As a matter of justice, Kyle Rittenhouse deserved to be acquitted. Despite the jury taking three-and-a-half agonising days to deliberate, his case was relatively straightforward and none of the facts were seriously in dispute.
He went to Kenosha, Wisconsin, last August to protect property during a Black Lives Matter protest after widespread arson and vandalism the night before. He ended up shooting three men that night, killing two, in what he claimed were acts of self-defence. All of the shootings were captured on video, some from multiple angles. He tried to retreat from everyone he shot that night, resorting to deadly force only when he was cornered, physically attacked, or threatened with a gun. At no point did he continue shooting after ending the immediate threat.
Although prosecutors attempted to argue that, merely by being present with a gun, Rittenhouse, now 18, had “provoked” the protesters, they were unable to provide any convincing evidence that Rittenhouse had done anything to threaten anyone or initiate conflict in any way. The defence, by contrast, was able to show that Rittenhouse, far from picking fights, attempted throughout the night to avoid or defuse conflicts with protesters.
The trial confirmed that the real villain of the night was the first man Rittenhouse shot, 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum. This was the most important shooting, because it set in motion the events that led a crowd to assault a fleeing Rittenhouse, allegedly in the belief that he was an “active shooter”, and which led to Rittenhouse shooting and killing Anthony Huber, who was attacking him with a skateboard, and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz, who advanced on Rittenhouse with a drawn pistol.
Rosenbaum, a convicted child-rapist and domestic abuser, had no connection to the protesters. He was a disturbed man who had been released from a psychiatric ward earlier in the day and who, according to video evidence and multiple eyewitness testimony, had been belligerent and threatening all night.
According to both Rittenhouse and one of his companions, the Army veteran Ryan Balch, Rosenbaum told members of their group: “If I catch any of you guys alone tonight, I’m going to fucking kill you.” Later in the evening, he found Rittenhouse alone and began chasing him across a parking lot. After first attempting to run away, Rittenhouse wheeled around and shot the advancing Rosenbaum. The closest eyewitness to the shooting testified that as Rosenbaum approached the defendant, he yelled “fuck you!” and lunged for the barrel of Rittenhouse’s gun. The other main clarification at trial came from Grosskreutz, who admitted that Rittenhouse only shot him after he pointed his own gun at the teenager.
Many of the initial media reports that painted Rittenhouse in a sinister light turned out to be false — for instance, Grosskreutz’s claim, which he repeated in multiple interviews, that he had been shot with his hands up in a position of surrender. Rittenhouse did, as was reported early on, “cross state lines” to get to the protest, but only from Antioch, Illinois, a border town that is a suburb of Kenosha, which is where Rittenhouse worked and where many of his family live. He did not transport the gun across the border, and although it is legally murky whether he was allowed to be carrying it — he was 17 at the time — the judge threw out the charge because of ambiguities in the law.
Yes, he was a supporter of Trump and Blue Lives Matter, but there is no evidence that he was a “white supremacist,” as alleged by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, or a “domestic terrorist,” as alleged by Pressley and Ilhan Omar. He was not a member of any militia group, despite the misguided representations of his initial defence team. He was not out “hunting” anyone.
The most damning evidence against him, which was not admitted at trial, was a video from a few weeks prior in which he joked about shooting looters. But again, there was no credible evidence that he initiated or escalated conflict with anyone that night. He lied about being an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), when in fact he had only received CPR training, but this was hardly relevant to the shootings. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been there, but the same was true of nearly everyone there that night. They were all defying a curfew. Many of the protesters were also from out of town. Some, like Grosskreutz, were also carrying illegal guns.
From the beginning, the case against Rittenhouse relied on obfuscating the actual events of the night in favour of mythmaking: easily debunked misinformation, moral and emotional appeals to the justice of the protester’s cause, the racial identity and political sympathies of Rittenhouse, the far-Right politics of some of his most vocal supporters, rhetorical flights against “white male tears” or “fascism”, and arguments about the United States’s gun laws or the biases of its criminal justice system. One index of the confusion surrounding the case is the number of Twitter users who appear to have only recently learned that Rittenhouse’s assailants were white.
Indeed, even on the Left, those reporting on the case or following it closely have tended to conclude that Rittenhouse was not the monster he was initially painted as. Long pieces in the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker, while drawing attention to the extremism of some of the militia members who showed up to protests, to the general atmosphere of chaos, violence, and racial tension that summer, and to the role of Right-wing media in stoking outrage over rioting and property destruction, concluded that Rittenhouse himself was more or less a foolish kid with conventional politics who got in over his head. Last week, Ryan Grim of The Intercept tweeted: “People should be prepared for Rittenhouse to be acquitted on all the major charges”.
Emotional reactions, not to say irresponsible tantrums, are to be expected after a divisive trial such as this one. Commentators on both sides will say stupid things, and there will be no shortage of people on Twitter making triumphant racist memes about Rittenhouse or declaring that the verdict gives licence to MAGA wingnuts to hunt down liberals and shoot them for sport. Today, nearly every national issue in the United States is what the blogger Scott Alexander has called a “scissor” issue — one that is not merely divisive but in which the opposing sides seem to be operating in different planes of reality. The Rittenhouse verdict is no different, even if in this case, unlike in the Brett Kavanaugh or Covington Catholic controversies, we can know with reasonable certainty what actually happened.
