Teen accused of 2 killings thrust into debate
ANTIOCH, Ill. — A white 17-year-old who says he went to protests in Wisconsin to protect businesses and people has become a flashpoint in a debate over anti-racism demonstrations that have gripped many American cities — and the vigilantism that has sometimes met them.
On Tuesday, Kyle Rittenhouse grabbed an AR-15style rifle and joined several other armed people in the streets of Kenosha, Wis., where businesses were vandalized and buildings burned after police shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back seven times, leaving him paralyzed. By the end of the night, prosecutors say, Mr. Rittenhouse had killed two people and severely wounded a third.
At a hearing Friday, a judge postponed a decision on whether Mr. Rittenhouse, who is in custody in Illinois, should be returned to Wisconsin to face charges, including first-degree intentional homicide that could land him in prison for the rest of his life.
To some, Mr. Rittenhouse is a domestic terrorist whose very presence with a rifle incited the protesters. To others, he’s a hero who took up arms to protect people who were left unprotected.
“Kyle is an innocent boy who justifiably exercised his fundamental right of self-defense. In doing so, he likely saved his own life and possibly the lives of others,” said Lin Wood, a prominent Atlanta attorney who is now part of a team representing Mr. Rittenhouse.
The protests in Kenosha are just the latest to erupt during a reckoning over policing and racial injustice following the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Mr. Rittenhouse, once part of a youth cadet program for aspiring police officers, can be seen on his Facebook page posing in a blue police uniform with a silver badge and broad-brimmed hat. In other online photos and videos, he takes target practice and brandishes a rifle above the caption “Blue Lives Matter.”
On Tuesday night, as Mr. Rittenhouse stood in front of a boarded-up building, he spoke to a reporter from the conservative Daily Caller site. “People are getting injured, and our job is to protect this business,” he said. “And part of my job is to also help people. If there is somebody hurt, I’m running into harm’s way. That’s why I have my rifle.”
The hashtag #FreeKyleRittenhouse has trended on Twitter; a self-described Christian fundraising site, GiveSendGo, says it has raised more than $100,000 for Rittenhouse’s defense; and a post including photos of Mr. Rittenhouse cleaning up graffiti in Kenosha before the shooting was shared and liked thousands of times.
On Friday, Chief Miskinis described a chaotic scene to reporters and said that “there was nothing to suggest that this person [Rittenhouse] was involved in any criminal behavior.”
Before the shooting, Mr. Rittenhouse lived in a quiet apartment complex a halfhour’s drive away from Kenosha, with his single mother, Wendy Rittenhouse, a 45-year-old nursing assistant who filed for bankruptcy two years ago.
Jeanie Quillin, who lived in an apartment building next door, did not know the Rittenhouses, but she said area residents were on edge over the teen’s arrest and their fears that the demonstrations could come to their doorsteps.
“I want to know how a 17year-old could get ahold of an AR-15,” she added.