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Kyle Rittenhouse Has Been Found Not Guilty On All Charges

Kyle Rittenhouse Has Been Found Not Guilty On All Charges

The 18-year-old has been found not guilty of murder after a trial that lasted nearly three weeks

Jess Hardiman

Jess Hardiman

Kyle Rittenhouse has been found not guilty on all counts following a trial that lasted almost three weeks.

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

REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo

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.

As he gave evidence in court last week, he broke down crying as he told the jury how, in the moments leading up to him shooting and killing 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum, he was threatened twice by the man.

Rittenhouse recalled: "He screamed, 'If I catch any of you f** alone, I'm going to f** kill you'.

"The second time he said 'I'm going to cut your f** hearts out and kill you N-words'."

Kyle Rittenhouse Breaks Down Discussing Night He Killed Two Men.
Alamy

In his opening statement, prosecutor Thomas Binger described the unrest as 'two of the roughest nights that our community has ever seen', and said outsiders were drawn to Kenosha 'like moths to a flame'.

Yet Binger repeatedly stressed that amid the hundreds of people in Kenosha, and the anger and chaos in the streets, 'the only person who killed anyone is the defendant, Kyle Rittenhouse'.

Rittenhouse claimed he went to the city to protect property after two nights of rioting.

His lawyer, Mark Richards, also told the jury that his client acted in self-defence as one of the men dove for his gun while others kicked him in the face and clubbed him in the head with a skateboard.

During the trial, the jurors were shown drone footage of the fatal shooting, where Rosenbaum could be seen being shot at close range.

The video showed Rosenbaum following Rittenhouse, before Rittenhouse suddenly spun around and fired his rifle at him.

Rittenhouse then killed Anthony Huber, a 26-year-old protester seen hitting Rittenhouse with a skateboard in a video filmed by a bystander.

The teen shooter then went on to wound Gaige Grosskreutz, a protester and volunteer medic who has since testified against Rittenhouse.

Featured Image Credit: REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo

Topics: News, US News, No-Article-Matching