What happens next will be a litmus test for the country. Despite the uncertainties inherent in jury trials, the two main trials to come out of last summer’s unrest, this one and the murder trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, reached the correct verdict, though this is cold comfort in a country where the two main factions are defined by their mutual mistrust and loathing. Already, Republicans have begun pouring salt into the wound, and it looks as if the verdict will cement Rittenhouse’s reputation as a conservative folk hero — an innocent man smeared by corrupt politicians, a partisan media, and biased Big Tech companies.
Democrats, meanwhile, are convinced against all evidence that a cold-blooded murderer has been set free due to the colour of his skin, with leading politicians declaring the verdict a “miscarriage of justice” and asking the Justice Department to pursue what could only be described as a political prosecution of the Wisconsin teen. These are signs that the scars opened over the past few years will not be quick to heal.
Yet some on the Left have already begun to signal that things got out of hand last summer. They are admitting, for instance, that “defund the police” was a stupid and politically toxic idea, that riots and arson lead predictably to violent chaos and should therefore be discouraged rather than cheered, and that some of the police shootings that initially sparked outrage — including the one that set off the riots in Kenosha — were based on initial reporting that, had it come from Fox News or the Right-wing Twittersphere, would have been clearly labelled as disinformation.
Many of these things were obvious at the time, and it can be frustrating now to observe those who only found the courage to say the obvious after Joe Biden won the presidency. But it is better than the alternative, which is to continue denying the reality in front of their faces. In this case, the reality is that Rittenhouse was found innocent of murder, and correctly so. Biden, to his credit, has already stated that “the jury system works and we have to abide by it”. One hopes that his allies will listen. To refuse to do so is only to court more tragedies.
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SubscribeFunny thing I actually saw the whole thing go down on a livestream of the riots. I received a wonderful and annoying first hand lesson in how the narrative is shaped in real time. Most of the actual facts of the case were well known and available after a day or two. Then the media spent a year lying their asses off.
Thank you for this article Mr. MacDougald. I feel now would be a good time to clarify a couple issues regarding the case. Jacob Blake, the man whose shooting set off the riots in Kenosha, is still alive no matter what the lazy media may have told you. He is undergoing physical therapy now. The three people he shot were white. Kind of hard to have a racial incident if everyone has the same skin tone huh? Rittenhouse’s father lived in Kenosha and Rittenhouse traveled there often. It was a short drive from Rittenhouse’s home in Antioch, Illinois. No guns were brought across state lines. I does not matter if one was anyway since it is absolutely legal under U.S. law. Due to Wisconsin law, Rittenhouse was fully legal to carry the rifle even if the statute was worded horribly. A shot was fired before Rittenhouse fired. When he turned around to look for the shot, Rosenbaum was charging him and trying to grab his rifle. The span of time from the first shot to Rittenhouse firing was 2.5 seconds. I could go on an on about how most everything you heard before the trial was a lie. Still if you want a bit more entertainment, look up videos of the judge getting absolutely furious at the prosecution’s constant misconduct.
Given recent and terrible events that occurred right after I first posted this, things could get a whole lot worse. Waukesha is not far from Kenosha. If it was domestic terrorism, things are going to get very ugly.
This case illustrates some important differences between the US and UK. In the UK this young man would be unlikely to be able to access an automatic weapon such as was possessed by Rittenhouse and had he appeared during a riot wielding such a weapon police would be rapidly called in to disarm him.
As far as pre-trial publicity is concerned this would be governed by Section 1 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 in the UK which sets out and defines “the strict liability rule”. This provides that it is a contempt to publish any matter which creates a substantial risk of serious prejudice or impediment to the course of justice in legal proceedings, irrespective of the intention behind the publication. As a result the sort of prejudicial press commentary that occurred here would not or should not have occurred in respect of a UK trial.
Of course, as the recent BBC publication regarding the case suggests, our media are equally happy to present bias when they safely can.
Rittenhouse didn’t have an automatic weapon! Those aren’t legal in the States. He had a long rifle. Basically what you hunt deer with but souped up to look like a military grade weapon.
To say that the AR15 (S&W MP15) that Kyle Rittenhouse carried is not an automatic weapon is not true. It is an automatic weapon. It’s just not an “assault rifle.”. The definition being that the AR15 lacks a select fire option. ie it’s single shot fire only. Just like the SLR used by the British Army until 1994. One squeeze = 1 round.
The select fire option on the “assault rifle” is for burst fire, 1 squeeze = 3 rounds, and fully automatic, squeeze and hold the trigger and the rifle keeps firing until you let go or it runs out of ammunition. Which is very quickly. The effective rate of fire of an AR15 is around 45 rpm and which includes a magazine change. To all intents and purposes this is a military weapon with with some legal tweaks inc no bayonet fixings to allow the fiction that it is a hunting rifle.
However it seems from the article that in no way did Rittenhouse use the rifle in anything other than self defence when cornered and did not fire continuously or at distant targets. So the rifle is moot. An old revolver would have had the same effect. And Rittenhouse was carrying his rifle openly and legally not attempting to conceal it and used it only in self defence, unlike Grooskreutz who pointed an illegally held and until then, concealed weapon, at Rittenhouse.
All totally crazy from the British point of view but facts need to be clarified.
