By Scott Bauer, Associated Press
The trial for an 18-year-old from Illinois accused of killing two people and wounding a third during a protest against police brutality in Wisconsin was pushed back Wednesday by seven months and could be delayed even longer.
Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial was scheduled to begin March 29, but both sides told a judge that they needed more time to prepare. Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder set a Nov. 1 trial start date, with a May 17 status hearing.
Rittenhouse faces multiple felony counts, including reckless homicide and reckless endangerment. He also faces a misdemeanor count of being a minor in possession of a firearm.
Rittenhouse appeared with his attorney during the court hearing broadcast over Zoom. He only spoke when the judge asked him if he had any problem with the delay, which would push his trial start to more than a year after the shootings.
“No, your honor,” Rittenhouse said. He was seated behind his attorney and wearing a mask. The judge cautioned that the trial could be pushed back even further, saying the November date was “not written in stone.”
Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger said both sides needed more time, citing a “number of outstanding issues,” including DNA testing.
Rittenhouse’s attorney, Mark Richards, agreed to targeting the fall for a trial start.
“We’re interested in moving this matter forward but whatever the court decides, we’ll abide by,” he said.
According to prosecutors, Rittenhouse, who is white, traveled to Kenosha from his home in Antioch, Illinois, on Aug. 25 after a local militia posted an online message seeking help protecting businesses from protesters. Kenosha was in the throes of several nights of chaotic protests after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, who is Black, in the back during a domestic disturbance. The shooting left Blake paralyzed from the waist down.
Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, opened fire on protesters Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz with an AR-15-style rifle. Rosenbaum and Huber were killed. Grosskreutz was wounded but survived.
Grosskreutz and his attorney also attended the hearing but did not speak.
Rittenhouse has argued that he fired in self-defense after the three protesters attacked him. Police let him walk through their lines in the moments following the shootings, even though Rittenhouse still had his rifle slung over his shoulder and protesters were screaming that he had just shot three people.
Conservatives have rallied around him, painting him as a symbol for gun rights. They generated $2 million for his bail in November.
Black Lives Matter supporters have worked to define him as a trigger-happy white supremacist. Richards told Schroeder last month that Rittenhouse has received threats and has moved into an undisclosed safe house.
Is the prosecution hoping that the video evidence will be erased from the collective memory?
His defense is seriously just look at this and then we rest our case.
The video plus the fact that he went to the police immediately afterward (and was shooed home by them) *should* be a slam dunk. The wild card is whether he gets an anti-rights-activist judge like the one Michael Strickland got in Portland.
I watched the bail hearing and was impressed by the judge and am surprised he was appointed by a Democrat. The way he shot down the attorney for the “victims” indicates he’s pissed at the rioters for destroying the city.
The charging document alone is exculpatory. Attorney Nick Rekieta was expecting they’d charge him with a heavily slanted point of view and is amazed they even bothered with how horrible the document was for their case.
If I was Kyle why would you waive your right to a speedy trial? Force the hand of the prosecutor if he ain’t ready for trial why give him more time?
Damn it. Is this kid ever going to get the justice he deserves and be set free?
If this keeps up he’s more likely to die of COVID-19 in a crowded jail house full of miscreants than he would from any other cause.
Whatever happened to “Justice delayed is justice denied”?
Grosskreutz should be the one being prosecuted here, not Rittenhouse. It’s amazing to watch the video and then hear the testimony from that scumbag crying about how he hurts “in his heart, and his arm”. Grosskreutz and everyone else chasing Rittenhouse, and accosting him – including the deceased FELON – were the ones committing illegal and aggressive acts. Just more proof on how the law, and it’s enforcers, do not exist to “keep you safe”. I am all for seeing “recovered criminals” in a different light and believe they have earned their rights back by doing their time in “rehab”… but some are clearly morally conflicted and their crimes relate to their disgusting nature accordingly regardless of their “recovery rate”.
Rittenhouse should have covered his body and face then rucked out of town and never looked back. This is what happenings to wanna be “hero’s”. You either show up undetected and leave the same way, or be tracked for the rest of your life. Just ask the ones who murdered 2 people in their vehicle in CHAZ… where are they now? Undetected. That’s where. Stop being good “law abiding citizens” and learn to be the free criminals the government already knows you as. Rittenhouse, as innocent as he is stupid, should have planned accordingly. This is the result. Free him? Yes. Turn him into a hero? Fuck no. Learn from his mistakes. Obviously.
…and, I am not sure why this comment appears on David Walters comment… sorry David, just TTAG format doing normal annoying things…
Joseph Rosenbaum and the other two involved in Rittenhouse’s self defense case are all trash and should have been disposed of properly that night by the people Rittenhouse should have rucked in with, undetected.
