Tag Archives: Kyle Rittenhouse

Jury acquits U.S. teen shooter Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges

By Nathan Layne

KENOSHA, Wis. (Reuters) -A jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on Friday on all charges relating to his fatal shooting of two men and wounding of a third with a semi-automatic rifle during chaotic 2020 racial justice protests in Wisconsin, determining that the teenager acted in self-defense.

A 12-member jury found Rittenhouse, 18, not guilty on two counts of homicide, one count of attempted homicide and two counts of recklessly endangering safety during street protests marred by arson, rioting and looting on Aug. 25, 2020 in the working-class city of Kenosha.

Rittenhouse broke down sobbing after the verdict, which came shortly after the judge warned the courtroom to remain silent or be removed.

The teenager’s trial polarized America, highlighting gaping divisions in U.S. society around contentious issues like gun rights.

Rittenhouse shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and fired a bullet that tore a chunk off the arm of Gaige Grosskreutz, 28.

In reaching their verdicts after more than three days of deliberations, the jury contended with dueling narratives from the defense and prosecution that offered vastly different portrayals of the teenager’s actions on the night of the shootings.

The defense argued that Rittenhouse had been repeatedly attacked and had shot the men in fear for his life. They said he was a civic-minded teenager who had been in Kenosha to protect private property after several nights of unrest in the city south of Milwaukee.

The unrest followed the police shooting of a Black man named Jacob Blake, who was left paralyzed from the waist down.

The prosecution portrayed Rittenhouse as a reckless vigilante who provoked the violent encounters and showed no remorse for the men he shot with his AR-15-style rifle.

Live-streamed and dissected by cable TV pundits daily, the trial unfolded during a time of social and political polarization in the United States. Gun rights are cherished by many Americans and are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution even as the nation experiences a high rate of gun violence and the easy availability of firearms.

Rittenhouse, who testified that he had no choice but to open fire to protect himself, is viewed as heroic by some conservatives who favor expansive gun rights and consider the shootings justified. Many on the left view Rittenhouse as a vigilante and an embodiment of an out-of-control American gun culture.

Protests against racism and police brutality turned violent in many U.S. cities after the police killing of Black man George Floyd in Minneapolis three months before the Kenosha shootings.

With so much of that night in Kenosha caught on cellphone and surveillance video, few basic facts were in dispute. The trial instead focused on whether Rittenhouse acted reasonably to prevent “imminent death or great bodily harm,” the requirement for using deadly force under Wisconsin law.

The prosecution, led by Kenosha County Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, sought to paint Rittenhouse as the aggressor and noted he was the only one to kill anyone that night.

FULL METAL JACKET

Rittenhouse’s gun was loaded with 30 rounds of full metal jacket bullets, which are designed to penetrate their target. The jury saw a series of graphic videos, including the moments after Rittenhouse fired four rounds into Rosenbaum, who lay motionless, bleeding and groaning. Other video showed Grosskreutz screaming, with blood gushing from his arm.

Rittenhouse testified in his own defense last Wednesday in the trial’s most dramatic moment – a risky decision by his lawyers given his youth and the prospect of tough prosecution cross-examination. Rittenhouse broke down sobbing at one point but emphasized that he fired upon the men only after being attacked.

“I did what I had to do to stop the person who was attacking me,” he said.

Rittenhouse testified that he shot Huber after he had struck him with a skateboard and pulled on his weapon. He said he fired on Grosskreutz after the man pointed the pistol he was carrying at the teenager – an assertion Grosskreutz acknowledged under questioning from the defense. Rittenhouse testified that he shot Rosenbaum after the man chased him and grabbed his gun.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Kenosha, Wisconsin; Editing by Ross Colvin, Will Dunham and Alistair Bell)

Missing Jan. 6 defense lawyer is recovering from illness, judge is told

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A lawyer who recently disappeared from public view while representing 17 defendants facing charges related to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot was “beginning to feel better” but also “very sick,” a federal judge was told on Thursday.

At a status hearing for Peter Schwartz, an Owensboro, Kentucky, man facing 14 riot-related charges, including felonies, Ryan Marshall, an associate of John Pierce, the lawyer who represents Schwartz and 16 other riot defendants, said he spoke to Pierce on Tuesday evening and the absent lawyer said he was “beginning to feel better.”

