Rittenhouse is a Symptom of a Very Sick Society

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Kyle Rittenhouse was just 17-years-old when his mother drove him from their home in Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where she dropped him - and his AR-15 rifle which he was not old enough to own, much less operate - at a crowded public demonstration.  Kyle was there to "protect property" from the demonstrators and his presence, along with that of other armed counter-protestors, seemed to be occurring with the tacit approval of the local police.

It was the evening of August 25, 2020, and the streets of Kenosha were filled with people protesting the police shooting of a young black man two days earlier.  The victim of that shooting, Jacob Blake, had been confronted by police following a domestic violence call, and one of the two white officers responding, shot Blake seven times (four in the back and three in the side) as he was reaching into the driver's side of his vehicle.   Blake survived but is now paralyzed from the waist down and suffered several other serious injuries as a result of the shooting.

Rittenhouse, the unsupervised youth whose mother left him at the demonstration two nights later, shot and killed two people - both young men - while he roamed the streets with the mob  - and he seriously wounded a third individual, a man who was there working as a paramedic.  Of Rittenhouse's three victims only the paramedic was armed.

Today Joseph "Jojo" Rosenbaum, who was 36-years-old on the evening Kyle Rittenhouse shot him four times and ended his life, lies moldering in a grave.    During a confrontation with Rittenhouse, Jojo had thrown a plastic bag at the armed youth before being shot.  Rittenhouse later admitted in his trial that he knew Rosenbaum was unarmed when he shot him.  Jojo's daughter is four now, and undoubtedly does not have many memories of the father that the boy from Illinois so callously and deliberately removed from her life. 

Today Anthony Michael Huber is also rotting away underground.  Huber, who had celebrated his 26th birthday just four days before that fateful evening in Kenosha when Kyle Rittenhouse killed him, had been a friend of Jacob Blake's.  Anthony Huber, who was also unarmed, had seen Rittenhouse gun down Jojo Rosenbaum and ran toward the shooter along with several others in an effort to remove his gun.   Huber was carrying his skateboard - as he always did - and he hit Rittenhouse with the skateboard as he tried to grab the boy's gun.  But Rittenhouse managed to fire one shot at the man with the skateboard and hit him.  Huber, after being hit, turned to get away, and then collapsed on the ground and died.

Rittenhouse's third victim was 27-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz, a paramedic who was at the scene with medical supplies.  He was carrying a pistol.  Gaige had moved toward Rittenhouse when he saw him shoot Huber.  Rittenhouse shot him one time in the arm, a shot that took out most of his bicep and has resulted in multiple surgeries and treatments and left the young man in a state of prolonged pain.

Kyle Rittenhouse was able to walk through police lines that evening with his AR-15 in-hand and return to his home in Illinois.

Kyle Rittenhouse was brought to trial in Kenosha in November of 2021 to face several charges, the most serious of which was "first degree reckless homicide" and "use of a dangerous weapon," and he was eventually acquitted of all charges with the jury buying his defense that he had acted in self-defense.

Rittenhouse's mother was never charged for her role in transporting an armed 17-year-old across a state line and leaving him in a dangerous situation.

Over the years since Kyle Rittenshouse killed two unarmed young men in Kenosha and wounded an armed paramedic, he and the shootings have become a cause celebre among gun rights groups, white nationalists, and Republican politicians.   Rittenhouse has traveled to Mar-a-Lago to be photographed with Donald Trump, and this past week he visited the US Capitol where he met with some Republican members of Congress and posed for a picture with Marjorie Taylor Greene - and even openly fantasized about someday serving in Congress himself.

Kyle Rittenhouse, a neglected child who ended the lives of two human beings and destroyed the quality of life of a third, is slowing morphing into a folk hero whose image is being burnished by a society that intermingles guns and violence with religion and government.   Perhaps Kyle is not old enough nor wise enough to own the intentional harm that he has caused to others - but Donald Trump, Marge Greene, and the human garbage that passes for the white (Christian) nationalist, anti-democracy wing of the GOP certainly know the harm that they bring to our nation by glorifying vigilantes and domestic terrorism.

Kyle Rittenhouse is not a hero.   He is a symptom of a very sick society.