Kyle Rittenhouse, the man who fatally shot two men and wounded another during the Kenosha, Wisconsin, Black Lives Matter protests, has been found not guilty on all charges.
Rittenhouse faced five felony charges at the trial: a single count each of first-degree reckless homicide and first-degree intentional homicide, two counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety, and a single count of attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
The jury deliberated for 26 hours. They determined that his claims that he was merely trying to defend himself during the Kenosha riots in August 2020, were reasonable.
Rittenhouse was 17 years old when he fatally shot Anthony Huber, 26, and 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum with an AR-15-style rifle on Aug. 25, 2020. Residents had taken to the streets in Kenosha after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, and left him paralyzed from the waist down. Blake was hit with seven rounds to his back.
The assistant district attorney and lead prosecutor Thomas Binger said: “The jury has represented our community in this trial and has spoken.”
During the closing arguments, one of Rittenhouse’s lawyers, Mark Richards, told jurors, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a political case.” He added, “The district attorney’s office is marching forward with this case because they need somebody to be responsible. They need somebody to put and say, ‘We did it, he’s the person who brought terror to Kenosha,'” Richards said.
