Rittenhouse verdict: fair or travesty of justice?
Regarding “White vigilantes get license to kill” (Open Forum, Nov. 22): Cat Brooks paints the Rittenhouse acquittal as a free pass for white supremacy. The acquittal, by a group of jurors who followed the law, was an example of how well our justice system works. We would all hope we would be given the same consideration if we were on trial.
Brooks portrays the victims as protesters. Actually, the videos show the victims were wreaking havoc prior to the shootings.
Brooks states that Rittenhouse illegally carried a gun across state lines. Not true. The gun was stored at his friend’s house in Wisconsin. That charged was dropped even before it reached the jury.
Yes, the trial showed an immature 17-year-old who made some serious mistakes by carrying a gun to a hostile environment. Tying these mistakes into some kind of symbol for white supremacy is misguided and inflammatory.
Jim Gray, Rodeo
If he’d been Black
Imagine a Black man carries a semi-automatic rifle to a white Supremacist’s march in Charlottesville, Va., to protect the community from those tiki-torch carrying marchers. Things get heated and he has to shoot some of the white Supremacists to defend himself. He kills two marchers and seriously injures another. Do you think the jury in Charlottesville will find that he acted in self-defense?
Pamela Pitt, San Francisco
The woke left is wrong
Kyle Rittenhouse had every right to defend himself against people who were chasing him to kill him.
Rittenhouse went to Kenosha, Wis., to help store owners protect their properties from vandalism, violence, looting and fire.
The media labeled demonstrators’ actions as a peaceful protest (like they always do), and Rittenhouse as a right-wing vigilante and white supremacist. They brand the Proud Boys as domestic terrorists and simply refer to antifa and Black Lives Matter as peaceful activists. Proud Boys don’t burn buildings, occupy police stations, attack people, loot and close freeways.
Yet Democrats, the left and the media side with the woken mobs who incite violence. Who the hell’s side are they on anyway — rioters and lawlessness or lawfulness and justice? Doug Basch, Pleasanton
Sets a bad precedent
Self-defense or not, the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse sends a a very clear and dangerous message to American citizens that is OK to show up at rallies and protests with a high-powered automatic weapon. This is not OK.
If this kid had left his weapon at home, nobody would have died that night.
Tony de Grassi, Concord
Bay Area opportunity
The Wild West needs a sheriff, and now that Kyle Rittenhouse is a free man and presumably looking for work, why not offer him a job here in the Bay Area? After all, his stated purpose in bringing his AR-15 to the protest in Kenosha, Wis., was to protect property.
I suggest that local department stores, pharmacies, jewelry stores and other businesses get together and hire Rittenhouse to create a consortium of local vigilantes to put an end, once and for all, to the marauding mayhem of mass thefts currently being perpetrated against our communities.
Obviously, our police forces are inadequately staffed and trained to deal with these flash mobs. Rittenhouse and his posses could become the protectors of the peace we so desperately need! Marc Winokur, Oakland