The Case of Kyle Rittenhouse
How the Media Portrayed Kyle Rittenhouse vs. What Actually Happened
On August 25, 2020, 17 year-old Kyle Rittenhouse fatally shot two men and wounded another in Kenosha, Wisconsin. On November 19, 2021 he was acquitted on all charges.
The entire year following up to his trial was a wave of misinformation, racial backlash, and gun control protests. The media portrayed young Rittenhouse as a white supremacist and that he was out hunting for people. None of this information was true.
Kyle Rittenhouse was there that night with a rifle to help his friend and other business owners in the area protect their businesses from being destroyed by the protesters. While he was there, Kyle was attacked by three white men. Fearing for his life he shot them, killing two of them and injuring the other.
Rittenhouse had footage of the attack and presented it to the jury as vital evidence to prove that he did this out of self defense. In an exclusive interview with Steven Crowder, Kyle said, “If there wasn’t any of this footage the state would have been able to push their own narrative and say what they wanted to say and may have gotten away with it.”
Before the trial, everyone believed what the media was saying about Rittenhouse because that’s all we had for coverage on this incident. But, when the trial started and when we heard the defense attorney’s opening statements, it immediately showed that everything that the media painted Kyle as was false.
The biggest misperception that people had of Kyle was that he crossed state lines and that he was carrying an illegal firearm (he was already in Kenosha at the time and the firearm he carried was 100% legal for him to carry). Kyle shared his thoughts on the misinformation saying, “That’s the one I hear the most, that and again on the white supremacy stuff, it’s just false.”
We have seen a lot of this misinformation and censoring in the U.S. over the past few years and it really does affect what people think about what goes on in their country. The majority of the U.S. relies on social media platforms and misleading news channels for their information.
When this happens people easily believe what they hear and don’t think twice about what is said. This makes people who are blinded with lies unable to see the truth of what actually happened to any innocent person.
Kyle stated genuinely that, “People don’t do their research, I urge anybody to go back and watch the trial”(..)”so anybody, just, if you don’t know the facts just go back and watch the trial, spend like 2 and a half weeks watching it and just learn the facts of the case, and then make up your opinion after.”
A big argument was that Kyle had no business going to Kenosha, that it wasn’t his community. He stated that, “Kenosha was my community: my dad lived in Kenosha, my best friend lived in Kenosha and that was just my community. I hung out there every day and I spent more time in Kenosha than I did in Illinois.”
Kyle had actually gone to Kenosha the day before to visit a friend who lived there. Kyle said, “I was there that morning cleaning graffiti off of Reuther Central High School with Dominick and my sister and Ray, and then I stayed the night at Dominick’s house the night prior.” Along with this Kyle explains that, “For that whole ‘state line crossing’ stuff I worked in Kenosha.”
As you can see, the media has a big impact on what we think. That is why it is always important to do your own research to better understand what happened and also use it to back up your own opinion.
