This line from the Rittenhouse defense team’s closing completely horrified viewers
As Kyle Rittenhouse's trial was winding down on Monday, the teenage vigilante's defense team gave its closing arguments — and one of the lines from Rittenhouse attorney Mark Richards has been drawing very negative reactions.
The 18-year-old Rittenhouse is facing homicide and attempted homicide charges for shooting three people (two of them fatally) during a racial justice protest in August 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where protesters were demonstrating against the shooting of Jacob Blake, a young African-American man, by a White police officer. Rittenhouse, who went to that protest armed with an AR-style weapon, admits to shooting three people. But he has maintained that he acted in self-defense and wanted to protect Kenosha businesses from rioters.
Richards told the jury, "Ladies and gentlemen, other people in this community have shot somebody seven times — and it's been found to be OK. My client did it four times."
Washington, D.C.-based attorney Bradley P. Moss wondered how such a comment even made it to Richards' closing remarks:
How did this line not get taken out in prep?https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1460360974603472897\u00a0\u2026— Bradley P. Moss (@Bradley P. Moss) 1637012636
As others pointed out, this seemed to be a reference to the police officer Rusten Sheskey who shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back and in the side, an event that triggered the protests in Kenosha. The officer, like Rittenhouse, claimed self-defense, faced no charges and kept his job.
He\u2019s referring to the cops that caused the riot by shooting Jacob Blake\n\nDisgracefulhttps://twitter.com/acyn/status/1460360974603472897\u00a0\u2026— Thomas Paine \u270a (@Thomas Paine \u270a) 1637012447
Here are some more responses to Richards' comment:
Just one of the many dark places that qualified immunity and gun fetishism have taken us: the argument that a community has deemed it "ok" to shoot someone at least seven times.https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1460360974603472897\u00a0\u2026— Max Kennerly (@Max Kennerly) 1637017689
I am horrified. What is to become of us if someone who did this gets off? SMDH— Carol A Klassen (@Carol A Klassen) 1637012622
In a new episode of twilight zone\u2026https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1460360974603472897\u00a0\u2026— Laith Alkhouri (@Laith Alkhouri) 1637016744
Yikes, this from the defense lawyer \u2014 not the prosecutor?— Anne (@Anne) 1637012782
BLM has spent years protesting the grotesque double standard between the way police treat black & white citizens who are potentially dangerous. One need only consider their kid-gloves treatment of Kyle Rittenhouse to irrefutably bolster such a conclusion.https://twitter.com/dreamweasel/status/1458823335337512970?s=21\u00a0\u2026— Dreamweasel (@Dreamweasel) 1637012288
Honestly I can not believe I am actually hearing this,even more so that he's actually saying this.— Wendy Darling\u24c2\ufe0f\u24c2\ufe0f #MeidasMighty OG\ud83e\uddda\ud83c\udf0a (@Wendy Darling\u24c2\ufe0f\u24c2\ufe0f #MeidasMighty OG\ud83e\uddda\ud83c\udf0a) 1637012880
Since Trump\u2019s 2015 announcing his run for President, something has happened every day that feels as if the nation is unraveling, losing its collective mind piece by piece. And it\u2019s escalated day-by-day. Crazy and criminal have been normalized such that this is a closing argument.https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1460360974603472897\u00a0\u2026— Maximillian Potter (@Maximillian Potter) 1637016243
This statement is extremely American.https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1460360974603472897\u00a0\u2026— mike freeman (@mike freeman) 1637017266