Automatic weapons are illegal for the public in the US except for a very limited number of special federal licenses, and have been for many years. Rittenhouse had a semi-automatic, one shot per trigger pull and self loading.
As with the SLR self loading but can be used for bursts when put on that setting. As ex army we never ever used the SLR as an automatic as it was difficult to handle even though it was possible. It appears to be genuine self defence. Would they prefer he was shot by a rioter? His parents will be relieved. It appears that justice has been done.
I don’t recall being able to fire the SLR in anything other than single shot. Was there a non reg modification ? Given the recoil, I couldn’t imagine it was very useful even if attempted, I fancy, dropping a cocked SMG on the deck and doing a runner would have been of more use
“I don’t recall being able to fire the SLR in anything other than single shot.”
You recall correctly.
“As ex army we never ever used the SLR as an automatic”
Of course you didn’t. The change lever only has two positions – safe and repetition.
Angels dancing on the head of a pin.
AR15’s are semi-automatic. Pull the trigger once, and a single round is discharged. An automatic weapon continues to discharge rounds as long as one’s finger is on the trigger. Get it right.
It was semi-automatic. As the man said automatic weapons are illegal.
An old revolver would have had the same effect… This is not accurate. Even in close quarters a rifle is a better weapon. Especially with adrenaline pumping in a chaotic situation unless you have practiced with a revolver and have it down to muscle memory.
An old revolver would have been illegal for Rittenhouse to carry. The law in Wisconsin only allows 17 year olds to carry long barrel rifles.
“To say that the AR15 (S&W MP15) that Kyle Rittenhouse carried is not an automatic weapon is not true.”
Yes it is. It is not capable of automatic fire, therefore it is not an automatic weapon.
“The definition being that the AR15 lacks a select fire option”
Correct. Therefore it is not an assault rifle.
“Just like the SLR used by the British Army until 1994.”
And that wasn’t an automatic weapon either.
“The select fire option on the “assault rifle” is for burst fire… and fully automatic”
Not on the various L85A1, L85A2 and L101A1 assault rifles I was issued with for 17 years. They all had two modes – single shots or full automatic. There was no burst mode.
Semi automatic………and in rapid fire it does a lot a damage. Small caliber high velocity.
Biden is feeling this now. If the President starts questioning justice served……
That is part of then problem; it looks military and therefore creates a greater emotional response. If he had been carrying a 1945 Lee Enfield 0.303 with a wooden stock and without a scope it would be a far more dangerous weapon but produce less of an emotional response.
In the UK he would have been unarmed and likely dead.
i only saw the video of the event the day before the verdict. I am amazed that Rittenhouse survived, he passed hundreds of people 3 of which actively tried to harm him and you can hear people in the crowd calling for others to kill him. You can also hear shots being fired after he shot the guy in the arm that drew his hand gun on him and disabled him.
Like you said once that video is seen, the prosecutions cases is non existent and transparently politically motivated.
If he had been in the UK in a place where the authorities abandoned the role of providing safety for the citizens & their property he would have had to watch his home town burn completely with likely more deaths – this is the unspoken part with those saying “he shouldn’t have been there”. It’s easy for leftists to say “it’s just property” from the safety of their protected communities while ignoring the violence to persons that usually accompanies un-resisted riots. Kyle is a hero – he showed more courage than most of us would.
where do you get nonsense notions like “the UK in a place where the authorities abandoned the role of providing safety for the citizens” from please? I live here and we have our problems but nothing like you suggest and nothing at all like what you are experiencing in parts of the US. Get a grip!
read again, I said “if” as if the following two things had been the case (but are obviously not)
https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-york-times-held-report-kenosha-2020-election
This kind of puts a light on that. A honest NYTs reporter! Who would have ever thought.
The Contempt of Court Act would also cover stupid comments from politicians such as Biden. I’m hoping civil cases are brought against all those using “white supremacist” language, to discourage future idiocy.
One similarity between the US and the UK is if the perpetrator is white the authorities and the MSM rush to publicise the fact, presumably as some indictment of whiteness.
However, if the perpetrator is not white they remain remarkably silent on the issue of ethnicity even to the point of reducing the chances of catching the perpetrator or putting the public at greater risk.
There was one recent episode where the police put out an alert to the public regarding a suspect on the run following an apparent terrorist attack when they mentioned how the suspect was dressed but not his ethnicity.
Just for clarity, Rittenhouse’s rifle was a semiautomatic. One trigger pull, one round fired. Full automatic rifles are illegal in the US without a special, very hard to get, license.
While we’re at it, Rittenhouse drove to hi job in Kenosha as a lifeguard that morning. He didn’t drive to Kenosha to guard the car dealership. Rittenhouse planned to stay overnight at a friend’s house in Kenosha. His friends asked him to help guard the business after he finished working.
When you are talking about guns you have no clue what you are talking about. Police was seating in their cruisers watching the city burn.
You are quite right I haven’t a clue about guns. I couldn’t tell you if Rittenhouse’s weapon was automatic or semi-automatic. In the UK only a very few nutters or hardcore criminals would contemplate having and taking out such a weapon to a riot. (Not that we have many of those either). Whatever sort of weapon it was it didn’t look like anything the framers of the US constitution had in mind when they sanctioned the right to bear arms. In those days it took a significant amount of time to reload after a single shot.