But Marshall said he then spoke to a friend of Pierce on Wednesday who told him Pierce remained “very sick” and had spent most of Wednesday asleep.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said that because Marshall was not a lawyer, if necessary the court would appoint a lawyer to temporarily represent Schwartz if Pierce’s health status remains unclear.

Prosecutors have cited conflicting news reports about Pierce’s health problems. Some reports said Pierce had contracted COVID-19. An NPR reporter said last week that a friend of Pierce’s told him Pierce did not have COVID-19 but was hospitalized due to “dehydration and exhaustion.” That same reporter on Thursday said another source told him Pierce contracted COVID-19 but was not on a ventilator.

Among the Jan. 6 riot defendants Pierce represents are members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper militia groups.

Pierce also has represented Rudy Giuliani, former President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, and Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old facing homicide charges stemming from protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Prosecutors have alleged that during the Jan 6 riot, Pierce’s client Schwartz violently “assaulted multiple law enforcement officers by spraying them with a chemical agent believed to be pepper spray.”

Schwartz has been held in pre-trial detention since his arrest in February.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Howard Goller)

Teen charged in Wisconsin protest shootings to plead not guilty on all counts -lawyer

(Reuters) – Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with fatally shooting two men and wounding a third at a demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August, is expected to plead not guilty to all counts at an arraignment on Tuesday, his lawyer said.

Rittenhouse was charged with first-degree reckless homicide and five other criminal counts related to the shootings, which occurred on Aug. 25 at a demonstration that followed the fatal shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer days earlier.

Rittenhouse, who faces a trial in Kenosha County, will plead not guilty to all counts at the hearing, scheduled for 1 p.m. local time (1900 GMT), his lawyer Mark Richards told Reuters in an email.

The teenager was freed after his attorneys posted his $2 million bond in November. The source of the money was unclear, but his attorneys had led a drive to raise the funds from donations.

Rittenhouse’s lawyers have said Rittenhouse, who turned 18 on Sunday, acted in self defense when he opened fire with a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 rifle at the protest.

The police shooting of Blake on Aug. 23, captured on cellphone video, drew a mix of civil rights demonstrators, anarchists and right-wing militias to the streets of Kenosha, a city of 100,000 people about 40 miles (65 km) south of Milwaukee.

Officer Rusten Sheskey shot at Blake’s back seven times from close range as Blake opened the door of his car, striking him four times and paralyzing him from the waist down. Officials said there was a knife inside Blake’s car.

Blake’s lawyer, Ben Crump, disputed that there was a knife in the car and said Blake was attempting to break up a fight between two women when he was shot in front of three of his sons, aged 3, 5 and 8.

Prosecutors are expected to decide whether to charge Sheskey this week.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Judge rules probable cause U.S. teenager committed crimes in Wisconsin protest shootings

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – A judge ruled on Thursday there was probable cause that U.S. teenager Kyle Rittenhouse committed felonies in fatally shooting two protesters and wounding a third during protests in Wisconsin over the summer, clearing one of the final hurdles before trial.

The shootings occurred in August in Kenosha, Wisconsin amid civil unrest sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. Rittenhouse’s lawyers have said he was helping protect property and that he acted in self defense.

Rittenhouse, 17, was charged with first-degree homicide and five other criminal counts related to the shootings, in which Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber were killed and Gaige Grosskreutz was wounded. The charges also include two lesser charges for illegal possession of a weapon by a minor and for allegedly endangering the safety of journalist Richard McGinnis.

Loren Keating, a Kenosha County judicial court commissioner, on Thursday denied a motion by Rittenhouse’s lawyer to dismiss the two lesser charges and said the evidence was sufficient for the case to go to trial.

“I do find the state has demonstrated probable cause that in this case felonies were committed relating to the counts in the complaint,” Keating said at a preliminary hearing, advancing the prosecution’s case another step towards trial.

Rittenhouse was extradited in late October from his home state of Illinois to Kenosha to face the charges. Rittenhouse, who has become a cause celebre of sorts for the political right, posted $2 million bail after a public fundraising campaign.

Rittenhouse’s legal team have said their client feared for his life when he fired his semi-automatic rifle on Aug. 25 in Kenosha. Cellphone videos from the night show chaotic scenes, including one where Rittenhouse is chased and falls down before his encounter with Huber and Grosskreutz, who had a handgun.

