Kyle Rittenhouse verdict: Gun group to ‘award’ AR-15 to teen as defence attorney calls Trump Jr ‘idiot’
Teen acquitted on homicide charges following Kenosha shootings
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Kyle Rittenhouse’s attorney has criticised Republican lawmakers he has accused of trying to capitalise on his client and has called their behaviour “disgusting”.
He also called Donald Trump Jr an “idiot” for supporting an offer by Guns of America to give Mr Rittenhouse a free AR-15 rifle, similar to the one used by Mr Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin on 25 August, 2020.
Mark Richards, who represented Mr Rittenhouse at trial, told Insider: “He’s an idiot. I don’t have to expand on that because it speaks for itself.”
At least three members of Congress have suggested offering internships to Mr Rittenhouse following his acquittal.
“They want to trade on his celebrity and I think it’s disgusting,” Mr Richards told Insider after the verdict.
Protests across the US followed his acquittal, after a jury found him not guilty on all five counts in his homicide trial after four days of deliberations.
Fox News personality Tucker Carlson will interview Mr Rittenhouse on Monday, and the network is set to air a documentary-style film about the trial in December.
Mr Richards told CNN on Friday that he did not approve of a film crew embedding with the legal team.
Justin Wells, a senior executive producer of Tucker Carlson Tonight, told the Associated Press that no payment was made for access, footage rights, legal fees or any other purpose to Mr Rittenhouse or his family.
In a clip from the upcoming documentary showing Mr Rittenhouse after the verdict, he says that “the jury reached the correct verdict. Self-defense in not illegal.”
He continued: “I believe they came to the correct verdict and I’m glad that everything went well.”
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Family of man shot dead: ‘There was no justice today’
The family of Anthony Huber, one of the men that was shot dead by teenager Kyle Rittenhouse, said they were “heartbroken and angry” in a statement released after the court verdict.
John Huber and Karen Bloom, Anthony’s parents, said “there was no justice today” for their son and the other two men shot last year by Rittenhouse.
Joseph Rosenbaum was also killed and Gaige Grosskreutz was wounded during the confrontation.
The family of Anthony Huber said in a statement: “Today’s verdict means there is no accountability for the person who murdered our son.
“It send the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street.
“We hope that decent people will join us in forcefully rejecting that message and demanding more of our laws, our officials, and our justice system.”
Mock jurors were used by defense team to test out trial scenarios, lawyer says
The lead lawyer on Kyle Rittenhouse’s defense team has said that the decision to have the teenager testify at trial “wasn’t a close call”.
Rittenhouse’s testimony on the witness stand was a key part of the trial. He spoke, through sobs and gulps for air, about the moment he shot three men in Kenosha, Wisconsin. His emotional reaction drew criticism from some who claimed he cried on the stand to win the jury’s sympathy.
It has emerged that Rittenhouse’s defense team tested the idea of him testifying with mock juries.
They ran two mock juries before the trial, one with Rittenhouse taking the witness stand and one without.
Mark Richards, the lead defense laywer, said after the verdict: “At certain points, we wondered whether we would put him on.
“It was substantially better with him testifying - I mean, to a marked degree. And that sealed it.”
Mr Richards hit back at critics who said that Rittenhouse had played to the jury; saying that he was now in counselling for PTSD and had trouble sleeping.
“When we prepared Kyle and we worked on his testimony, there were things that we couldn’t talk about in my office, because it got too emotional and he couldn’t handle it,” he said.
Pictured: Protesters march across America after Rittenhouse verdict
About 100 demonstrators marched through Oakland, California, on Friday, November 19, to protest the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse.
“Revolution nothing else”, the crowd shouted as they marched from Oakland’s city Hall to the Federal building.
Hundreds marched through Brooklyn, New York, carrying signs and chanting. They made their way from the Barclays Centre to the Brooklyn Bridge.
The group remained peaceful and there were no reports of arrests.
ICYMI: Unrest in Portland as other peaceful protests spring up across America
Around 200 protesters broke windows and threw objects at the police in Portland, Oregon on Friday night after Kyle Rittenhouse was cleared over the shooting of three people in Wisconsin last year.
Police declared a riot in Portland after a official building was targeted in the protests.
The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said the riot was near the Multnomah County Justice Centre.
The police tweeted: “A crowd has gathered near SE 2nd Avenue and SE Madison Street and participants have begun breaking windows and damaging doors of city facilities in the area. People are throwing objects at police officers in the area.”
Police used loudspeakers to ask the crowd to disperse or face the use of force, including “pepper spray and impact weapons”.
