In many ways, the key question at trial is simple: Was Rittenhouse acting in self-defense? Plentiful video exists of the events in question, and legal experts see a strong case for that.The judge overseeing the trial, Bruce Schroeder, has said forcefully that it “is not going to be a political trial.”īut the case has been exactly that, almost from the moment the shootings happened - driven by powerful interest groups, extremists, politicians and others using it to push their own agendas. “It’s another battle in what has become the central story of our time - the culture wars,” John Baick, who teaches modern American history at Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts, said. Rittenhouse, now 18, faces several charges, including homicide - and could see a life sentence if convicted. That division is likely to be on display at Rittenhouse’s trial, which opens Monday with jury selection.
Though Rittenhouse and all three men he shot are white, many people saw racism at the heart of Kenosha - an armed white teen, welcomed by police to a city where activists were rallying against a white officer’s shooting of a Black man, and allowed to walk past a police line immediately after shooting three people. Others saw him as the most worrisome example yet of vigilante citizens taking to the streets with guns, often with the tacit support of police - a “chaos tourist,” in the words of the lead prosecutor, who came to Kenosha looking for trouble. He was championed by pro-gun conservatives who said he was exercising his Second Amendment rights and defending cities from “antifa,” an umbrella term for leftist militants. The 17-year-old from Illinois who carried an AR-style rifle and idolized police was cheered by those who despised the Black Lives Matter movement and the sometimes destructive protests that followed George Floyd’s death.
(AP) - From the moment Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people on the streets of Kenosha during protests over the police shooting of a Black man, he’s personified America’s polarization.
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