Kyle Rittenhouse’s Sham of a Trial Ends With Not Guilty Verdict

Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old man who killed two protesters and shot a third during protests last summer, has been found not guilty on all counts. The fact that he shot people is not in question, but the jury ruled that he was acting in self-defense. He carried an AR-15 into a crowd of people protesting police violence and claimed self-defense when he used it, and it worked.

Maybe the worst thing about this verdict is how entirely unsurprising it is. These systems are built to protect white boys and men like Rittenhouse and this sham of a trial made that clear from start to finish—from the judge who wouldn’t allow the people who Rittenhouse killed to be called “victims” but would let them be called “rioters” and “looters,” to the sitting Republican Congressman who floated the idea of making him his intern, we knew how this was going to turn out. That doesn’t make it any less tragic.

Our thoughts are with the families and communities of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, as well as Gaige Grosskreutz and also Jacob Blake.

(image: Sean Krajacic-Pool/Getty Images)
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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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