Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, posted the full $2 million bond on Friday in his Wisconsin double-murder case.
BREAKING: Kyle Rittenhouse’s bond has been posted. $2 million. He is officially out custody, and ultimately, out of the Kenosha County Jail. pic.twitter.com/FDzt7Zt0pY
— Tony Atkins (@TonyAtkinsTV) November 20, 2020
The defendant is charged in the alleged murders Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26. He does not dispute shooting them; the incident was caught on tape. But Rittenhouse and his lawyers maintain the shooting was in self-defense. Although he is legally a minor, Law&Crime is naming Rittenhouse because he is being charged as an adult. Rittenhouse has also spoken publicly about his case in a jailhouse interview with The Washington Post.
“I feel I had to protect myself,” said Rittenhouse, an Illinois resident who went to Kenosha, Wisconsin amid tense, often raucous protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. “I would have died that night if I didn’t.”
(Warning, Graphic/Violent)
A crowd chases a suspected shooter down in Kenosha. He trips and falls, then turns with the gun and fires several times. Shots can be heard fired elsewhere as well, corroborating reports of multiple shooters tonight #Kenosha #KenoshaRiots pic.twitter.com/qqsYWmngFW— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) August 26, 2020
[Warning: Video is disturbing.]
Rittenhouse’s ties Kenosha included a friend, who he said purchased his rifle for him using money Rittenhouse got from a COVID-19 government stimulus check. He maintained, however, that the AR-15 was kept at the home of his friend and the friend’s father, who planned on transferring ownership to him next year.
At the time of the shooting, Rittenhouse was working as a life guard in the area after he was on furlough from the YMCA, he said. Armed people–usually, if not always, conservatives–went to Kenosha ostensibly to protect local property to against rioting and looting.
Rittenhouse’s case became a cause célèbre for conservatives. They, like his defense, maintain that Rittenhouse was just protecting himself; a lot of money was raised for his defense. But prosecutors maintain Rittenhouse’s actions were murder under the law.
[Mugshot via Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department]
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