We all remember how the summer of 2020 exposed bitter fault lines in America, even as a pandemic raged. The streets of the nation have seldom seen such widespread demonstrations as they did in the wake of bystander video of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police going viral.
On August 25 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, another demonstration broke out, this time protesting the police killing of Jacob Blake two days earlier. During that demonstration, protesters Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber were shot and killed.
The next day, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse was arrested in connection with their deaths.
Rittenhouse’s case has become a political lightning rod.
Black Lives Matter’s supporters have portrayed Rittenhouse as a radicalized white supremacist who was out looking to kill the night of August 25.
Conservatives and gun rights activists have defended his actions and taken up his version of events, in which he says he was defending businesses with a rifle he brought across state lines and feared for his life when he opened fire.
The teen’s bail was set at $2 million.
While Rittenhouse’s lawyer asked bail to be set at $750,000, Huber’s father petitioned the judge to set it upwards of $4 million, suggesting that the boy felt himself above the law and would be hidden among militia groups should he be released, AP News reported.
Fundraising efforts were already under way before the bail figure was announced, and it didn’t take long for Rittenhouse’s supporters, actor Ricky Schroder and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell among them, to come up with the money.
To Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rittenhouse’s backers have only exposed more inequality in the justice system.
“People who argue that dramatic changes to policing, including budgetary ones, will mean ‘violent people will be let out of jail to roam free’ rarely ever acknowledge that’s actually the current system we have today for the privileged,” she wrote on Twitter.
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She also suggested that the case represented a double standard.
“Does anyone believe Rittenhouse would be released if he were Muslim & did the same thing in a diff context?” she continued . “For people who say ‘systemic racism doesn’t exist,’ this is what it looks like: protection of white supremacy baked deep into our carceral systems. Law and disorder.”
It’s unclear what Rittenhouse’s plans are while he’s out on bail.
Following his release, Rittenhouse and his lawyer, John Pierce, posed for a photo op with Schroder, and Florida State Representative Anthony Sabatini suggested he run for Congress.
What do you think of Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s analysis of the case? Let us know in the comments!