In questioning of a detective testifying for the state on Thursday, Richards appeared to offer a preview of the likely defense.

“In your investigation and looking at all the hours of videos did you ever see Kyle act inappropriate towards somebody who was not threatening him with a firearm,” Richards asked, before Keating sustained an objection to the question.

“Mr. Richards, here’s the key: you have an opportunity at trial,” Keating said.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Teenager charged with killing two in Kenosha to fight extradition, lawyer says

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with killing two protesters and injuring another during demonstrations about race and justice in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will fight his requested extradition from Illinois, his lawyer told a court hearing on Friday.

Rittenhouse, 17, has been charged by Kenosha County’s district attorney with six crimes for shooting three people who tried to subdue or disarm him during protests on Aug. 25, killing 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, 26.

Rittenhouse participated in the hearing at the Lake County Circuit Court in Illinois via video link from the detention facility where he is being held. He was wearing a black sweatshirt and a gray mask covered his face.

“Good morning, your honor,” he addressed the judge in his only remarks in the hearing, which lasted just a few minutes.

John Pierce, one of Rittenhouse’s lawyers, said he planned to fight the request by Kenosha prosecutors that he be transferred to Wisconsin to face the charges.

“We intend to challenge extradition by writ of habeas corpus,” Pierce said. “And so we would ask that the procedures be put in place whereby extradition documents are in fact sent from Wisconsin so we can review them.”

The teenager had traveled to Kenosha on Aug. 25 from his home in nearby Antioch, Illinois, in a self-appointed role to protect the streets of Kenosha where the police shooting of Jacob Blake had sparked unrest during protests against police brutality and racism.

Rittenhouse’s legal team have said that he feared for his life when he fired his semi-automatic rifle and was acting in self-defense. Cellphone videos from the night show chaotic scenes, including one where Rittenhouse is chased and falls down before his encounter with Huber and another man, Gaige Grosskreutz.

Huber appeared to hit Rittenhouse in the shoulder with a skateboard and tried to grab his rifle before being shot, according to the criminal complaint. Rittenhouse then pointed the rifle at Grosskreutz, who had a hand gun. Grosskreutz was shot but survived.

Rittenhouse’s lawyers have also sought to portray the case as a referendum on the right to bear arms following a summer of sometimes violent protests in major U.S. cities.

“A 17-year-old American citizen is being sacrificed by politicians, but it’s not Kyle Rittenhouse they are after,” the narrator says in a video released this week by a group tied to his legal team. “Their end game is to strip away the constitutional right of all citizens to defend our communities.”

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Leslie Adler and Alistair Bell)

Teenager in Wisconsin shootings charged with six criminal counts: complaint

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager arrested and charged in the shootings in Wisconsin that led to the death of two people and injury of another, faces six criminal counts, according to a court document released on Thursday.

The charges against Rittenhouse in Kenosha County include first degree intentional homicide in the death of Anthony Huber, who was carrying a skateboard when he was gunned down. A conviction on that charge alone carries a life sentence.

Rittenhouse, 17, is being held in Illinois where he lives. He has a court hearing on Friday for his requested extradition to Kenosha. The public defender assigned to his case in Lake County, Illinois has declined to comment.

The charges were detailed in a criminal complaint released by Kenosha County’s clerk of courts. The document is the first detailed disclosure of the case against Rittenhouse for his role in the violence that erupted on Tuesday night when armed militia members clashed with protesters in the city.

The protests started after Jacob Blake was shot multiple times in the back by a police officer on Sunday afternoon.

Rittenhouse was also charged with causing the death of Joseph Rosenbaum, a 36-year-old demonstrator who he shot in the parking lot of a used car dealer just before midnight on Tuesday, according to the complaint, which draws on multiple cell phone videos and witness accounts.

One video records Rittenhouse saying “I just killed somebody” after shooting Rosenbaum, the complaint says.

Rittenhouse was carrying a Smith & Wesson AR-15 style rifle and “was not handling the weapon very well,” one witness states in the complaint. “The recovered magazine for this rifle holds 30 rounds of ammunition,” the complaint says.

The complaint says one video shows Huber, with a skateboard in his right hand, approaching Rittenhouse when he was on the ground. Huber appears then to try and grab the gun from Rittenhouse with his left hand before Rittenhouse fires.