Leave your cellphone at home.
After the capital riot authorities used cell phone data to identify some of those involved.
Interesting how the included screenshot of Grosskreutz has him labeled as a “victim”, even though he aggressively approached Kyle (twice) with a handgun pointed right at him. I suppose in Lefty Land up is now down.
“Rittenhouse, as innocent as he is stupid, should have planned accordingly.”
That would make it at least appear to be premeditated, which would likely mean a life on the lam, or some long, hard time maybe with a dead end. Hard core for a kid, but one doesn’t pick up a gun and not mean business.
Montana Actual,
With respect to your suggestion of discretely entering and leaving the area, that may not be possible any longer. More and more homes have recording surveillance cameras and it would be virtually impossible at this point to leave an area without someone’s camera capturing you. At that point, it boils down to whether or not law enforcement has enough motivation/incentive to find those cameras and review the video.
I suppose you could make an argument that making it very hard for law enforcement to find you increases your odds of avoiding a bogus prosecution. It might also be possible to avoid identification if you could somehow change your external clothing in such a way that law enforcement cannot easily prove that the person in the new clothing is the same person that was wearing the old clothing. Again, that boils down to how motivated law enforcement is.
And note: even if law enforcement cannot easily claim that you simply changed clothes based on no one else going into/out of some location, it is sometimes possible to establish whether two people are the same person based on their gait, length of stride, and other factors which are evident regardless of what clothing you wear.
Don’t forget “a fair and speedy trial”
Maybe the authorities hope there will be less rioting if he’s found innocent in November instead of in July.
The longer you delay it, the less interest people have.
Rosignol,
You might actually have a point.
This could very well be a situation that is almost entirely political in nature. If that is correct, then the prosecutor charged Rittenhouse ostensibly to “keep the peace” knowing full well that no jury would prosecute him — and delaying the trial long enough for it to fade from the public’s collective memory which would no longer rape/pillage/plunder when Rittenhouse goes free.
Yeah, he just opened fire, that’s what happened.
When you attack someone holding a rifle, do you expect to be met with karate, or a bullet?
The prosecutor and the team helping him should be publicly hanged.
Along with every reporter who feels the need to write “Rittenhouse, who is white”
This^^^
He’s also male, probably cisgendered and may, in fact be straight.
He’s essentially Satan.
strych9,
I don’t usually laugh this hard at five in the morning – thanks!
They don’t have a case and they hope something else happens so they can hide the charges being dropped.
Justice delayed is justice denied. This kid is being set up to take a fall. Mark my words.
Is Rittenhouse actually white as this article repeatedly proclaims? For some reason I thought I remember hearing he is of latino heritage.
Its all bullshit. ‘Rittenhouse’ is most certainly not a Latin name. It is most likely German or Austrian. Even if he has some Latin blood, so what? He’s Caucasian, and so are Latins who don’t have any black or native blood in their background. Caucasian is white in case any of you didn’t know that.
Not according to the left. If we can use their rules against them, I’m all for it.
I kind of wonder if this delay has anything to do with the up coming trial of Derek Chauvin over the death of George Floyd. Maybe they don’t want to deal with what’s looking to be two high profile acquittals in a row.
Obviously the attackers were clearly violent and had the young man down and cornered and the only way out was to shoot his way out. Hopefully the jurors will put themselves in his shoes and end the demoCrap.
I would hazard the guess that they pushed this back for political reasons; namely that they don’t want this trial to occur at the height of “riot season”.
emotional cases often benefit from long delays…factor in covid, and it makes even more sense
If the evidents is clear, video, eyewitnesses, there is NO reason to postpone sentence, this kind of bull shit is what causes so much corruption in the justice system, and cost the taxpayer millions of dollars that is unnecessary, just because the court’s won’t DO THEIR DUTIES, and punish the criminals quickly, if the evidents shows without a doubt that they commitment the crime, FOR example nickels killed people right in the courtroom while on trail, but yet it took a year to convict him, who payed the bill taxpayer’s, an open and shut case, shouldn’t have taken 30 seconds for justice to be served.
The courts always have a continuance on this shit. After three they are supposed to drop charges. You’ll never make it to three, number two is the the one. But then again it doesn’t
seem laws apply to those involved with the Court.Your supposed to have your court crap within two years, that’s a speedy trial I guess. In the mean time you sweat waiting. I thought let’s get it over with but it does count as time served. Kyle’s on probation.
I found all this out when I stabbed a guy and beat up the cops trying to arrest me.
BTW it does no good to fight the cops, they just keep radioing for more.
We really seem to have lost our ability as a nation to conduct a trial in less than a year.
Fuck around; find out.
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