17yearold faces homicide charges in protest deaths
KENOSHA, Wis. — Prosecutors charged a 17yearold from Illinois on Thursday in the fatal shooting of two protesters and the wounding of a third in Kenosha during a night of anger after the weekend police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Kyle Rittenhouse faces charges of firstdegree intentional homicide, one count of firstdegree reckless homicide, one count of attempted firstdegree intentional homicide and two counts of firstdegree reckless endangerment. He would face a mandatory life sentence if convicted of firstdegree intentional homicide, the most serious crime in Wisconsin.
The attack late Tuesday — largely caught on cell phone video and posted online — and the shooting by police Sunday of Blake, a 29yearold Black father of six who was left paralyzed from the waist down, made Kenosha the latest focal point in the fight against racial injustice that has gripped the country since the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
Kenosha police faced questions about their interactions with the gunman Tuesday night. According to witness accounts and video footage, police apparently let the gunman walk past them and leave the scene with a rifle over his shoulder and his hands in the air, as members of the crowd yelled for him to be arrested because he had shot people.
As for how the gunman managed to slip away, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth has described a chaotic, highstress scene, with lots of radio traffic and people screaming, chanting and running — conditions he said can cause “tunnel vision” among law officers.
Video taken before the shooting shows police tossing bottled water from an armored vehicle and thanking civilians armed with long guns walking the streets. One of them appears to be the gunman.
The national and state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union called Thursday for the resignation of Beth and Kenosha Police Chief Dan Miskinis over their handling of Blake’s death and the subsequent protests.
Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Ill., about 15 miles from Kenosha, was taken into custody Wednesday in Illinois. He was assigned a public defender in Illinois for a hearing Friday on his transfer to Wisconsin. Under Wisconsin law, anyone 17 or older is treated as an adult in the criminal justice system.
Rittenhouse’s attorney, Lin Wood, said the teenager was acting in selfdefense. Cell phone footage shows the shooter being chased into a used car lot by someone before shots are heard and the person lies dead. The shooter then runs down the street where he is chased by several people shouting that he just shot someone.