Two other charges each carried over 60 years behind bars. Rittenhouse could have gotten life in prison if found guilty on the most serious charge, first-degree intentional homicide, or what some other states call first-degree murder. President Joe Biden called for calm, saying that while the outcome of the case “will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken.”įormer President Donald Trump, who at the time of the shootings said it appeared Rittenhouse had been “very violently attacked, ” issued a statement Friday congratulating Rittenhouse on the verdict, adding “if that’s not self defense, nothing is!” The anonymous jury, whose racial makeup was not disclosed by the court but appeared to be overwhelmingly white, deliberated for close to 3 1/2 days.
Rittenhouse, a then-17-year-old former police youth cadet, said that he went to Kenosha to protect property from rioters but that he came under attack and feared for his life. Rittenhouse was charged with homicide, attempted homicide and reckless endangering for killing two men and wounding a third with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle in the summer of 2020 during a tumultuous night of protests over the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white Kenosha police officer. “It seems to me that it’s open season on human rights demonstrators,” he said. Jesse Jackson, the longtime civil rights leader, said the verdict throws into doubt the safety of people who protest in support of Black Americans. Supporters donated more than $2 million toward his legal defense. The verdict in the politically combustible case was met with anger and disappointment from those who saw Rittenhouse as a vigilante and a wannabe cop, and relief and a sense of vindication from those who regarded him as a patriot who took a stand against lawlessness and exercised his Second Amendment right to carry a gun and to defend himself.
I hope the car flips and he can’t get out while it’s on fire and dies in it. I hope Kyle Rittnehouse car crashes on his way home. We’re annoyed as hell and so very tired, but not surprised. There isn’t ONE Black person in America that is surprised. Tell me again there are not two kinds justice in America!Īnd even with everything I just tweeted, know this:
I don’t think we are surprised… but we are definitely allowed to remain appalled at how the perpetuation of injustice is progressively thriving in Amerikkka. The writing was on the wall in BOLD letters about this trial from the beginning. On the basis of Amerikkka’s reverence for protecting and defending white privilege, this is right on brand. On the basis of fact level, this shit don’t make sense. A tragic, tragic day for decent, THINKING, feeling, ethical people everywhere. Fundamentally stupid, I predict he will go on to a big career on #Fox and in #RadicalRightWing circles, which counts as a plus with them. #kylerittenhouse found not guilty tho we SAW HIM kill two. For weapons that spread like the virus they are, infecting, poisoning, killing. For the system that protects the wrong people. Not this bitch found not guilty!!!!!!!!!!! See how other musicians reacted to Rittenhouse’s verdict below. Former Destiny’s Child member Michelle Williams weighed in, simply tweeting “Not surprised,” while rapper Lil Yachty wrote that America’s “justice system so twisted.” Though Rittenhouse visibly celebrated his victory at the conclusion of his trial - he was seen falling to his knees and sobbing as he held his lawyer - social media has been left polarized by the verdict, with musicians calling the ruling a miscarriage of justice.