I wonder if two "unarmed" people were attacking you, would you just let them beat you to death? I can't understand this train of thought at all.
With regards to your point about Rosenbaum, I don't disagree. But the fact remains that the only weapon in that interaction was Rittenhouse's (unless you count a bag of underpants).
What about the 3rd assailant who admitted on the stand to pulling a gun and aiming it prior to being shot, or the man in the mob (that mob was shouting "get him" may I add) who unloaded a magazine into the air during the incident?
The third guy, Grosskreutz, did indeed have a handgun, which he drew and pointed at a man who had already killed two people.
Again, I'm not saying that Rittenhouse did not have a justification to fear for his life and limb in those specific circumstances.
But they were circumstances which were created largely by his own decisions (travelling to Kenosha, carrying a weapon, shooting Rosenbaum).
I'm not trying to say that the people Rittenhouse shot at were angels. But none of them killed anyone.
They attempted to kill Kyle, but he defended himself. The reason Kyle wasn't murdered is not due to their sense of morals but instead their incompetence as combatants. It seems the rioters had more experience assaulting women and children and were ill equiped to assault a young man.
Again, not trying to paint these guys as angels, but it does not seem that this is correct:
- the 'mob' chasing Rittenhouse that led eventually to him opening fire on Rosenbaum were shouting 'get him', and may even have shouted 'kill him'. We know that at least one of these people had a gun, but this gun was fired up into the air, rather than at Rittenhouse, and Rosenbaum threw a bag of clothes at Rittenhouse. Yes, Rosenbaum was approaching Rittenhouse, and Rittenhouse was probably scared, but it doesn't look like Rosenbaum was about to kill him.
- Huber's half-hearted hit with the skateboard hardly seems like the kind of force he could have mustered if his intent were to smash Rittenhouse's head in (it also seems from the video as though Huber was already moving away from Rittenhouse by the time Rittenhouse shot him)
- Grosskreutz approached Rittenhouse with his pistol drawn and pointed at Rittenhouse, but did not fire at him, instead opting to try to disarm him. If he'd been trying to kill him, he'd have had the chance to do so.
Thanks for the discussion though, always interesting to hear someone else's point of view, even more so when neither of us has any different facts to the other.
Anyone stupid enough to charge someone carrying a weapon is not the kinda person you wanna take a chance being in close proximity with. You expect him to just stand there and take a beating? Or try to talk it out while the mob is threatening to kill him. How much time should he spend analyzing the situation?
Feel free to stand around and get beat down by a mob while you try to explain yourself. I think the rest of us would rather deal with a jury.
Maybe children shouldn't have guns. Maybe children shouldn't get themselves into situations where they feel the only way they can survive is to shoot and kill people.
If he believed Kyle was an active shooter why would he "pull" his punches so to speak. If he didn't believe Kyle was an active shooter than he didn't have any reasons to attack and disarm him.
My personal opinion is that he wasn't trying to use the skateboard as a weapon, he was trying to use it as a shield, or to give him a bigger surface to push the gun with.
Either that or that the idea came to him too late to swing fully.
Those are both good questions though, and I don't have answers to either.
Maybe enforcement should do their job so children don't have to try to do their job for them.
Completely agree on this one.
I think it is incredibly likely that if Rittenhouse did not have a gun, then the two people he killed would still be alive, and I find it unlikely that Rittenhouse would be dead today.
You are correct that I don't believe that these specific circumstances that led to these deaths should be legal.
I don't believe all attempts to defend oneself are wrong, nor do I believe that it's inherently wrong to use 'unbalanced' force in the context of self-defence (ie: just because someone is unarmed does not mean that you should never use deadly force against them).
My opinion is that he had a gun he shouldn't have had, was in a place he shouldn't have been, causing trouble he shouldn't have been involved in, and killed two people who shouldn't have died.
As it turns out, none of that is illegal.
There’s a case (I think it might still be pending) about a drunk guy who hits someone one time and kills them. I’ve seen a video of a kid hitting his friend and killing them. In fact, a lot of people have died from being hit just one time the wrong way.
Even if he weren’t armed, Rosenbaum still chases him down. Rosenbaum’s buddy Zaminski had a gun too. If they’d pinned him down, they might have shot him given all the trouble they went through to ambush him.
Also, Grosskreutz is interesting. He ran down Rittenhouse while pulling a gun. At the same time, he testified he had no reason to believe Rittenhouse had shot anyone.
