Published on
Thursday, August 27, 2020
byCommon Dreams
Outrage Grows Over Police Treatment of Alleged Kenosha Killer Kyle
Rittenhouse Compared to Shooting Victim Jacob Blake
In the streets and on social media, anger and questions about systemic
racism and white privilege abound in the wake of Kenosha shootings.
byBrett Wilkins, staff writer
Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was arrested in his hometown of Antioch, Illinois, one
day following his alleged killing of two protesters in Kenosha, Wisc.
(Photo: Andalou/Getty)
Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was arrested at his home in Antioch, Illinois on
August 24, 2020, a day after he allegedly shot and killed two protesters,
and wounded a third, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. (Photo: Andalou/Getty Images)
Anger and questions mounted on Wednesday night and into Thursday over the
disparity in police treatment of Jacob Blake, a Black man shot numerous
times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin while intervening to stop a fight, and
Kyle Rittenhouse, the heavily-and unlawfully-armed white teen who was given
a pass by officers after he allegedly shot and killed two Kenosha
protesters.
Veteran Kenosha officer Rusten Sheskey fired seven shots at Blake, a
29-year-old father of five, hitting him four times in the back at near
point-blank range on Sunday, paralyzing him from the waist down as three of
his children looked on. Police said they found a knife under the floorboard
of Blake's car, although there are no claims he was threatening anyone with
it.
Bishop Talbert Swan, president of the Springfield, Mass. chapter of the
NAACP, tweeted video of a white man menacing police officers with a bladed
weapon in response to critics playing up Blake's knife.
Blake's shooting stands in stark contrast with the police treatment of
Rittenhouse, an aspiring cop and staunch supporter of President Donald Trump
whose social media accounts are brimming with Blue Lives Matter posts, and
who boasted online about being an armed vigilante. The teen, who posted
numerous photos in which he poses with guns, apparently heeded calls on
social media encouraging armed militia members to travel to Kenosha to
protect property from "evil thugs," and urging "patriots" to "shoot to
kill."
The 17-year-old teen-the age to legally carry firearms in public in
Wisconsin is 18-is seen in a video with other armed civilians violating
Kenosha's 8:00 pm curfew. However, police challenged neither of these
violations. Instead, officers in armored vehicles gave them water and told
them that, "we appreciate you guys, we really do," while simultaneously
ordering protesters to disperse and accusing them of "trespassing."
Cellphone video shows Rittenhouse running away after shooting three people,
two of them fatally. "I've just killed someone," he says. Only one of the
victims, 26-year-old Anthony Huber of Silver Lake, Wisc., has been
identified as of Thursday morning.
After the shooting, Rittenhouse walked toward police with his hands in the
air, his rifle slung across his chest, as protesters shouted to the officers
that the teen had just shot two people. The officers allowed Rittenhouse to
pass unmolested. He was able to travel back to his hometown of Antioch,
Illinois, some 20 miles (32 km) away, before finally being arrested the
following day and subsequently charged with first-degree intentional
homicide.
Outraged observers took to Twitter and other social media to note the racist
double standards and white privilege highlighted by the two shootings.
"Jacob Blake was shot several times in the back while walking away from
police officers," tweeted Nathalie Baptiste, a reporter for Mother Jones.
"Kyle Rittenhouse made it all the way home before being arrested. Law and
order is only for certain people."
Some compared the latest incidents to past police shootings of Black people
and the treatment afforded to white shooters, including Dylann Roof, who
massacred nine Black worshippers at a Charleston, South Carolina church in
2015.
Others criticized media coverage of the incidents.
"A 17-year-old white supremacist domestic terrorist drove across state lines
armed with an AR-15," tweeted Rep. Ayanna Presssley (D-Mass.). "He shot and
killed 2 people who had assembled to affirm the value, dignity, and worth of
Black lives. Fix your damn headlines."
On Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," host Trevor Noah wondered "why some
people get shot seven times in the back while other people are treated like
human beings and reasoned with and taken into custody with no bullets in
their bodies."
Meanwhile, Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis blamed Rittenhouse's victims
for their own deaths because they were "out after curfew"-as was the
shooter-while defending vigilantes' right to "exercise their constitutional
rights."
As professional athletes and teams from numerous sports and leagues
postponed games in protest of police killings of Blake, George Floyd,
Breonna Taylor and others, right-wing media and sports personalities
defended and even applauded Rittenhouse, while demonizing victims of police
and white supremacist violence. Popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson said
that Rittenhouse "had to maintain order," while disgraced former San
Francisco Giants slugger Aubrey Huff, who has been disinvited from the
team's 2010 World Series championship reunion over past racist and
misogynistic comments, called the teen "a national treasure."
At the Republican National Convention, police brutality and the Kenosha
killings went virtually unmentioned, while speakers heaped praise upon
President Donald Trump for his tough "law and order" rhetoric. Trump, who
has often been accused of courting and even inspiring white supremacists,
has been conspicuously silent in the wake of the Kenosha shootings.
Some RNC speakers decried the looting and "mobs" in cities run by Democrats
while ignoring police and racist violence.
"From Seattle to Portland to Washington and New York, Democrat-run cities
across this country are being overrun by violent mobs," South Dakota Gov.
Kristi Noem said. "There's looting, chaos, destruction and murder."
Some commentators wondered what it would take for many white Americans to
finally see the racism that so many others are protesting.
"The fundamental unfairness of [the Blake and Rittenhouse] tragedies in one
Wisconsin city... should be enough for even the most stubborn of white
Americans to understand why people are marching to assert and rightfully
demand that Black lives matter," wrote Chicago Tribune columnist Rex Huppke.
"The clear-as-glass unfairness of it all should be enough."
But, he concludes, "it won't be."