Anthony Huber was “protesting” in Kenosha on August 25. He was also one of the (at least) four men who attacked Kyle Rittenhouse that night during rioting. Huber was the one who tried to cave Rittenhouse’s skull in with a skateboard.
Rittenhouse shot Huber once in the chest, killing him. Now huber’s girlfriend, described as his “life partner,” and three others who were in Kenosha that night, have filed a federal lawsuit against Rittenhouse, a couple of militia organizations and Facebook.
Extended footage of the shooting in Kenosha. pic.twitter.com/oBG6UgT0Fs
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 26, 2020
Facebook? Yes, they’ve sued the social media platform. The plaintiffs argue that the militia groups — something called the Kenosha Guard and the Boogaloo Bois — used their Facebook pages to call on armed members to come to Kenosha.
From BuzzFeed News:
The five-count civil complaint filed late Tuesday in a Wisconsin federal court argues that Facebook “empowered right wing militias to inflict extreme violence and deprive Plaintiffs and protestors of their rights” by providing a platform for the groups to recruit members and plan violence. It also accuses alleged shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, a follower of the fringe anti-government group “boogaloo,” and the “commander” of the self-described militia group Kenosha Guard of being part of a violent conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of four Black Lives Matter protesters, including the partner of a man killed during the protests.
You can read the lawsuit here.
“There is a failure on the part of Facebook to act based upon warnings that result[ed] in armed militias violating state law and in the case of Rittenhouse going to a peaceful protest to violently repress and deter American citizens from engaging in their constitutional rights,” attorney Jason Flores-Williams, who filed the suit, told BuzzFeed News.
Facebook’s robotic head honcho may have opened the company up to the lawsuit with some ill-advised public statements.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees the company’s failure to remove the event page was “an operational mistake.” BuzzFeed News also reported that Facebook did not remove the page after the shootings occurred, despite its claims to employees and the press to the contrary. The company later apologized for misleading the public.
As for the three plaintiffs in addition to Huber’s girlfriend, one is claiming “extreme emotional distress and physical harm from witnessing the murder of Rittenhouse’s first victim.” Another one says she was pepper sprayed and suffered emotional distress. The third was allegedly “assaulted, harassed and had his movement inhibited,” something the plaintiffs’ attorney creatively calls “false imprisonment of a Black man.” This allegedly caused him extreme emotional trauma.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory and statutory damages — the amount to be determined — as well as an injunction against Facebook prohibiting the company “from violating its own policies that are supposed to prevent violent rhetoric, militia groups, and other racially motivated hate groups from congregating and interacting on its site.”