The legal team for militia member Kyle Rittenhouse, the man charged with shooting to death two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August, referred to him an “American patriot” in a video outlining their defense.
“A 17-year-old citizen is being sacrificed by politicians, but it’s not Kyle Rittenhouse they are after. Their end game is to strip away the constitutional right of all citizens to defend our communities,†says a voiceover in a video released by Rittenhouse’s defense.
Rittenhouse is represented by high-profile legal and fundraising teams who have played down his actions during the Kenosha unrest, which took place after police officers shot Jacob Blake, an African American man. Rittenhouse faces six criminal counts, including first-degree intentional homicide and attempted homicide.
The news comes as Facebook faces a lawsuit alleging it failed to delete pages on its website that allowed people to encourage violence against protesters. The plaintiffs said “militia groups” were permitted to coalesce and that Rittenhouse “answered the Call to Arms by driving across state lines from Antioch, Illinois with an assault rifle.” The lawsuit alleges the people Rittenhouse killed would have lived had Facebook responded to the more than 400 warnings about activity on its platform.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
“As to Kyle Rittenhouse, this lawsuit is errant nonsense but may provide a golden opportunity for obtaining documents and sworn testimony from Facebook to bolster Kyle’s future defamation case against Facebook for falsely accusing him of mass murder,” Lin Wood, an attorney for Rittenhouse, told ABC News in a statement. “Thus, I view the lawsuit as a blessing in disguise.”
Alan is a writer, editor, and news junkie based in New York.
