Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/11/11/here-are-the-ludicrous-highlights-of-the-kyle-rittenhouse-trial.html
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As I said earlier, it looks like the judge has been laying the groundwork to grant Horst Rittenhouse’s attorneys the mistrial they’re no doubt seeking. They’ll also accept a not guilty verdict due to self defense, and the judge has helped them here too by insisting there are no victims to discuss in this case.
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So, to sum up, Teen Rambo turned up in a crowded place with a semi-automatic rifle. And when a bunch of citizens – not unreasonably – feared that he might be about to use it on them and tried to take it away from him, he lit them up.
As I understand it, the gun lobby position is that the best defense against mass shootings is that the Good Guys (with their guns) will intervene to neutralize the Bad Guys. But in this case it seems that Kyle Rittenhouse is a Good Guy and the protesters were supposed to have known that and therefore they were Bad Guys for trying to take his gun away from him and so deserved to get shot. Now, it’s true that it can be hard to tell if someone with a gun is a Good Guy or a Bad Guy, so maybe the protesters should just have waited until he started shooting people to see if he was a Bad Guy or not? Maybe? That approach seems … flawed … to me.
While waiting for some clarification on this thorny moral and practical issue, may I suggest that some of these problems could be avoided if the cops just did their fucking job and didn’t let teenage dipshits with heavy artillery go wading into flashpoint situations?
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Improved that for you…
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Haven’t kept up with the trial lately, but has anyone asked the question “If you were in fear for your life, why did you not just immediately LEAVE?”
Because, you know, if you willingly go into a “war zone” with an automatic weapon, what did you really expect to happen? That someone would be handing out cupcakes?
Fuck these people and their misguided notion that the protection of PROPERTY is above HUMANITY.
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Remember, you can show up anywhere and intimidate a crowd. When enough of the crowd is looking at you since you’re scaring them you’re then allowed to open fire since you felt “threatened” by them. Continue shooting as they try and stop you since you still feel threatened. Get away with a slap on the wrist (if white).
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Unlike “First Blood” where Rambo showed up because he was visiting a friend, had no gun, got harassed by cops, and there was only one death (which was an accident ) but he got blamed for it.
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If, and I still think it’s an “if” he walks through mistrial or acquittal, it’s impossible to imagine this little prick ever having any kind of normal life or making an actual contribution to society. Only way he’d ever show his mini Kavanaugh face in public is if his posse of proud bois rolls with him.
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It’s almost as if the whole “good guy” narrative is really, ultimately just about race and politics, and giving white conservatives (and specifically the police) a justification for shooting people. Huh.
Stand your ground! (I.e. “go wherever you want and do whatever you want, and then claim you were fearful as a defense.”) That the state is one of the few with no “stand your ground” law hardly makes a difference, as it just means there’s no legally defined point at which he needed to retreat, and creates more ambiguity that is useful in a defense.
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“Mr. Rittenhouse, if you were in fear for your life, why did you put yourself in a situation that – to judge by the weaponry with which you equipped yourself – you anticipated to be extremely dangerous? Would it not have been safer to remain at home, and not put yourself in peril?”
“What, and leave the Rite-Aid unprotected?”
“Excuse me?”
“Would you have me just stand by while unhallowed hands possibly desecrated that sacred temple of commerce? Emptying its shelves, despoiling its revolving racks, even, God help us, brutally violating its cash registers?”
“Let me understand you, Mr. Rittenhouse. You went to Kenosha because you were afraid that someone might loot a chain store.”
“Exactly.”
“Mr. Rittenhouse, do you have a personal or financial relationship with the Rite Aid Corporation?”
“No, sir.”
“So your spontaneous defense of their property was purely altruistic.”
“Did the GIs who stormed ashore at Omaha Beach have a personal or financial relationship with France?”
“You are comparing yourself now to American soldiers in the Second World War?”
“I am a soldier of capitalism. Wherever one person takes something that is not theirs without passing by the register, wherever one heinous villain helps themself to an extra plastic bag at the self-checkout, wherever an expired coupon is slipped past an overworked clerk, wherever some enemy of the American Way scratches off a sticky label to reveal a previously-lower price, I will be there.”
“No further que–”
“We shall fight them in the Rite Aids. We shall fight them in the Old Navies, and the Olive Gardens, and the Marshalls. We shall never surrender!”
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Given all the love he’s gotten from the right (including Fox), if he can confine himself to a conservative environment, he’ll be golden. Also, not like he was ever likely to make a contribution to society…
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I see him taking the George Zimmerman path if (and I think it’s more “when”) he walks away from this a free man(-child). Eight years later Zimmerman is still doing his right-wing martyr act. Rittenhouse will do the same, but also have a whole semi-formal fascist support network backing him (including a former squatter in the Oval Office) that Zimmerman could only dream of when he escaped a murder conviction.
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If he doesn’t get some sort of consequence for this he will be embolden to do it again.
And the judge, did you all catch his ringtone?
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He was trying to retreat during all three shootings.
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The other thing the prosecutor brought up was that kid claimed he was there to render aid through his EMT training yet he never stopped to see if his victim needed help after he was down and never called for assistance or even told a cop there was an injured person.
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but he’s taking an online class at a university he’s not officially enrolled at. surely that must count for something /s
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Honestly? I see zero point in discussing or considering his tears. Either he’s playing for sympathy, in which case, there’s little reason to attend to him, or he’s actually crying, which, considering that he’s on trial and stressed, is no real surprise and tells us nothing of consequence. Genuineness of tears is entirely a pointless consideration.
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