Riot Erupted In US City Following Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

Fiery scenes erupted in a US city after citizens protested against Kyle Rittenhouse being cleared on all charges against him.

Hundreds gathered in Portland, Oregon on Friday (November 19) to voice their anger at seeing the teenager not punished for shooting dead two men and injuring another.

However, the situation escalated when some of the people expressed their anger in different ways.

Windows to shopfronts were smashed and police officers monitoring the demonstration were hit with objects.

The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office has now officially declared the protest turned into a 'riot' because of 'violent, destructive behavior by a significant part of the crowd'.

They said it was the damage done to the downtown jail's gate that caused them to make the riot declaration official.

The Sheriff's Office's Chris Liedle revealed to KOIN TV that some of the objects that officers were hit with contained 'urine, alcoholic beverages, water bottles, and batteries'.

According to Insider, some people were chanting 'Kyle is a terrorist' as they held the protest and others set fire to rubbish and debris in the street.

The chaotic riot eventually finished after two hours as protestors were warned over a loudspeaker that police were willing to use 'pepper spray and impact weapons'.

One protestor was arrested for an outstanding warrant and police issued five citations, according to Oregon Live.

After the verdict was handed down in the Rittenhouse case late last week, Oregon politicians expressed their sympathies to people who might be upset.

Governor Kate Brown said on Twitter: "Some people may be hurting hearing this verdict today. Please take care of each other in this difficult moment. We have a lot of work to do as a country in building a more just and equitable future."

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler added: "I join with many Portlanders and Oregonians in feeling profoundly disappointed on the Rittenhouse trial verdict. Our work to reform and improve the criminal justice system must continue."

Portland's Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty also wrote: "We have an injustice system in America."

Rittenhouse was charged with killing two men and wounding a third with an assault-style rifle in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August last year.

The teenager, who was 17 at the time of the incident, had travelled to Kenosha from his home in Illinois after protests broke out over the shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer.

Rittenhouse had an AR-style semi-automatic rifle with him - which, according to his lawyers, he feared would be taken away and used against him.

His trial lasted three weeks and jurors returned a verdict on Friday that found him cleared of all charges.

Featured Image Credit: Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/SIPA USA

Topics: News, Kyle Rittenhouse

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie