As Kyle Rittenhouse finally takes the stand, the prosecution’s case against the now-18-year-old has effectively fallen apart. The judge was forced to throw out the charge that most obviously merited conviction, the violation of Kenosha’s curfew during its 2020 race riots, due to the prosecution’s failure to even make the case that such a curfew was imposed on the night of the shooting, and the prosecution’s own witnesses have bolstered, not undercut, Rittenhouse’s claim that he was acting in self-defense.
The Rittenhouse case never should have happened. Not only is this because the prosecution clearly should not have ever brought it to trial, but also because the riots that impelled Rittenhouse to go foolishly to Kenosha never should have happened. The police shooting of Jacob Blake was eminently justified, and the rioters who destroyed the Wisconsin city as a result were not only criminals but also completely unjustified.
As a point of comparison, let’s use the murder of George Floyd, which, along with becoming the marquee police killing of the 2020 riots, was actually, indeed, a murder.
When police came to the scene in Kenosha last year, they had an outstanding warrant for Blake’s arrest. Unlike Floyd, whose “crime” was allegedly using a counterfeit dollar bill, Blake was charged with multiple violent crimes: third-degree sexual assault, disorderly conduct in connection with domestic abuse, and trespassing. And unlike Floyd, who was quickly subdued, Blake gave law enforcement ample reason to fear for their own safety.
Responding to a 911 call about a “domestic incident” involving Blake and the ex-partner he allegedly assaulted, with whom he shared children, the police in question first tried to subdue Blake verbally and with a taser. One of the officers claimed to have seen Blake put a child in a car as a woman cried out that Blake had her child and her keys. Blake “forcefully fought with the officers, including putting one of [them] in a headlock,” according to the police union, and refused to drop the knife he was carrying. Only when he leaned into the driver’s seat of the car, still armed and about to execute what the officers believed to be a kidnapping, did an officer fire at Blake’s back.
That was a good shot and one not remotely comparable to Derek Chauvin compressing the neck of a completely prostrate and subdued man who had exhibited no violent behavior during the encounter.
Yet, for the crime of trying to save a child from a man whom the police at the scene already knew prosecutors believed they could prove guilty of rape, Kenosha burned.
No, Rittenhouse should not have put himself intentionally in harm’s way, but the riots that led to the shootings should have never happened in the first place.
Blake was not a victim of anything but his own actions, and prominent politicians were wildly irresponsible for painting Blake as the next George Floyd. Kenosha shouldn’t have imposed a curfew to make way for rioters to run rampant, and the state of Wisconsin shouldn’t have withheld the necessary outside support for law enforcement that the city clearly needed. And finally, the men killed by Rittenhouse shouldn’t have openly aimed to threaten the teenager, and the prosecutors shouldn’t have overcharged Rittenhouse and taken this case to an unwinnable trial. The events unfolding on television today are just the final domino to fall after a series of reckless, and some criminal, actions of multiple people, just not the man on trial.
