Nov 26, 2021
By Mohammad Al-Jaber
Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal opened the door for much of the American right to champion their anti-BLM and pro-gun narrative; Exploiting a tragedy for their interests does not seem too surprising.
From a protest calling for racial equality in the United States to a blood bath that saw a white teen claiming the lives of protestors. That is how the protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin on August 25, 2020, unfolded, and over a year later, the killer was acquitted of his crimes.
After reflecting on how the justice system was an accomplice to the acquittal of the white teenager and racial discrimination in the United States in Part I, it will be revealed how the police contribute to the same issue, in addition to shedding light on Rittenhouse’s trial and its aftermath.
Police force
The police force is a system that shares racism with the judiciary in the United States. In fact, it is what delivers the alleged offenders to the wolves of the US courts, who then do with them as they wish.
There is so much evidence to support this “claim” that amounts to a fact, such as the fact that Black people are 27% more likely to be killed by the police, 35% more likely to be unarmed, and 36% less likely to be threatening someone when killed.
Solid facts prove that the police have been notorious for their treatment of minorities, especially black people.
Looking back to 2020, protests erupted across the states after a policeman brutally knelt on the neck of a black man for 8 minutes 46 seconds, killing him on the scene as he was pleading for his life. Said protests resulted in an awareness campaign on racism in the US, which put many forgotten cases in the spotlight and called for more accountability in future ones.
Not in any particular order, we will be shining the light on several cases of police brutality against black people across the United States.
Case 1: Tamir Rice
Tamir Rice was only a 12-year-old boy at the time of his murder at the hands of white police officer Timothy Loehmann under the pretext of the young kid possessing a firearm.
Someone had called the police in Cleveland, Ohio, about a male carrying a gun in the area, which the caller said was fake, and reiterated his statement later in the call, also informing the police that the suspect was “probably a juvenile.”
Tamir Rice was killed while carrying a replica gun, a toy in essence, while Kyle Rittenhouse walked by police vehicles after shooting several people without getting shot as someone was yelling at the police about the crime he had just committed.
“Rittenhouse had his hands up while walking toward and past police vehicles.”
Well so did case 2:
Adam Toledo
Adam was a 13-year-old Latino boy who was shot and killed by the Chicago police for possession of a weapon – which was later retrieved from the scene for it to appear that it was an empty 9mm handgun – while complying with the police officer’s orders.
Toledo had his hands in the air when the police officer shot him, body-cam footage showed.
So why was Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenager brandishing an AR-15 which the police knew was loaded due to information acquired from a pedestrian, treated so differently than Adam Toledo, a Latino child, who was no older than 13 and complied with the officer’s orders but got shot nonetheless?
Maybe Kyle’s complexion stopped him from looking suspicious holding his AR despite someone shouting that he had just shot several people.
Perhaps the next case will reveal the shocking reality of police racial prejudice.
Case 3: Elijah McClain
Elijah McClain was a 23-year-old autistic Black man who was killed at the hands of the police and paramedics after three white officers stopped him on the grounds that he “looked suspicious.” Elijah had been wearing an open ski mask to protect himself from chronic chills caused by his anemia. He was also wearing headphones, which prevented him from hearing calls from the police officers. McClain objectively did nothing wrong, which he voiced to the police officers as they were wrestling him to the ground ahead of putting him in a chokehold.
McClain was pleading and telling the police officers he could not breathe while urging them to respect his boundaries as he was introverted.
McClain went unconscious, prompting the police officers to release him from the chokehold. Afterward, a medic injected McClain with 500mg of ketamine to sedate him because he was struggling after regaining consciousness.
Due to the drugs administered into his system, alongside the stressful situation he was in, Elijah went into cardiac arrest. Three days after arriving at the hospital, he was declared brain dead, and then removed from life support three days thereafter.
All the aforementioned “cases” are not simply “arguments” to support a claim: They are human beings who lost their lives to an unfair system without their killers receiving the proper justice.
Tamir Rice’s killer, Timothy Loehmann, was sacked from his job without any charges. Adam Toledo’s killer, Eric Stillman, was also just sacked without charges. Elijah McClain’s killers, Nathan Woodyard, Jason Rosenblatt, and Randy Roedema, have been indicted, but nothing much is anticipated since we are talking about the US justice system, especially since we’re talking about the same system that did not take any action against the cop murderers of Breonna Taylor, who was fatally shot in the safety of her own home, and acquitted the killer of teenage black honor student Antwon Rose II.
And we must not forget that over the past 15 years, only 44 officers (out of the 121 who faced murder or manslaughter charges) have been convicted, and often for lesser offenses, just like Breonna Taylor’s case.
The trial, again
Now, back to the trial.
Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges, but let’s look at those trying him, and who practically declared it open season against protestors through their acquittal.
The jury
The jury was picked in one day, and it comprised 20 members – 11 women and nine men, nothing out of the ordinary. It nearly aced the male-to-female ratio of the US population. However, one aspect of this jury could explain many things: out of the 20 members, only one member was from an ethnic minority, the rest were all white.
The jury was overwhelmingly white and was trying a white teenager who killed citizens protesting for black lives. One wonders how Kyle was acquitted with all this adversity he was facing in the trial.
The judge
Judge Bruce Schroeder, also white – surprisingly – left much more to be desired. From ruling that the victims of Kyle’s criminality should not be called “victims,” but rather “rioters,” “looters,” and “arsonists,” to allowing the defendant to pick the names of the jurors through a raffle, Schroeder raised many concerns about the direction in which the trial was headed before it even started.
Judge Schroeder exhibited several signs of unprofessionalism. He played a game of “Jeopardy!” with the potential jurors and made a speech with racial undertones as to why he had defendants blindly pick the names of the jurors.
One of the charges legal experts thought would most likely get Rittenhouse some time in prison for – possession of a dangerous weapon – was dismissed by Schroeder after the defense found a “legal loophole,” which only prevented minors from owning short-barrelled rifles. That law is adopted in Wisconsin, and Kyle’s rifle was an AR-15, a long-barrelled rifle.
The courtroom under Schroeder was unbelievably chaotic, with an unusual amount of shouting, putting his professionalism up for question.
And lastly, during the cross-examination, the judge’s phone rang to the ringtone of “God Bless the USA.” The song is a patriotic song popular among conservatives in the US and was used many times as Donald Trump’s entrance theme during his rallies, which also reflected the judge’s most probable political stance towards the cause for which Huber and Rosenbaum died – BLM.
Kyle Rittenhouse
The murderous teenager did not shy away from putting his complexion and white tears to use, as they must have garnered the judge and the jury’s sympathy, especially that his skin color matched theirs.
Kyle played the victim card shortly after getting on the stand, on which he shed crocodile tears and claimed Rosenbaum had “ambushed” him, arguing self-defense.
The judge gave Rittenhouse a 10-minute break to compose himself. But were his victims given a break before he shot them?
Kyle’s testimony saw him reiterating what he said during the aforementioned interview before the attack. He also argued self-defense when it came to his murder of two men and the wounding of a third. “I did nothing wrong,” he boldly claimed.
There isn’t much to address in Kyle’s testimony, for in the court, he was not the one at fault as much as the defense team, the jurors, and the judge, and looking at recordings of the testimony, one could easily predict the defense had coached Rittenhouse on what to say.
All in all, the trial was very disappointing, especially with how the judge was too stern against the prosecution while being too lenient in favor of the defense and, well, the end result, Kyle’s acquittal.
Celebrating crime
By acquitting Rittenhouse, the US justice system committed a crime against his victims, allowing them to be perceived as terrorists for trying to stop him from putting somebody in harm’s way while designating him a “hero” for “protecting property.”
This goes to show that the justice system in question sees defending property as a valid cause for murder while perceiving protesting against systemic racism and police brutality as a crime.
Rittenhouse went on to become an icon for the far-right in the United States, those of them who oppose Black Lives Matter and the protests that went on calling for racial equality. Those who want to have guns in their holsters all the time in case “the government tries to oppress them” do not want others to protest because of the same reason: government-sponsored oppression.
Kyle garnered support from the radical right in America and its leaders, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene went as far as pushing for rewarding Kyle a gold Congressional Gold Medal for “protecting the community of Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a Black Lives Matter (BLM) riot on August 25, 2020.” Not only that, but GOP congressmen have offered Rittenhouse an internship following this fiasco, seeing him as some sort of validation for their conservative cause.
Those congressmen include Rep. Madison Cawthorn, Rep. Lauren Boebert, and Rep. Matt Gaetz.
The American right went out on protests to support Kyle Rittenhouse, surprisingly not solely because of his race but because to them, his acquittal was a tool they could use to champion “gun rights” in a country where gun-related killings constitute 73% of all homicides.
Finally, when Donald Trump, a man notorious for his racism and obstruction of justice, not only congratulates you but hosts you in his resort in Florida in celebration, you’re probably in the wrong.
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