenhouse, then 17 years old and a former police youth cadet, said he went to Kenosha to protect property from rioters. He is white, as were those he shot.
The jury, whose racial makeup was not disclosed by the court but appeared to be overwhelmingly white, deliberated for close to three and a half days.
Calls for calm
U.S. President Joe Biden called for calm, saying that while the outcome of the case "will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken."
Former president Donald Trump, who at the time of the shootings said it appeared Rittenhouse had been "very violently attacked, " issued a statement Friday congratulating Rittenhouse on the verdict, saying: "If that's not self defence, nothing is!"
Rittenhouse could have been sentenced to life in prison if found guilty on the most serious charge, first-degree intentional homicide, or what some other states call first-degree murder. Two other charges each carried over 60 years behind bars.
Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley said his office respects the jury's decision, and he asked the public to "accept the verdicts peacefully and not resort to violence."
Ahead of the verdict, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers announced last week that 500 National Guard members stood ready in case of trouble after the verdict.
As he released the jurors, Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder assured them the court would take "every measure" to keep them safe.
Deep divide
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is Black and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, denounced the outcome. He, like many civil rights activists, saw a racial double standard at work in the case.
"Over the last few weeks, many dreaded the outcome we just witnessed," Barnes said. "The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is what we should expect from our judicial system, but that standard is not always applied equally. We have seen so many Black and brown youth killed, only to be put on trial posthumously, while the innocence of Kyle Rittenhouse was virtually demanded by the judge."
The enabling and empowerment of vigilantism, plus the sheer effort to defend the taking of life, is not something we should ever be comfortable with.<br><br>The first day of the trial may as well have come with a spoiler alert. The whole saga felt as it were directed from the bench.
—@TheOtherMandelaOther political figures on the right, meanwhile, welcomed the verdict and condemned the case brought against Rittenhouse.
Mark McCloskey, who got in trouble with the law when he and his wife waved a rifle and a handgun at Black Lives Matter protesters marching past his home in St. Louis, Mo., in 2020, said the verdict shows that people have a right to defend themselves from a "mob." He is now a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri.
Fifteen minutes after the verdicts, the National Rifle Association tweeted the text of the Second Amendment.
The Kenosha case was part of an extraordinary confluence of trials that reflected the deep divide over race in the United States: In Georgia, three white men are on trial in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, while in Virginia, a trial is underway in a lawsuit over the deadly white-supremacist rally held in Charlottesville in 2017.
The bloodshed in Kenosha took place during a summer of sometimes-violent protests set off across the U.S. by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other cases involving the police use of force against Black people.
'I didn't do anything wrong. I defended myself'
Rittenhouse went to Kenosha from his home in nearby Antioch, Ill., after businesses were ransacked and burned in the nights that followed Blake's shooting. Rittenhouse carried a weapon authorities said was illegally purchased for the underage young man, joining other armed civilians on the streets.
Bystander and drone video captured most of the frenzied chain of events that followed: Rittenhouse killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, then shot to death protester Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded demonstrator Gaige Grosskreutz, now 28.
Prosecutors portrayed Rittenhouse as a "wannabe soldier" who had gone looking for trouble that night and was responsible for creating a dangerous situation in the first place by pointing his rifle at demonstrators.
Rittenhouse testified: "I didn't do anything wrong. I defended myself."
Breaking into sobs at one point, he told the jury he opened fire after Rosenbaum chased him and made a grab for his gun. He said he was afraid his rifle was going to be wrested away and used to kill him.
Huber was then killed after hitting Rittenhouse in the head or neck with a skateboard, and Grosskreutz was shot after pointing a gun of his own at Rittenhouse.
Under questioning from the prosecution, Grosskreutz said he had his hands raised as he closed in on Rittenhouse and didn't intend to shoot the young man. Prosecutor Thomas Binger asked Grosskreutz why he didn't shoot first.
"That's not the kind of person that I am. That's not why I was out there," he said. "It's not who I am. And definitely not somebody I would want to become."
But during cross-examination, Rittenhouse defence attorney Corey Chirafisi asked: "It wasn't until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him, that he fired, right?"
"Correct," Grosskreutz replied. The defence also presented a photo showing Grosskreutz pointing the gun at Rittenhouse, who was on the ground with his rifle pointed up at Grosskreutz.
Grosskreutz, under follow-up questioning from the prosecutor, said he did not intend to point his weapon at Rittenhouse.
After the verdict, Huber's parents, Karen Bloom and John Huber, said the outcome "sends the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street."
Rittenhouse's mother, Wendy Rittenhouse, who was seated near her son on a courtroom bench, gasped in delight, cried and hugged others around her.
Richards, the defence attorney, said Rittenhouse wants to be a nurse and is in counseling for post traumatic stress disorder and will probably move away because "it's too dangerous" for him to continue to live in the area.
Going in, many legal experts said they believed the defence had the advantage because of provisions favourable to Rittenhouse in Wisconsin self-defence law and video showing him being chased at key moments. Testimony from some of the prosecution's own witnesses also seemed to buttress his claim of self-defence.
Witnesses described Rosenbaum as "hyperaggressive" and said that he dared others to shoot him and threatened to kill Rittenhouse earlier that night. A videographer testified Rosenbaum lunged for the rifle just before he was shot, and a pathologist said his injuries appeared to indicate his hand was over the barrel.
Also, Rosenbaum's fiancee disclosed that he was on medication for bipolar disorder and depression. Rittenhouse's lawyers branded Rosenbaum a "crazy person."
Rittenhouse had also been charged with possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18, a misdemeanor that had appeared likely to lead to a conviction. But the judge threw out that charge before jury deliberations after the defence argued that the Wisconsin law did not apply to the long-barrelled rifle used by Rittenhouse.
The verdicts end the criminal case against Rittenhouse. He does not face any federal charges and he is unlikely to because federal law only applies in very limited cases for homicides. No civil lawsuit has been brought against Rittenhouse yet, either, but there are lawsuits targeting others.
Huber's father is suing police and government officials in Kenosha alleging that they allowed for a dangerous situation that resulted in his son's death. A group of protesters has sued the city and county of Kenosha alleging that curfew laws were enforced against them but not against armed people such as Rittenhouse.