For those who followed the Kyle Rittenhouse trial closely, there is no doubt in their minds that the young man who shot rioters in Kenosha, Wisc. was not guilty of murder.
Most of America, however, did not watch the proceedings, or not closely, at least. They got their information spoon-fed to them by the mainstream media. They expected a conviction.
Mature Americans can agree that a 17-year-old should not have run to the fight, as riots tore across America during the 2020 election year – riots fomented by anti-Trump forces like Black Lives Matter and Antifa cells. Rittenhouse had the courage of youth, but not the wisdom of years to know how badly things could go for him during that “fiery but peaceful” riot.
But, as many of the actual trial watchers have observed, the prosecution had no legitimate case. So they lied, withheld evidence, and even doctored video provided to the defense.
In the end, the jury was able to see through it all.
Rittenhouse now deserves his own justice. President Joe Biden, then a candidate, called him a “white supremacist” in 2020. Celebrity journalists and politicians on Twitter condemned the young man before the trial.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley’s message in 2020 was by parroted by thousands of Twitter trolls and other racist partisans who are on the record with their premature verdict.
She wrote: “A 17 year old white supremacist domestic terrorist drove across state lines, armed with an AR 15. He shot and killed 2 people who had assembled to affirm the value, dignity, and worth of Black lives,” she wrote on July 26, 2020. There are hundreds of declarations just like hers from the famous and the famous-for-being-famous.
As jury deliberations had dragged into a third day, some observers thought a guilty plea was all but inevitable. There appeared to be no “slam dunk” in the making.
Rittenhouse’s defense attorney, considered one of the best criminal defense lawyers in Wisconsin, told media he had never had a jury take longer than 18 hours. The jury had deliberated for nearly 24 hours, and then Friday morning the verdict came: Not guilty on all counts.
For this writer, that appears to be the correct set of verdicts. There is plenty of reasonable doubt that recommends acquittal; Rittenhouse was under attack by grown men, one with a gun, and he fired in self-defense.
To review, Rittenhouse, who was a 17-year-old youth from a nearby suburb, volunteered to be on foot patrol in downtown Kenosha in August of 2020. It’s where his family lives and race riots were burning it down.
Rittenhouse had on him an AR-15-style rifle. He was trained on the weapon and he kept it properly pointed down, as evidenced in all the video available, until he had to save his own life when he was attacked.
His actions were clearly self-defense, but in that moment, he killed two men and wounded another. The charges were reckless homicide and attempted homicide. Other charges relating to possession the weapon were already dropped.
Rittenhouse’s case became fodder for the leftist media, which declared him guilty early on, painted him in the worst possible light, called him a white supremacist, and colluded to misinform and shape public opinion against the youth.
The media saw Rittenhouse as the easiest of targets, fitting their narrative of a Trump supporter.
The lawsuits and settlements could certainly help restore some order to Rittenhouse’s interrupted life. Patriotic Americans would willingly contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to help the young man win justice against those who prematurely condemned him as a criminal.
A parallel to this case of media malpractice is the story of Nick Sandmann, a high school student who was defamed by The Washington Post and CNN, and many other news outlets.
“The parallels between me and Kyle Rittenhouse are impossible not to draw,” Sandmann wrote this week. “Kyle was 17-years-old when he became a household name after that terrible tragedy in Kenosha. I was 16-years-old when I was catapulted into the national conversation by video of an encounter with a Native American activist on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.”
Sandmann eventually settled his $250 million lawsuit agains the Post and CNN. But the damage to his reputation, as the damage to Rittenhouse’s reputation, has been done by the pig sty that American journalism has become.
Lawsuit or no lawsuit, there will be no real reckoning for the media. As with its corrupt colluding with the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 to take down Donald Trump with the Steele dossier, the wholesale slaughter of a boy in Wisconsin is merely collateral damage for news outlets that are organ grinders for the Democratic Party.
But at the very least, Rittenhouse deserves his justice against who railroaded him in the court of law and in the court of public opinion.
Suzanne Downing is the publisher of Must Read Alaska and Must Read America. Read Suzanne Downing's Reports — More Here.
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