“Huber staggers away, taking several steps, then collapses to the ground. Huber subsequently died from this gunshot wound,” the complaint says.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Chris Reese and Grant McCool)

Wisconsin city calm but police shooting reverberates across U.S.

By Brendan McDermid and Stephen Maturen

KENOSHA, Wis. (Reuters) – Relative calm returned to Kenosha, Wisconsin, overnight after the previous night’s deadly gun violence, and investigators revealed new details about the police shooting that paralyzed a Black man and revived a wave of protests over racial injustice.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul on Wednesday identified Rusten Sheskey as the white police officer who fired seven shots at the back of Jacob Blake after Blake opened his car door on Sunday. Kaul also said investigators found a knife on the floor of Blake’s car.

That announcement, combined with the arrest of a 17-year-old suspect charged with homicide over the previous night’s gunfire, set the stage for what could have been another night of chaos on the streets of Kenosha, about 40 miles (60 km) south of Milwaukee.

Shockwaves from the events in the city of about 100,000 were felt throughout the United States as professional athletes went on strike and anti-racism street protests intensified in other cities. At the Republican National Convention, Vice President Mike Pence and other speakers demanded “law and order.”

But in Kenosha, after three nights of civil strife – including arson, vandalism and the shootings that killed two people on Tuesday night – calm appeared to take hold on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

About 200 protesters defied a curfew and marched peacefully through city streets, chanting, “Black lives matter” and “no justice, no peace” in response to the shooting of Blake, 29, in the presence of three of his young sons.

Law enforcement officers kept a low profile, and counter demonstrators and armed militia figures were notably absent.

Prior nights had seen an array of rifle-toting civilians among them 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, who was arrested on Wednesday on homicide charges in connection with Tuesday night’s shootings. Rittenhouse, a police supporter, was arrested at his home in Antioch, Illinois, about 20 miles (30 km) away.

PLAYERS ON STRIKE

National Basketball Association players led by the Milwaukee Bucks went on strike to protest racial injustice during the playoffs, putting the rest of the season in jeopardy.

Players in Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and the Women’s National Basketball followed with their own wildcat strikes, and tennis player Naomi Osaka pulled out of a tournament in Ohio.

The Kenosha turmoil struck while much of the United States remained agitated over George Floyd, who died on May 25 after a Minneapolis policeman knelt on his neck.

In Minneapolis, authorities declared a state of emergency on Wednesday to quell unrest sparked by the death of a Black homicide suspect who police say shot himself.

Police in Oakland, California, said hundreds of people took part in demonstrations that resulted in fires, broken windows and vandalized businesses. And police and protesters continued to clash in Portland, Oregon, where demonstrations have gone on for nearly three months straight.

In the police shooting that sparked the latest wave of outrage, Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha police force, fired seven times at Blake’s back, hitting him four times.

Blake survived despite wounds to his spine and multiple organs, and he may be permanently paralyzed, his family’s lawyers said.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, one of the lawyers representing Blake’s family, disputed the report that Blake had a knife.

“Jacob Blake didn’t harm anyone or pose any threat to the police, yet they shot him seven times in the back in front of his children,” Crump said.

“But when a young white supremacist shot and killed two peaceful protesters, local law enforcement and National Guardsmen allowed him to walk down the street with his assault weapon,” Crump and his co-counsels said in a statement, without offering proof that Rittenhouse was a racist.

They were referring to video from the previous night that showed the person who had just fired on protesters was able to walk past a battery of police without being arrested.

Authorities later caught up with Rittenhouse, whose since-deleted Facebook page shows him posing with another young man, both of them holding rifles. The photo is encircled by a Blue Lives Matter badge in support of police.

(Additional reporting by Nathan Layne, Daniel Trotta, Ann Maria Shibu and Kanishka Singh; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jonathan Oatis)

Wisconsin investigators say knife found at scene of police shooting of Jacob Blake

By Brendan McDermid and Stephen Maturen

KENOSHA, Wis. (Reuters) – Investigators of a shooting by a white police officer that left a Black man, Jacob Blake Jr., paralyzed and the town of Kenosha, Wisconsin, torn by civil strife found a knife belonging to Blake at the scene of the confrontation, the state attorney general said on Wednesday.

The incident sparked three nights of civil unrest that has included a wave of arson, widespread vandalism and a separate shooting that claimed two lives in Kenosha, a city of about 100,000 residents on Lake Michigan, 40 miles (60 km) south of Milwaukee.