The crowd had broken up and dispersed by 11pm.
Legal scholars not surprised by verdict, reports say
Legal experts have highlighted the high burden on the prosecution in Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial.
Rittenhouse claimed that he had acted in self-defense when he shot three men, killing two, during unrest in Wisconsin last year.
Cecelia Klingele, a University of Wisconsin law professor, told The New York Times: “It was a real uphill battle to get out from under self-defense.”
She added: “When people look at this, and they’re feeling frustrated, they’re not recognizing just how high the prosecutors’ burden is here.”
Wisconsin’s rules say that if people reasonably believe they are at risk of death or great bodily harm, they can use deadly force.
Most states say that someone who provokes violence or is acting illegally waives the right to self-defense. However Wisconsin allows people to act in self-defense if they have “exhausted every other reasonable means to escape from or otherwise avoid death or great bodily harm.”
Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor, said that state’s open carry law also had a part to play in the trail. “Do you look at the choice to go to a heated, confrontational area with a weapon that would be scary to a lot of people?” he said, “You can’t really say that he doesn’t have a right to do that because of the status of gun laws.”
He added: “If we’re going to have a country in which guns are pervasive and the law has little or nothing to say about where and when one may carry a gun and display a gun, then we are going to have a situation where self-defense law can’t really handle it.”
Girlfriend of Rittenhouse victim Anthony Huber says she as ‘a lot of sympathy’ for the teenager
The girlfriend of one of the men shot dead by Kyle Rittenhouse said on Thursday that she had “a lot of sympathy” for the teen.
She said that he got swept up into trying to be the “king of the world” during last year’s riots in Wisconsin.
Hannah Gittings, 25, criticised local authorities, saying: “Kenosha also needs to be help responsible for allowing this militia to show up and do exactly what they came here to do.”
She said: “I do have a lot of sympathy for this kid because he is just a kid to me so it was just like a real dumbass kid who unfortunately became the figurehead for this.”
Speaking after the court verdict on Friday, Hannah Gittings added: “Every day I wish I could unload some of this grief, but I can’t.
“And now the system is telling me no one needs to answer for that, and I have a problem with that. I think I’ve expressed a lot of empathy on the other side of this and that’s not been reciprocated.”
No signs of unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin following Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquital
Pockets of peaceful protest sprung up across American on Friday night after a jury cleared Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges over his shooting of three people.
And there were no signs of unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Rittenhouse had been tried and acquitted.
Democratic governor Tony Evers had placed 500 members of the National Guard on stand by ahead of the verdict but there were no signs of any major clashes on Friday night or early Saturday morning.
The calm has been directly contrasted to last year’s protests after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was wanted for alleged sexual assault.
The event set off peaceful protests in the state, which then turned into burst of rioting. Rittenhouse had travelled to Kenosha to defend property amid the unrest last year.
Donald Trump Jr endorses sending AR 15 gun to Kyle Rittenhouse
A group called Gun Owners of America has said that it would “award” Kyle Rittenhouse with an AR-15 gun “for his defense of gun rights in America.”
An AR-15 is the model of rifle that Rittenhouse was carrying when he shot three people, leaving two dead, last year.
Donald Trump Jr supported the gift and encouraged people to sign a card of support that will be sent to the teenager, along with his new rifle.
“Sign the card in support of Kyle”, Trump Jr told his Twitter followers after the jury’s decision that Rittenhouse was not guilty on all charges.
He added: “Americans have a fundamental right to defend themselves, and to keep and bear arms. The verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is a recognition of those rights.”
Tucker Carlson TV crew embedded with Rittenhouse during trial
Rittenhouse defence attorney Mark Richards said he did not approve a Fox film crew that was embedded with the team, after a preview of the “Tucker Carlson Originals” documentary aired on Friday.
“I threw them out of the room several times,” Mr Richards told CNN. “I don’t think a film crew is appropriate for something like this.”
Protests across US follow verdict, including ‘riot’ in Portland
Officials across the US and the families of victims have urged for calm and peaceful demonstrations as protests in several cities followed the polarising outcome in the homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse.
In New York, hundreds of people marched and carried placards from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and to the Brooklyn Bridge before crossing into Lower Manhattan on 19 November.
Protests in Portland, Oregon prompted officials to declare a riot that night, after a group of people among a crowd of roughly 200 broke windows and tossed objects at police.
Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office declared a riot after the group began “tampering with” a gate out the Multnomah CountyJustice Center, which houses local police, and tried to block the ramp with downed tree branches. One person with an outstanding warrant was arrested.
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