If a rifle was being brandished during disturbances in the UK you can be sure the police would take the matter seriously and would not simply be sitting in their car – although they might be equally useless at protecting property.
That’s what makes conservative and independent news outlets so important. Once people see the other side, it’s impossible to continue believing the lies.
The televised trial showed lots of people just how distorted the mainstream coverage was.
Our media loves to judge the US by the lofty standards it believes it possesses, whilst fetishising any other culture you care to name. In the process, disregarding differences in US culture, law etc which would dissuade any sane person starting a firefight and bringing a skateboard. Oh, and describing victims as “black” despite a widely publicised court case which made it clear they weren’t (the “Independent”). As for these individuals “protesting for racial justice” – give it a break, ffs.
Good news for Bill Gates though who certainly gets his moneys-worth out of his funding for UK’s left-wing news organisations. It’ll be fascinating to see what standards they apply in reporting the Ghislaine Maxwell case next week.
They had an article in unherd defending Maxwell! I was a bit horrified by that. They highlighted she hasn’t been convicted (true enough) but also insisted there was no evidence against her. This certainly isn’t true. Including victim reports of her involvement. My understanding is there are at least 4 willing to testify
The media is the moral and cognitive a**s mundi of the world, the sewage of humanity.
Why have you left off what he said next – that he thought the decision was wrong? This, of course, after having publicly declared that Kyle Rittenhouse was a ‘white supremacist’.
You’ve tried, in this article, to make the right the cause of national division:
And yet they’re not wrong – Kyle Rittenhouse is an innocent man smeared by corrupt politicians, partisan media, and biased Big Tech.
Can Biden be sued?
“The most damning evidence against him, which was not admitted at trial, was a video from a few weeks prior in which he joked about shooting looters.”
“Biden, to his credit, has already stated that “the jury system works and we have to abide by it”.”
This article is inaccurate in several ways, two of which I include above. These are big errors.
The first quote is wildly wrong because the video was not evidence and could never be evidence. It was a joke. It had nothing to do with the night in question. Our rules of evidence are written specifically to keep garbage like this out of the courtroom. That the author states that this is “the most damning evidence against him” shows that there was no case, and, largely, the author doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Second, this description of Biden’s thoughts is also wildly wrong, devoid of context, and extremely misleading, perhaps intentionally so. First, Biden said or suggested, w/o any evidence, that KR was a “white supremacist” in the campaign. I hope KR sues him for this. Biden did say that the jury system worked but later walked that back saying he was angry at the verdict. This is such an extremely inappropriate reaction that is perhaps hard to convey to my European friends. It is always absolutely wrong for the President to undermine the jury system–a bedrock part of American society. Did the President comment on the OJ verdict? Biden is a doddering, demented, dotard, but he is acting as President of the US and must be held to the standard of a non-senile person. I would expect the standards of UnHerd to be higher, so these absolutely egregious errors don’t make it into print–or online.
Finally–cue the down votes, bring on the rubbishers–I hope that the KR verdict and other things will tear America apart. America is too big, and I hope for a peaceful divorce. I don’t want to be a citizen of a country where half the country truly hates the other half, wants them dead, and do not share even the most basic common values/traditions/culture, even language.
I don’t see that happening, and I think that the US is headed for Civil War.
Lock and load!
You got my upvote – not because I relish the thought of the USA being torn apart but because it highlights that there is a ‘fifth column’ determined to undermine the country and mostly unrecognised.
According to Wikipedia “A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or nation.”
You could identify many groups who see the best way forward for their interests to be the downfall of the USA. Luckily most of them are not ‘organised’ but that does not mean they are ineffective, only inefficient.
Trump was allegedly ‘divisive’ but actually did some good. Biden is allegedly “Bringing America Back Together” but with little to show for it.
It’s a mess, and not good.
Not quite sure where you stand on this mate. I don’t think I’m a “fifth column,” I just want my country back. And I don’t think I’m trying to undermine a larger group, just a smaller, more vocal group, including the Deep State, a real thing. But they are truly evil and they need to go.
To try and change a country (or other organisation) by openly democratic means is acceptable. To try and change a country by covert means is to undermine the accepted.
So, for instance, was the movement for the UK to leave the EU driven by fifth columnists? No. The change was achieved by democratic processes. No tanks were parked on lawns, no politicians were assassinated, no long marches were made through the institutions.
I broadly agree with you. The facts of the case were entirely obvious to anybody within a couple of days. Even the videos available at the time made it completely obvious that this was pure self-defense. Now one can argue what a 17yr old is doing in the middle of a riot (and that’s what it was, not “peaceful protests” as constantly repeated by the MSM). But that’s a whole other issue. To anybody with an oz of common sense, KR was actually a good samaritan and citizen.
Frankly, I hope he sues much of the MSM for defamation, and goes after Biden, Harris, and a number of other well-known democrats, as well. These people need a rude awakening so that they learn they can’t simply trample on other people’s rights. As for Biden and Harris, they really are totally irresponsible commenting on a case they obviously have not paid attention to. Any lawyer, with half a brain (but it’s not obvious that Biden even has a quarter of brain left) would know that there was absolutely no case here for the prosecution to bring, and this was entirely politically motivated. It was a disgrace.
