Kyle Rittenhouse Case
December 17, 2021
There has been recent news and media hype around the dropped charges of Kyle Rittenhouse. This incident happened last year, but this was the first I had heard of it. I wanted to do more investigation, so I could have an opinion of my own. Here is what I found from the event.
Last year on August 25th, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old boy, took the lives of two men and injured a third one. This took place in Kenosha, Wisconsin after the many riots and protests against police brutality that followed the death of Jacob Blake, a black man who was killed by a police officer. There were multiple nights of unrest, and on this specific night, Rittenhouse said his job was to “protect this business.” The business he was referring to was a car dealership owned by two brothers who later said that they did not request protection from anyone including Rittenhouse during these riots. This brought up the question of why Rittenhouse was there with a gun in the first place.
After the shooting, Rittenhouse was not arrested. He claimed the shooting was “self-defense” when the men were chasing after him. His plea of self-defense made me wonder if any of the three men were armed when Rittenhouse fired on them. Here is what I found.
The first man shot was 36 year old Joseph Rosenbaum. According to Rittenhouse’s lawyers, Rosenbaum approached Rittenhouse in the car dealership lot which caused Rittenhouse to take off running. Rosenbaum, unarmed, took off after him. Rosenbaum threw a plastic bag at him that held a couple of toilet trees, and in return, Rittenhouse fired and killed him. Rittenhouse and another witness said that while chasing after him, Rosenbaum was reaching for Rittenhouse’s firearm. However, some say Rosenbaum was not even within arms reach whenever he was shot. Rittenhouse explained he feared he would grab it and shoot him.
The next victim was 26 year old Anthony Huber. After Rosenbaum was shot, Huber, also unarmed, was with a group of people chasing after Rittenhouse because they believed he was an active shooter. Once Huber caught up to him, he began hitting him with his skateboard in an effort to stop the active shooter. Within seconds, Rittenhouse shot a single bullet and killed Huber. Some say that Huber was also reaching for Rittenhouse’s gun.
Gaige Grosskreutz was the third victim who was only injured. He was among the crowd chasing Rittenhouse alongside Huber. Grosskreutz was the only one of the three men who was armed when he was shot. After closer examination, it was determined that Grosskreutz was aiming the pistol at Rittenhouse when he was shot in the arm. He claims it was not intentionally aimed at him.
After all of this, I investigated what charges Rittenhouse faced this year. They included first-degree intentional homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree recklessly endangering safety, another first-degree recklessly endangering safety, possession of a dangerous weapon under the age of 18, and failure to comply with an emergency order from state or local government.
I’m a firm believer that someone will never know exactly what happened unless they were there; however, there were many bystanders and witnesses for this case. It seems like a lot of one person’s words over another’s. All of these court cases were dropped for Kyle Rittenhouse.
These were the sources I used for this article.
https://www.insider.com/brothers-say-they-never-asked-rittenhouse-to-guard-car-source-2021-11
