Journal Sentinel seeks Rittenhouse arrest record
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has asked an Illinois court to order the release of records about the arrest of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen charged with killing two people and wounding a third during unrest in the streets of Kenosha last month.
Rittenhouse, 17, is charged in Wisconsin as an adult with fatally shooting two protesters and wounding a third late on Aug. 25, two nights after a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake, 29, seven times in the back.
Rittenhouse, who was armed with an AR-15 rifle, was among more than a dozen armed men in the area claiming they were protecting property. According to prosecutors, Rittenhouse got into a confrontation with one man, fatally shooting him before fleeing on Sheridan Road. . A short time later, they say, Rittenhouse fell while being pursued by protesters, then sat up and shot two others.
Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, of Kenosha, and Anthony Huber, 26, of Silver Lake, were killed in the shootings. Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, of West Allis, was shot in the arm and survived.
Although he walked up to officers with hands raised after the shootings, police did not stop Rittenhouse or question him and he returned home to Antioch before surrendering to police.
He has been held in the Waukegan County juvenile detention center ever since.
Village of Antioch officials denied Journal Sentinel reporter Ashley Luthern’s request for records related to Rittenhouse’s arrest, citing Illinois’ Juvenile Courts Act. Although the records would be releasable if he were charged with homicide, in Illinois, he is only charged with being a fugitive from justice.
In a Friday motion to Lake County Circuit Court Judge Valerie Boettle-Ceckowski, lawyers for the newspaper dispute the assertion that Illinois’ Juvenile Courts Act applies to Rittenhouse under the circumstances.
The motion asks that Boettle-Ceckowski exercise her statutory authority to permit the village to disclose the requested records and argues she could do that even if the records were indisputably covered by the JCA.
In the motion, attorney Matthew Topic, of Loevy & Loevy in Chicago, argues that the juvenile court law’s provisions against disclosure are intended to protect a minor’s “interest in confidenti-ality and rehabilitation,” and that, because Rittenhouse is already widely known, and faces adult charges in Wisconsin, neither concern applies.
“Keeping (the arrest records) secret based on what is no more than a technicality that the General Assembly cannot have intended would improperly deprive the public of information they otherwise have a right to see,” Topic wrote.