Well, following yesterday’s massacre, we’ve now had a democratic staffer talk about how it’s karma for the verdict.
Things are not looking good.
Link to this please? I’d like to see that reference, even tho it’ll anger me.
If you’re sure, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10229909/Illinois-Democratic-staffer-MOCKS-Waukesha-SUV-tragedy-killed-five-injured-dozens.html
She’s deleted her social media presence (surprise)
“the two main trials to come out of last summer’s unrest, this one and the murder trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, reached the correct verdict,”
In this day of fake news, ‘Misinformation’ censoring, and agenda driven fact checking, I liked the reporting on Rittenhouse, but why confuse it with this gratuitous bit of outside of the story opinion – without also giving the blow by blow on that case so we can decide it ourselves since we have been told what to think of it.
Anyway, I think today’s JP Sears https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJOFvBg3PSo mock news tonight summed it all up – that the MSM are run amok. He quotes some Twitter guy:
“Cat*urd @cat*urd2 Imagine having a President with a 38% approval rating and a Vice president with a 28% approval rating – with 99% of the media on their side.”
How can the MSM be utterly out to mislead, drive a very pernicious and destructive agenda, and so to constantly alter their reporting to become ‘Fake News’ instead of News?
That is what I take from this situation, the MSM is out to blow the country up. This is really treason, to attempt (and being successful thus far) to break up a country using propaganda, omission, half truth, one sided opinions, lies, exaggeration….
If all the News Outlets were impartial, and diligently tried to give all sides of a situation, USA, (and UK) would be a unified Nation. These MSM and Tech/Social Media together are leading a civil war that no one but themselves – and which ever Dark Force is directing them, wants. Why are the MSM and Social Media/Tech at war with USA? What is their goal? Because it should be looked into by all the 2001 Patriot Act massive Security apparatus as they are an organization pretty much trying to wreck the West.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland is head of the Justice Department and has set the FBI onto parents who protest CRT being taught to their children – why does he not have a couple thousand of his hundred thousand + agents looking into the Real ones out to wreck the country? Lord Haw-Haw, Tokyo Rose, the modern MSM is in their image, and trying to achieve the same result.
A BBC article has gone up that tries to “explain” the verdict. It basically omits everything that the 3 “victims” did that night (and indeed their past rather descpicable criminal records). It has a whole section on the judge where it attempts to imply he’s a partisan republican but fails to have a section on the prosecution and their deliberate attempts to get a mistrial. It omits that the star witness admitted in court Rittenhouse only shot at hime after he first pointed a gun at Rittenhouse’s head.
This is the main way the media lie, through omission.
My TV license is getting cancelled. I’m done with paying to be propagandised.
Omission is now a standard tool in the journalist’s toolbox.
The BBC have used it extensively in this case, and their failure to report on the huge freedom marches happening all over the world should go down in history as one of the biggest reporting crimes ever. How can MILLIONS of people, including doctors and nurses, peacefully protesting every week not be the lead story.
The reporting on Rittenhouse, the freedom marches, the adverse vaccine effects, and the audits for the 2020 election clearly shows the public are being lied to (through omission) on a global scale.
On the BBC News website the first item, the headline was along the (provocative) lines of Biden angry at Rittenhouse verdict, this was also the strap line on the BBC News Channel. What it should have had was “Jury Finds Rittenhouse Not Guilty”.
Disgraceful reporting by a national broadcaster.
Totally!
Well done, you! I would encourage everyone to resist BBC propaganda and NOT pay the license fee. BBC is simply the propaganda arm of the woke–and I say this as an occasional commentator, though likely cancelled of late.
And wasn’t the KR judge appointed by a Democrat? The political affiliation of elected judges in the US is often deliberately murky, as they are supposed to be above politics, but this seems like it is wildly wrong.
It was a nonesense article. It was bringing in things like the judge’s choice of ringtone.
Don’t delay – cancel it today! The BBC needs to hear loud and clear that their bias and overt manipulation will not be tolerated.
Got rid of my tele after the BBC, (British Bourgeois Corporation) started flying helecopters over Cliff Richard’s house. Best thing I ever did. No way am I going to line their pockets. The Brexit coverage was a disgrace and I refuse to be spoonfed woke propaganda.
Stuff ’em!
I think most of us can agree the Chauvin verdict was not “correct”…
I’m going to be watching the opinion polls in the coming weeks. Pre-verdict (Nov 14-16) Yougov/Economist poll reported that 43% of Americans said Ritterhouse “should be found guilty of homicide” – mostly Democrat voters.
The shock of the verdict, and the sudden awareness that media were mis-reporting key facts, means that people, who thought they were being rational based on what they saw and read, have suddenly noticed the smoke and mirrors and lighting tricks. If stalwart Democrat voters also start to question other things their media has been telling them, it has the potential to be a major loss-of-trust-moment for a whole layer of ‘public communicators’.
Hopefully a nice big crack in the woke facade.
Biden, to his credit, has already stated that “the jury system works and we have to abide by it”.
Not to his credit at all. it is a mealy mouthed statement and the very least he could get away with. Also he did not respect the system in Chauvin where he made pre-verdict comments intended to put pressure the jury to reach the ‘right’ decision.
