After Kyle Rittenhouse on Friday was found not guilty on all five felony charges brought against him for the shootings that killed two men and injured a third, the American Civil Liberties Union suggested that the defendant's civil liberties ought not to be protected.
The jury acquitted Rittenhouse of first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree recklessly endangering safety, first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide after he had been on trial for shooting and killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and injuring Gaige Grosskreutz during an August 2020 riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin that was in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
The ACLU said in a Twitter thread following the verdict that Rittenhouse was not held responsible for his actions despite his "conscious decision to travel across state lines and injure one person and take the lives" of two others.
Despite Kyle Rittenhouse’s conscious decision to travel across state lines and injure one person and take the lives of two people protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake by police, he was not held responsible for his actions.
— ACLU (@ACLU) November 19, 2021
Unfortunately, this is not surprising.
ACLU-Wisconsin Interim Executive Director Shaadie Ali released a statement Friday claiming that the "events in Kenosha stem from the deep roots of white supremacy in our society’s institutions," adding that they "underscore that the police do not protect communities of color in the same way they do white people."
Ali also echoed the ACLU's Twitter account, saying that Rittenhouse made a "conscious decision to take the lives of two people protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake by police" but was "not held responsible for his actions."
Brandon Buskey, director of the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project, added that Rittenhouse was a "juvenile who traveled across state lines on a vigilante mission" and was "allowed by police" to "roam the streets" with an "assault rifle and ended up shooting three people and killing two."
"This complicity, along with the reason for the protests that Rittenhouse took it upon himself to confront — the police shooting of a Black man outside of a family function — highlights that the violence in Kenosha is not an anomaly, but rather endemic to a system built upon white supremacy," Buskey said in his statement.