Protesters gathered Friday evening outside the Kenosha, Wisconsin, courthouse where a jury declared Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts, participating in demonstrations that were tense but ultimately nonviolent.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) had put 500 National Guard troops on notice ahead of the verdict in an attempt to discourage a repeat of last year’s unrest as Americans took to the streets to protest police brutality.
Armed with an AR-15-style rifle, Rittenhouse killed two people and injured a third last summer during racial justice protests in the lakeside city over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. (Blake survived being shot seven times in the back.) Despite living out of state, a 17-year-old Rittenhouse had driven into Kenosha ostensibly to defend infrastructure there.
He was acquitted on five charges Friday afternoon, including first-degree reckless homicide. Rittenhouse’s self-defense claim apparently resonated with the 12 jurors.
Supporters of Rittenhouse, who have emerged largely from the political right, confronted his critics outside the Kenosha courthouse, according to The Daily Beast.
Rittenhouse’s critics generally appeared to expect the acquittal. Still, a handful of protests over the controversial verdict sprung up in other cities around the country.
In Portland, Oregon, police declared a riot when a group of 100 to 200 protesters gathered around a downtown courthouse broke some nearby windows and vandalized buildings, local news outlets reported. One person was arrested, Portland CBS affiliate KOIN reported.
New Yorkers gathered outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, which was the site of a number of large racial justice demonstrations last summer. Hundreds reportedly marched from the venue to the Brooklyn Bridge that links the borough with Manhattan; they took a knee in solidarity with victims of police brutality and temporarily blocked traffic.
Smaller protests also cropped up in cities like Chicago and Oakland, California.
