The Broken System That Allowed Kyle Rittenhouse to Walk Free

Like most everyone, I am feeling some kind of way about the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, and I don’t know what to do with it. I’ve been saturated in the breaking news stories as he was cleared of all charges, and I feel I have to do more than absorb all of this and move on.

Where do we even start? Let’s first get on the same page. If you’re not completely up-to-date, rioting erupted in Wisconsin last August after Jacob Blake was shot seven times by police (he was left paralyzed). Armed with a semi-automatic rifle, Rittenhouse, a former police and fire department cadet, voluntarily went into the city with the intention, according to him, of protecting property. There’s a lot of footage from the night—Rittenhouse is seen patrolling the streets, being offered water by the police, and later being tailed by a group of people. There’s been debate on both sides, but Rittenhouse inarguably fired shots. The unarmed Joseph Rosenbaum and the unarmed Anthony Huber (although we’re now apparently questioning if a skateboard is a weapon?) were both killed. Gaige Grosskreutz, present at the scene, was shot in the arm and survived. Rittenhouse was charged on seven counts, including first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless homicide.

It automatically feels wrong, doesn’t it? That a boy with no skin in the game is traveling to the inner city to protect it? It’s not his home, it’s not his family under threat; he is not shielding anybody he knows personally. He could have sat at home and minded his business and Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber would be alive. But the legal case didn’t rest on Rittenhouse’s intention at the scene. It simply didn’t matter, legally speaking, why he was there. The case rested on whether or not in each instance, with each man, Rittenhouse feared for his life. Was Rittenhouse defending his life on three separate occasions?

The defense was able to argue that every shot was self-defensive: Rosenbaum was unable to fill his prescription for psychotic medication and, as a result, was acting erratically; Huber attacked Rittenhouse with the skateboard to the point of threatening his life; Grosskreutz, a medic, pointed a pistol at Rittenhouse. They successfully argued that each and every time he fired, Rittenhouse’s life was in immediate danger and he was protecting it. That’s it, that’s the verdict.