“Already, Republicans have begun pouring salt into the wound, and it looks as if the verdict will cement Rittenhouse’s reputation as a conservative folk hero — an innocent man smeared by corrupt politicians, a partisan media, and biased Big Tech companies”
… which is exactly what he is.
Here’s something that might have been written about George Floyd or Darrell Brooks (just wait), but instead was written accurately about Kyle Rittenhouse by Peachy Keanan in The American Mind:
“Kyle Rittenhouse is the terminus child of the hollowing-out of the American rust belt. A young white teenager from a broken home, raised by a struggling single mother. His father, according to reports, is a former machinist who was swept away into the Sackler-fed opioid crisis. This is what white privilege actually looks like.”
And as far as “folk hero” goes, well, if the shoe fits…
“Kyle is the baby-faced canary in the coal mine. Our only defense against this is radical truth and unity. America has become no place for sons. It’s an unsustainable situation and the solution is to make him into a towering folk hero, the Spartacus of our time against the Empire. Refuse to let anyone forget his innocence. Resist the narrative assault on what you know to be true!”
Following the (deserved) deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum & Anthony Huber ,is the position of the progressives now that White Lives Matter ?
Here’s a word that we seem to have forgotten but that is most apposite here: PREPOSTEROUS. The notion of “white male tears” is NOT a rhetorical flourish. It is a PREPOSTEROUS, deeply racist concept, whose sole purpose is to strip millions of people of their fundamental humanity on the basis of two immutable characteristics. The assertion that tears can be regarded as either a heartfelt expression of emotion or insincere dissembling depending on the sex and skin colour of the person shedding them is PREPOSTEROUS. And it is equally PREPOSTEROUS that those who peddle such notions are still being applauded, indulged and at the very least tolerated by adherents of an ideology who consistently lay claim to the moral high ground.
I’m remined of Tom Wolfe’s novel “The Bonfire of the Vanities”. The US seems to allow politics to intrude upon the even-handed administration of justice. Has it always been like that?
They’ve tried to infect the courts with their damn politics, but thank God for the jury system. As long as that holds we’ve all got some chance of justice.
Actually, the case should never have gone to the jury, because the judge should have thrown it out for at least two reasons: 1. prosecutorial misconduct and 2. a lack of evidence so great that the defendant should not be subject to the whims of the jury. The judge lost his nerve.
This was a major plot point in THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES.
Possibly. It’s also possible that he thought that a jury acquital would be the best outcome. It’s a risky game, but as soon as the witness admitted to only being shot at after first pointing his gun Rittenhouse’s head, it was hard to see a guilty verdict could be arrived at.
With respect, I disagree. I’m a former prosecutor. I know what I’m talking about. The judge has a sworn duty to take certain actions, and this is exactly the type of case where this backbone was needed. The judge lost his nerve, though it’s possible that if the jury returned a guilty verdict he could have set it aside–meaning, the judge could have declared KR innocent, despite the jury verdict. The judge has that power and it is sometimes used.
I completely disagree with your second sentence. While certainly true from a legal/rational/common sense point of view, this is exactly the type of case where a jury could be swayed by the politics of the case. In other words, it was wrong to subject KR to 3 days of hell while the jury deliberated his fate. Jurors could legitimately fear being injured or killed, hunted down and doxed, if they voted their conscience. Stay tuned.
I think I agree with the larger point that perhaps the jury speaking is “better for the country” (to allow healing–ha, ha, ha) than having the case decided by an older, white judge (bad optics, as white men are the enemy).
What you seem to be suggesting is that it acceptable to violate laws and fundamental bedrock principles as applied to an individual in furtherance of the “greater good.”
With respect, I disagree.
Okay, that’s fair – I honestly don’t know what is the judge’s interpration and prerogative to act vs what is required of the judge.
But yes, my general point is that a jury acquital may have better optics, for want of a better phrase. Although seeing the response the verdict in most of the press, that is an equally naive position.
Yup. I agree with you, writ large, and I think we have had an interesting and useful debate in the past.
Totally agree with you. But I would add one thing and that is that the judge should ave held the prosecution in contempt of court, and that the prosecutors should themselves be charged with prosecutorial misconduct and be immediately disbarred. That would be justice and it would send a strong signal to politically motivated prosecutors that it is not reasonable to charge people inappropriately, it is not reasonable to engage in misconduct and it is not reasonable to illegally withhold exculpatory evidence from the defense.
The other thing with the case that puzzles me, despite the unanimous jury verdict, is why the jury took 3 days, as opposed to 5 minutes. Were there hold outs or were they just going through the motions to show the public, for their own safety, how careful they were about considering the evidence presented.
I also know what I’m talking about on a whole series of topics James, but I’m never too arrogant to accept that those who don’t know what they’re talking about may offer insight, or point out where I may be wrong, despite my expertise.
There were also an awful lot of people like you who told the U.K. electorate that they were experts and their views should be accepted without question, but thankfully they decided to listen to their own common sense.
One does have to wonder if the judge had been mostly looking to the jury to do the heavy lifting — and thereby relieve himself of scrutiny ex post.
Agreed. A Judge should never let a case go to a jury if the Judge believes that there is insufficient for a conviction. Juries are simply too unpredictable.
There was a famous case in the UK where the Judge let such a case go to the jury much to his regret. He thought that the jury were bound to acquit and that the Defendant would be seen to be more clearly exonerated if the jury acquitted rather than if he dismissed the case.
