Jury Finds Kyle Rittenhouse Not Guilty On All Counts

The following report is from The Blaze:

A jury of 12 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, found 18-year-old accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts Tuesday afternoon, marking a conclusive end to the most high-profile case to arise from last year’s violent spree of Black Lives Matter riots.

The jury gave the verdict Friday afternoon after nearly four days of deliberation, acquitting the defendant of all charges.

The jury’s determination is perceived as a victory for self-defense and gun-rights advocates as well as a repudiation of the unfounded narrative initially pushed by Democrats and mainstream media outlets that branded Rittenhouse as a white supremacist vigilante.

What’s The Background?

The Illinois teenager was tried on multiple felony counts — including first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, and attempted first-degree intentional homicide — for fatally shooting Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounding Gage Grosskreutz, 28, during Black Lives Matter riots in the Wisconsin city on Aug. 25, 2020.

Riots had broken out in the city following the shooting of a black resident, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer. After multiple investigations, the officer who pulled the trigger that injured Blake was cleared of any wrongdoing and returned to the job.

Rittenhouse’s defense team maintained that their client was ambushed by rioters after coming to Kenosha that night to protect local businesses from looting and burning and to provide medical aid to individuals injured in the uprising. The prosecution, on the other hand, sought to prove that Rittenhouse had come to the protests armed with an AR-15 in order to seek violence.

Rittenhouse would have served a mandatory life sentence in prison if he had been convicted. But in the end, the jury favored the defense team’s arguments of self-defense over the prosecution’s claims of murder.

What Else?

As the trial unfolded, legal experts began characterizing the prosecution’s bid as an uphill climb. Videos of incidents viewed by the public appeared to show Rittenhouse being chased down and physically threatened before firing any shots.

But in their closing arguments to the jury, the prosecution argued that Rittenhouse provoked the “entire incident” of fatalities by bringing a gun to the protests. They also argued that by bringing the gun, the defendant gave up his right to self-defense — an argument that flies in the face of both state and federal law.

You lose the right to self-defense when you’re the one who brought the gun. You cannot claim self-defense against a danger you create. If you’re the one threatening others, you lose the right to claim self-defense.

Kenosha County Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger

Elsewhere, the prosecution team seemed to mock Rittenhouse as a “coward” for bringing “a gun to a fistfight” and characterized the rioters who chased Rittenhouse as a crowd “full of heroes” who tried to stop an “active shooter.”

Anything Else?

Many now anxiously wait to see whether the verdict will ignite more rioting and looting in downtown Kenosha and elsewhere around the country.

Over the weekend, residents in the small Wisconsin city began bracing for a possible repeat of last August, NBC News reported. Several business owners, too, closed their shops on Monday in anticipation of violence and vandalism.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) also responded to potential violence by pre-emptively ordering 500 National Guard troops to Kenosha to ensure public safety and order.

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

Unlike so many Americans on both political spectrums, who have been sucked into this soap opera for weeks on end, I did not pay attention or care, until a verdict was reached. But even then, the media purposefully takes these events as a way to further divide, delude, and control the masses; by playing on their heart strings, and making these future quagmires persist by pouring more gasoline on the fire.

[27] An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire. [28] A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends. [29] A violent man enticeth his neighbour, and leadeth him into the way that is not good. [30] He shutteth his eyes to devise froward things: moving his lips he bringeth evil to pass.

Proverbs 16:27-30

More riots and violence will no doubt increase, along with further artificially created racial divides: a by-product of all surging malice and envy that is beginning to boil over now, along with all the garbage that is going on.

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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