There is nothing "reasonable" about the Rittenhouse jury's acquittal of this murderer on all charges

 

The acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges in the killing of two people and wounding a third during the Kenosha protest over the police killing of a black man, Jacob Blake, can only be described as incomprehensible and repulsive, and gives any far-right extremists the idea that it is perfectly acceptable for them to carry a loaded assault rifle into a city they don’t live in and in another state, and shoot and kill people if they try to stop them from using it against unarmed people whose political beliefs they don't agree with.

It seems utterly appalling that a jury could believe that the first victim, Joseph Rosenbaum—who apparently had been hospitalized for mental health problems—could be “dangerous” merely for vocalized threats that he had made to other people that night but had otherwise had caused no harm to. The jury appeared to believe that a person carrying and posturing menacingly with dangerous weapon was less a threat to public safety than someone chasing him and throwing a bag that contained personal hygiene items. Rittenhouse could have just kept running—or better yet, not have been there at all—but he turned around and shot an unarmed man multiple times. Sorry, but that is murder, not self-defense. No “reasonable” person would have acted the way Rittenhouse did.

Anthony Huber, who observed the murder of Rosenbaum, apparently tried to “disable” Rittenhouse in what reasonably could be described as his right to do in a “citizen’s arrest” scenario (the one the defendants in Ahmaud Arbery case are using). Huber supposedly used his skateboard as a “baseball bat,” but in fact never touched Rittenhouse; if he had lived, Huber could also have claimed “self-defense” against the armed Rittenhouse—who after all, was pointing his weapon at him after having just killed someone who had no weapon at all.

The third victim, Gaige Grosskreutz, who had just seen Rittenhouse murder two people, decided this “active shooter” needed to be stopped. All he did was point his gun at Rittenhouse to convince him to stop. Any reasonable person would have acted the way he did—draw his own weapon—when confronted with a killer. If someone else had confronted a shooter with their own weapon to stop him from more killing, wouldn’t he be declared a “hero”? Not in this case, not by this judge or jury.

Did Rittenhouse act in a way that any “reasonable” person would? The problem was that Rittenhouse was just some at the time 17-year-old punk who was too immature to think as a “reasonable” person would. His family should never have allowed him to even have an AR-15 without supervision, let alone leave the house with it. His immaturity only made him more dangerous, because he couldn’t make an “adult” determination about the actual “danger” he posed to others, and his response to the actions and mere verbal threats by others were not those of a person making a reasonable determination that his own actions were being viewed by others as threatening and dangerous.

The judge in the case was clearly biased in favor of the defense. His instructions to the jury were despicably broad. Rittenhouse was “authorized” to kill if he “believed that there was an actual or imminent unlawful interference with the defendant’s person,” that he “believed that the amount of force the defendant used or threatened to use was necessary to prevent or terminate the interference,” and that “the defendant’s beliefs were reasonable.” Again, is it “unlawful interference” in the case of Huber or Grosskreutz to stop a man they had just seen shoot an unarmed man multiple times? If the answer is no (which it clearly is), then the other two instructions are not applicable. Even so, no “reasonable” person could believe that the amount of force used by Rittenhouse was “necessary” or “reasonable”—except that there were no “reasonable” people serving on that jury, who were no doubt more “disturbed” by the protesters who killed no one.

Yes, I did expect that the jury would find Rittenhouse guilty of at least something, but they acquitted him of every charge. What this means is that this country, under the influence of Donald Trump and Trumpism/fascism, has taken itself a step closer to justifying any violent action by far-right armed Brown Shirts who feel they are now to wade into unarmed social justice protests, kill, and claim “self-defense” despite the obvious evidence that their intention was to use their weapon under only the slightest provocation. You can even find such people in Seattle:

 

It was the protestors who were killed, it seems, who were on trial here, not Rittenhouse. Has this country come to that? The outcome to the Arbery case should make that clearer.