As the wheels of justice grinds slowly the defendant spent a long period in prison before being cleared on appeal.
Politicians and the media were also grossly misleading or outright lying about the Jacob Blakely police shooting— the incident that triggered the Kenosha demonstrations to begin with.
What most of the world heard: Jacob Blakely, an unarmed man, was senselessly shot by police, right in front of his small children.
What almost nobody has heard: Blakely was initially (and stupidly) invited by the mother of his children to come to his son’s birthday party that day. He did not have custody of the kids and was in fact under a stay-away order because of having repeatedly broken into his ex’s apartment, stealing her things including a car, and on the last occasion, digitally raping the ex.
She called police after Blakely (completely predictably) went into his little rampage at the gathering, and took the keys to HER RENTAL van after putting the kids into it. So he was threatening people, stealing a car, and kidnapping his kids.
When police arrived he ignored them and kept walking over to the van with his kids in it. He carried a knife at some point while he did this. He refused to stop, talk to police, or surrender to arrest. He shook off two taser attempts and other attempts by police to physically restrain him. Later, he admitted that he had the knife in his hand.
So—police shoot frenzied rapist as he is in the process of stealing a car with helpless children strapped inside. Sounds a bit different than the narrative, eh?
Thanks for this. I noted “Indeed, even on the Left, those reporting on the case or following it closely have tended to conclude that Rittenhouse was not the monster he was initially painted as”, and later: “Covington Catholic controversies”,
Perhaps the first quote reflects the large payouts US media firms had to make after being sued by Nick Sandmann – over biased reporting on the second..
Also Duke Rape Case. Shows how the truth may come out in court, but ONLY if you have great lawyers and lots of $$$$.
Lady Ghislane will soon test this.
She’s been crucified as a monster by MSM for merely acting as a facilitator for people who weren’t as naive as they claim to have been.
It would be quite something if a decent trial manages to show this and put her role into perspective.
“Already, Republicans have begun pouring salt into the wound, and it looks as if the verdict will cement Rittenhouse’s reputation as a conservative folk hero — an innocent man smeared by corrupt politicians, a partisan media, and biased Big Tech companies”
… which is exactly what he is.
This case was pursued by terrified prosecutors for political reasons. Luckily the system held (barely) through intimidation by the dishonest, race-obsessed Left (though no one involved was non-white). Next time it may not.
So by saying that the Jury system works AND then adding that he is angry about the verdict, Biden is saying that Rittenhouse should have been convicted despite the evidence for political reasons. He wanted a verdict that did not accord with the evidence.
I think Rittenhouse had every right to be there, armed. Just as nobody has to take a beating, nobody has to allow their property to be destroyed. Rittenhouse had family, friends and a job in Kenosha. His gun was purchased and stored in Kenosha. His friends were protecting a used car business from arsonists. Rittenhouse was on his way to an arspn fire with a fire extinguisher when rioters attacked him. I don’t see any part of Rittenhouse’s behavior that was improper.
This moral difference on my part might be due to growing up in Montana, where guns were common, and shooting skunks and porcupines was quite normal as part of defending your livestock. It might be due to spending time in Kenosha, a sleepy little town with good restaurants, where I thought race riots were very unlikely, and cops would never withdraw their protection.
John Locke (1632-1704) wrote governments are established to protect life, liberty and property. When they fail to do that, men are reduced to a state of anarchy. Defending property is just as justified as self defense, once government’s protection is withdrawn.
Antifa/BLM riots all had the same banana republic pattern. Democrat controlled governments withdrew police protection and allowed the riots. In some cases, Democrats defended their right to allow riots when Trump threatened to use federal resources to restore order. The riots were intentional political violence, for the purpose of intimidating Republicans and making Trump look impotent or authoritarian, whether he did nothing or tried to do something.
Claiming you had to be 18 or over to resist is ridiculous. You can enlist at 17.
The US is in fact torn in part. This just highlights that fact. I live in a red county in a blue state (WA). I used to visit Seattle and Portland regularly. I have been to Seattle once since the beginning of 2020 just to see what it was like. It was worse than I thought it would be. I won’t be going back anytime soon. I’ve largely been left alone and we go about our lives normally where I am at. I’m not doing new normal. I’m not handing over my guns. I’m growing as much food as possible, being as self sufficient as possible, and working towards becoming ungovernable. I will just avoid the cities and ignore the feds mandates and dictates. We are forming our own circles. Positions are hardening. I want nothing to do with what the left has become. They will have to live with their Big Pharma and Big Tech totalitarian overlords all by themselves.
Maybe the author can explain why, in the link to his publication, the first story up is about a car ploughing into a parade and killing five people in a city — to paraphrase the article — fifty miles from the scene of the Rittenhouse trial? Nothing in the article connects the trial to the killings. We don’t know why the driver did what he did but (cue da-da-DAH music) it was fifty miles from the trial. Just curious.
We know with certainty what happened in all three. Rittenhouse was clearly acting in self-defence against violent thugtards. The creaky-voiced liar in the Kavanaugh case couldn’t provide a shred of evidence – mighty convenient that she only “remembered” after 30 years when the Dumocrats were trying to oppose a Republican appointment to the Supreme Court. (She couldn’t remember the year this “ordeal” took place, let alone the month, or how she got to and back from the party.)
