Kyle Rittenhouse

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Kyle Rittenhouse (2003–) is a shooter from Antioch, Illinois, who shot and killed two unarmed people, Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and injured another, Gaige Grosskreutz, amid the unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin on August 25, 2020. At trial he entered a plea of self-defense. He was found not guilty and acquitted on November 19, 2021. Rittenhouse subsequently made appearances on conservative platforms. Regardless of him being found not guilty, it has been a question as to why he was there to begin with. Before he was a shooter, he was a 'cadet' for the police and engaged in idiocy such as not understanding why "Blue Lives Matter" is different from Black Lives Matter, by having it in his TikTok profile and supporting 'humanization of the police'.[1]

Kyle often dressed up as a police officer himself before the shooting took place. Kellyanne Conway disowns his actions in the same breath as mentioning "all the crazy people who have been involved in the Obama/Biden campaigns".[2]

Kenosha shooting event[edit]

From vigilante shooter...[edit]

Protests and riots sprung up in Kenosha after 29-year-old Jacob Blake was shot multiple times by police officers on August 23rd, 2020. This was also during the George Floyd protests when they sprung up across America, as police brutality towards Black Americans became more and more known to the public. They are categorized as being part of the wider 2020–2022 civil unrest events, in the thick of it. During the events there were calls from right-wing media social media outlets for vigilantes and militia to mobilize against the riots,[3] but then again, this happens whenever there are events such as this. Only, this time an avid TikTok user answered the call to come and defend people's property, bringing an AR-15 style rifle with him to seem like a big boy.

Filled with animosity towards rioters, having his ear spoken into by right-wing media goblins all day and having the brains to use the Blue Lives Matter tag online, he takes to the streets with no intent of using any de-escalation tactics in pursuit of bin vandals. He finds them. Judging by his treatment after two people end up dead, this is the hero that conservatives are saying they need.

...to right-wing star[edit]

Kyle Rittenhouse Sentenced To 45 Years Of CPACWikipedia Appearances
—The Onion[4]
No seriously, Rittenhouse was given a wrestler-like entrance at a Turning Point USA conference.

After getting off scot-free for his shootings, Rittenhouse was given a tour all across conservative America. Whether you think Kyle Rittenhouse should have been convicted may actually be a reasonable indicator of your voting preferences, because it appears to be divided on partisan lines.[5] Apparently the right seems to tacitly be in support of this kind of conduct, because he has had talks with Tucker Carlson,[6] been interviewed by the then president for whatever reason,[7] and even had Turning Point USA try to gatekeep women's sexuality about him in part by suggesting that he is the kind of person that women 'should' be attracted to (kind of implying that this isn't the standard).[8] It seems that if we are to take this literally, you can get the right-wing's fawning and adoration for being a vigilante 'victim' and shooting people for it, maybe a new take on what it means to be a man?

He seems to have a view of what it means to be a man himself, which entails a sense of entitlement to have the president on beck and call for you after being involved in a questionable shooting. Getting angry at president Biden for essentially snubbing him compared to Trump.[9] Seems he is new to this whole opposing viewpoints thing.

Claims during trial[edit]

Kyle Rittenhouse made claims that could not be verified, such as claiming he was attacked. When he was asked why he went 20 miles to confront an angry mob of people attacking a bin, he said that he offered "condolences". When confronted, he started crying. It is unknown whether his cries were real or fake.[10] However, many legal experts seem to be of the mind that he always had a strong self-defence case.[11] The prosecution was saddled with the fact that they needed to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt that Kyle wasn't just defending himself, and the case primarily relied on murky video evidence, shot from too far away, and not being able to essentially do what they needed it to do. So, despite what you believe, from a legal expert standpoint and simply assessing the case based on how it went, it was not at all unlikely he would be deemed not guilty despite what he did.[12]

References[edit]