On Tuesday, writing for The Daily Beast, reporter Pilar Melendez outlined the key strategy teenage gunman and alt-right hero Kyle Rittenhouse could use to be acquitted for killing two people during the Kenosha, Wisconsin protest — and how that strategy could blow up in his face.
"To prove that he sincerely feared for his life, several legal experts canvassed by The Daily Beast suggested, Rittenhouse may need to testify in his own defense. The only problem is that putting any teen on the stand in his own murder trial is risky at best," said the report. "'It is hard to establish Kyle believed he had no choice but to use self-defense without him testifying,' Paul Bucher, a former district attorney in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, and a one-time state attorney general candidate, told The Daily Beast. 'Then again, having Kyle testify opens a huge door for the prosecution.'"
Rittenhouse's version of events is that he traveled from Illinois to Kenosha to protect businesses from rioters during the protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake, and that he acted in lawful self-defense — and that carrying a gun in the first place wasn't illegal because of hunting laws.
"Video footage of the incident does not paint the clearest picture," noted the report. "At the time of the altercation, the Wisconsin city had endured two nights of tense altercations between police in tactical gear and residents and activists who were protesting Blake's ultimately nonfatal shooting (it paralyzed him from the waist down). The city was also a microcosm of a national racial reckoning spurred by a plague of police violence, including the murder of George Floyd caught on camera."
The Rittenhouse case is continuing to draw controversy. A lawsuit filed by Rittenhouse's sole surviving victim alleges that Wisconsin police effectively "conspired" to let Rittenhouse go on an armed rampage. Meanwhile, the judge presiding over the trial, Bruce Schroeder, has triggered outrage by prohibiting the prosecution from referring to the people shot by Rittenhouse as "victims" — but allowing the more loaded terms "arsonists," "looters," and "rioters" to be used.