As for the Covington Catholic “controversies”, those blameless teenagers were completely vindicated, and successfully sued a malicious and mendacious media for millions. Take note.
This story has already escalated. A black nationalist just rammed his SUV into a Christmas parade in a suburb of Milwaukee, killing 5 (so far) and injuring dozens, some seriously. It’s not official yet, but motive so far seems to be revenge for Rittenhouse. How this became a racial incident I don’t know but it’s escalating now to domestic terrorism.
J Hop, at this time of writing, the suspect has been named online as, not corroborated yet by the police, Darrell Brooks, looks like he has conviction in Nevada for sex offences against a minor. What you say above could be true but, as the Rittenhouse trial has shown a rush to judgement on partisan lines is not a productive strategy. This does look like the driver, a black eye witness described the driver as a black guy with dreadlocks(matches Brooks appearance), and the same red car appears in a rap video Brooks made.
However on motive, we just don’t know yet, maybe he was drug driving? maybe he had a seizure at the wheel ( that actually happened in Scotland, a car mounted the pavement and 2 school children were killed)?
these do seem unlikely, given the video but I hope we can do better than the BBC, CNN etc than playing their game
just another wee addendum,
so i share your intuition on this guys motives, looks like a real scumbag given his criminal record and video monologues he’s posted about himself. But the evidence on the motive isn’t there… yet. But i’m more pessimistic than you, I think this is now escalating to a racial civil war in America.
And if it was the other way round, a white man ramming into a group of whites and killing several, yourself as well as the media, Democrats and President Poopy pants would patiently wait for evidence or motive.
Right,m
If the perpetrator is indeed black, the story will be buried very quickly.
I live in a country where a President with a 38% approval rating and a vice-president with a 28% approval rating are supported by 99% of the news media.
Ah don’t do what MSM did with Rittenhouse and make stuff up. What’s your source for him being a ‘nationalist’ and for the revenge motive?
I would say everyone needs to grow up and stop supporting their team blindly ,life is nuanced and the truth always lies somewhere in the middle , take the blinkers of and anyone can see that kid was not guilty , its not political , its just right and wrong , start being honest
The US media is already busy casting this young man as the face of white supremacy and his trial as an acceptance of vigilanteism, despite the fact that he took out two white people (not blacks), and that it is due to liberal policies such as defunding the police, that more Americans will be forced to take up arms to defend themselves and their townships.
American media companies need to stick to the facts rather than tell readers how to think and feel. Many of these companies are actually outdoing China in terms of propagandistic messaging.
Apparently the writer missed Biden’s revision of his earlier statement, when he sided with the politically more popular camp of demonising Rittenhouse and the jury’s decision.
Kyle Rittenhouse is tearing the country apart? Not CNN, MSNBC, NYT?
“Today, nearly every national issue in the United States is what the blogger Scott Alexander has called a “scissor” issue — one that is not merely divisive but in which the opposing sides seem to be operating in different planes of reality.”
It’s a perfect example of the “Social Dilemma” effect. Like I have said before, each side of the aisle is seeing a completely different set of facts. One side is told the animal in the case is a giraffe and the other side is being told it is a hippopotamus.
No wonder we are where we are.
For those who think a black man would have gotten a different verdict than Rittenhouse, please consider the case of Andrew Coffee IV in Florida.
Police did a no knock drug raid on Mr. Coffee’s apartment that began with a flash bang grenade. Mr. Coffee woke up from a sound sleep to what he thought was gunfire, so he started shooting. The cops shot back. Coffee’s girlfriend, Alteria Woods, was shot 10 ties in the cross fire and killed. After the cops were exonerated, Mr. Coffee was indicted for the murder of his girlfriend, attempted murder of the cops, and illegal possession of a firearm.
The trial jury found Mr. Coffee innocent of all charges except weapons possession. Mr. Coffee is a convicted felon, so he isn’t allowed legally to have a gun. The jury found Mr. Coffee acted in self defense. Mr. Coffee is black.
I think the Andrew Coffee IV case shows that justice in the US today is blind, as it should be. Even though Mr. Coffee was a convicted felon, and he shot at the police, he was still found not guilty on those charges.
I’ve reached the limit of my endurance in hearing that this or that ‘won’t heal’.
Rubbish: enough already of back-handedly supporting, yes supporting the damning woke sickness that seeks to continue its evil ploys in maintaining hatreds of whatever kind via ‘politicising’ rubbish ideologies based on grossly distorted isolated facts that have no wider truth or reality.
It’s time to start ignoring rubbish events and their espousers. Stop picking at the scabs!!
Jeez loads of Unherd commenters dancing on the head of a pin to show off their knowledge of guns! Get a grip.
And Trump will now have a great time exploiting the Left’s attempt to ‘lynch’ this kid. LGB
If the US is polarised over this case, so is the UK. I could hardly believe the reaction of several people I know. So outraged by the verdict that they posted all the lies from the US left media. We are so divided and tribal now and I don’t know how this can be bridged.
The only turn of events that, not only has, but will tear down America are leftist intellectual bigots – those who are willfully narrow minded because they are indifferent and incurious, with the delusion that ignorance is not applied.
Fingers crossed.
Apart from Mad Julie Bindel, are all Unherd writers ^^nowheres^^?