See photos from Day 8 of Kyle Rittenhouse's trial in Kenosha (click here)
There was no self-defense. He came into a crowded street with an illegl AR-15 and shot people that were trying to remove the gun from him. Rittenhouse engaged in combat to keep his military style weapon in his possession. On several occassions he stated he believed people were removing his gun. It is not legally owned by Rittenhouse and at the age of 17 he shouild not have been carrying it into a dangerous situation.
He also stated he headed for the line of police officers as he was assaulted. Those trying to remove the gun from his possiession were somwhat winning until Rittenhouse fired and killed or wounded them.
HE WAS THE PROBLEM and people were trying to disarm him to save lives. If someone wades into an unarmed crowd with a military style weapon, there is going to be scared people and those that will attempt to take the weapon away from the gunman.
You can call it immature or wrong-headed, but, no one can call it self-defense and the Rittenhouse lawyers are grasping at straws if they think they can force a mistrial. Mistrails occur after the jury has the case to decide.
I think the prosecution, in trying to get the jury to realize that Rittenhouse was formulating a story as the trial rolled out, over reached in his office's authority. In stating Rittenhouse was silent until the trial is a strategy the jury should understand, but, it was not the prosecutor to attempt to dissolve the right of self-incrimination. I understand all that as a strategy and the prosecutor was correct in trying to illustrate it to the jury, but, Rittenhouse had the right to remain silent based in Fifth Amendment rights. The judge was correct to point that out to the prosecutor and telling him Rittenhouse was exercising his right. The fact it was inconvenient for the prosecution to make their case that Rittenhouse' silence lead to a different trial testimony on record, is allowed under the law. One has to hope the jury is thinking clearly about events as they unfolded during the trial and perhaps realize the defendent was deceiving the jury about his silence and now testimony.
Rittenhouse's importance as a law enforcement volunteer, fire volunteer and emergency medical volunteer is all self-aggrandizement. He had no legal authority to carry out any of those roles and there were trained personnel there to act on any of his ideological roles that night.
That is the problem with these weapons and the people that use them. They are self-determining their own authority over and above what is allowed by law. Rittenhouse compromised the police that night and caused greater danger to those protesting and rioting. Rittenhouse and his faciliators increased the problems for police and did not make the evening safer. Vigilantes. There is no definition other than that for people armed to enter combat.
This is what we are doing to ourselves. We are turning our streets into war theaters.
