Teen Arrested For Kenosha Shooting :: 08/27/2020

Kenosha has been something of a hot mess. Several nights of violence, though last night was reportedly peaceful, over what sure looks like a clean officer-involved shooting. Then again, in this day and age, no police officer can shoot a black man no matter how justified without some segments of society completely flipping their lids.

Tuesday night’s shooting in Kenosha, where an armed individual the media has identified as a member of a militia killed two people and injured one, it’s likely to cause things to settle down.

From the videos I’ve seen, it sure looks like a justified shooting, at least to some degree. However, the young man at the center of all of this has still been arrested.

A 17-year-old Illinois resident connected to an overnight shooting during a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was taken into custody Wednesday morning, according to police in Antioch, Illinois.

Wisconsin authorities issued an arrest warrant charging Kyle Rittenhouse with first-degree intentional homicide, Antioch Police said. He is in the custody of the Lake County Judicial System pending an extradition hearing to transfer him from Illinois to Wisconsin. Antioch is located about 15 to 20 miles from Kenosha, just across the state border.

Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis confirmed that a 17-year-old Antioch resident has been charged in a shooting incident and said that the man “was involved in the use of firearms to resolve whatever conflict was in place.”

He called the killings “senseless violence” and said he couldn’t say what led to the shooting.

Except, they weren’t that “senseless.” The first shooting appears to be a guy slinging a Molotov cocktail–a deadly weapon–in Rittenhouse’s direction. The second victim was trying to beat the kid with a skateboard, also a deadly weapon. The wounded individual had a freaking pistol.

So yeah, let’s not pretend Rittenhouse was just running down the street gunning people down all willy-nilly.

However, despite the clear evidence of the video, Rittenhouse isn’t out of the woods. There may actually be a case.

You see, while the act itself sure as hell looks like self-defense, Rittenhouse is only 17. The fact that he’s a minor may mean he couldn’t legally be carrying a firearm openly like that in Kenosha. There’s also the fact that he crossed state lines with that rifle. Granted, the entire trip was only a few miles, but it may well be enough to add to the young man’s predicament.

In fact, him crossing state lines will likely be used to try and prove intent with the first-degree murder charges he faces.

I’m not saying he should do time over this, mind you. The video of the incident makes it look like a clear case of self-defense regardless of how old he was and where he came from. However, that doesn’t mean some prosecutor isn’t going to try and hammer him.

Then again, authorities almost had to try and prosecute him. If they didn’t, the violence would likely intensify. As it is, things appear to have settled down on Wednesday night in Kenosha. While protests continued, these seem to have been actually peaceful instead of mostly peaceful. My guess is that no one wanted to risk getting shot in the face again. Even though the “militias” stayed home, I suppose no one wanted to risk it.

Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. He's also the host of Unloaded TV on YouTube. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/

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