In the first official details of Sunday’s shooting released by the Wisconsin Justice Department, which is probing the incident, Attorney General Josh Kaul said the knife was recovered from the driver-side front floorboard of the car Blake was leaning into when he was shot in the back.

Kaul also told a news conference that Blake, during the course of the investigation, had “admitted that he had a knife in his possession.”

Blake’s lawyer responded in a statement that his client posed no threat to police and disputed that he was in possession of a knife.

Kaul did not describe the knife or say whether it had anything to do with why the officer, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha police department identified as Rusten Sheskey, had opened fire on Blake.

Kaul’s briefing came shortly before the U.S. Justice Department announced it had opened a federal civil rights inquiry into the shooting, to be conducted by the FBI in cooperation with Wisconsin authorities.

In a separate development hours earlier, a teenager was arrested and charged with shooting three people, two of whom died, during Tuesday night’s protests in Kenosha.

Video footage from that incident showed a white gunman, armed with an assault-style rifle, firing at protesters who tried to subdue him, and then calmly walking away from the scene, hands in the air – his rifle hanging in front of him – as several police vehicles drive by without stopping him.

Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes said on MSNBC the suspect, later identified as Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, Illinois, was apparently a militia group member who “decided to be a vigilante and take the law into his own hands and mow down innocent protesters.”

Bracing for a fourth night of possible upheavals on Wednesday, Governor Tony Evers said he was doubling the National Guard force he had ordered deployed to 500 troops, and a dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed an hour earlier.

About 200 protesters defied the curfew for hours after dark as they marched peacefully through city streets, chanting, “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace,” while law enforcement kept a low profile. No counter-demonstrators or armed militia figures were present.

National Guard soldiers were seen taking a dinner break behind the county courthouse, surrounded by barricades and heavy fencing erected around several downtown public buildings the previous day.

PREAMBLE TO SHOOTING

By Kaul’s account of events leading to the Blake shooting, city police confronted Blake when they were called to the home of a woman who reported that her boyfriend was present “and was not supposed to be on the premises.”

The location he gave for the residence corresponds with the address of the woman identified in media reports as Blake’s fiance, Laquisha Booker.

During the incident, Kaul said, police tried to arrest Blake, using a Taser stun gun in a failed attempt to subdue him.

Blake, according to the attorney general, then walked around his vehicle, opened the driver-side door and leaned forward, as officer Sheskey, clutching Blake’s shirt, fired his weapon seven times at Blake’s back.

Kaul said no other police officers fired their weapons. The officers involved have been placed on administrative leave.

Bystanders captured the encounter in video footage that has since gone viral, unleashing public outrage at the latest in a long series of instances in which police have been accused of using indiscriminate lethal force against African Americans.

Kaul said police in Kenosha are not equipped with body cameras.

A lawyer for Blake’s family, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, issued a statement late Wednesday saying Blake “did nothing to provoke police” and was “only intending to get his children out of a volatile situation” at the time.

“Witnesses confirm that he was not in possession of a knife and didn’t threaten officers in any way,” he added.

Three of Blake’s young sons – aged 3, 5 and 8 – were in the vehicle at the time and witnessed their father being gunned down, Crump said. Blake has a total of six children.

Neither Crump nor law enforcement officials have mentioned court records showing that an arrest warrant was filed against Blake in July by Kenosha’s district attorney for three domestic abuse-related charges – criminal trespass, disorderly conduct and third-degree sexual assault, a felony.

Crump has declined to respond to Reuters queries about those records, which list Blake’s address as the same street number where Booker is reported to reside.

According to Crump, Blake was struck by four of the seven gunshot rounds fired at him on Sunday. Bullets shattered some of his vertebrae, leaving Blake paralyzed from the waist down, possibly permanently, his lawyers said. He also suffered wounds to his stomach, intestines, kidney and liver and will require multiple operations to recover, they said.

Kaul said his department’s division of criminal investigations plans to issue a full report on the incident to prosecutors in 30 days, and that no other details were immediately available.

Blake’s family and protesters have demanded the officers involved in the shooting be immediately fired and prosecuted.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne, Maria Caspani and Jonathan Allen; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Bill Berkrot, Aurora Ellis, Lincoln Feast and William Mallard)