Mob mentality is crazy. Loads of people have died at the hands of unarmed mobs. Any individual would never hurt anyone else, but together, the mob mentality results in something terrible happens.
> I don't believe all attempts to defend oneself are wrong, nor do I believe that it's inherently wrong to use 'unbalanced' force in the context of self-defence (ie: just because someone is unarmed does not mean that you should never use deadly force against them).
Your other points are all good and interesting - one in particular caught my eye:
> If they’d pinned him down, they might have shot him
That's true, but they might not have. You can't just go around shooting people because you're afraid that their friend might come and shoot you.
He wasn't worried about that. He was worried about they guy trying to grab the gun in his hands (as proven due to the powder stippling on half of Rosenbaum's hand).
We've got the Joker just released from the mental hospital. He beats up the woman he's supposed to love and He's trying to burn down the city. How much self control will he have toward a complete stranger who is foiling his plans?
You seem to be arguing that there's nothing to fear in this situation.
What other options are there once the situation is inevitable?
This is the second time you're telling me what I'm arguing, and the second time you're wrong.
I absolutely, completely believe that Rittenhouse was in mortal fear for his life when he killed Rosenbaum.
But he should never have had a gun, and he should never have been in that situation.
- Rittenhouse did something legal, but risky and potentially foolhardy.
- An external agent intervenes, causing the incident
- "Well, he shouldn't have been there to begin with" vs "Well, she knew that was a bad part of town"
Main differences there would be that he defended himself successfully, so to some, victim and aggressor get flipped.
I would probably think that a potential rape victim who successfully defended him or herself was justified in doing so.
But there is a scale.
You can't go and stand on the sidelines at an orgy, then shoot anyone who looks at you funny. You can't go and shoot someone who offers to buy you a drink on the off-chance they might slip a roofie in it. You can't just turn around and shoot someone who is walking behind you in case they might be a rapist. On the other hand, if you shoot a guy who tries to drag you into his car, that's pretty clearly a sensible defence.
There are grey areas here too. What if a guy runs up behind you and you spin around and shoot, and it turns out you'd left your phone at the bar, and he was trying to catch up and give it to you.
> 'legal, but risky and potentially foolhardy'
This does describe both 'drinking a lot' and 'going with a gun to a riot', but I don't think it does justice to the differences between the behaviours.
Drinking too much, wearing short skirts, etc. does not imply any kind of consideration of consequences. Bringing a gun to a riot DOES. It shows that Rittenhouse was aware of the increased likelihood of violence, and had already decided that he was prepared to respond with deadly force.
Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter?
Agreed. You're in luck here, as I've actually just rewatched the Fox clip of Grosskreutz's court appearance just before I saw this, and cross referenced it with the NYT visual investigation just to account for selective clipping.
In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate. As to why I believe so, lets go over what happened post Rosenbaum.
In the initial confrontation, Rittenhouse retreats, trips and falls to the ground. Huber hits Rittenhouse with a skateboard and gets shot in the chest. Grosskreutz then advances with his gun, then gets shot as well.
Why do I consider this proportionate? First: Rittenhouse made an attempt to retreat. Only after the first physical attack (skateboard) and an attempted disarming, did Rittenhouse fire. After which, as per Grosskreutz's own admission, Rittenhouse did not fire when he backed off with his arms raised. Only after he ~returned to a firing position~ lowered his firearm and advanced did Rittenhouse fire on him as well. As he was armed and advancing with a firearm, I'd consider that a proportional response.
>Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter?
Apologies, I'm not too sure of the context before that as I've only personally seen the bit where Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse. However, if Huber and Grosskreutz did believe that they had an active shooter, they might ALSO be justified. Both sides here may have a sufficient justification in this case.
However, in my opinion, and this is contingent on the accuracy of the NYT's report and the above assumption of "active shooter", the only ones who weren't justified, and are thus the root cause, are Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse, and whoever that idiot shooting a pistol into the sky while Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse was.
There's of course more to this, but I'll leave it open for response.
Also, thanks for keeping it civil, it's much appreciated when discussing this sort of controversial topic.
Same!
Just briefly on this:
> Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse
I don't think it's been clearly established why Rosenbaum attacked Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse's testimony on this sounds hollow and unlikely, and the narrative that Rosenbaum was unhinged after getting out of hospital doesn't quite tally with the fact that there were people with him - he wasn't a lone actor here.
It seems incredibly unlikely that there wasn't some sort of verbal provocation from Rittenhouse's side. As I mentioned in another comment, the drone footage shows Rittenhouse pointing his gun at Rosenbaum while Rosenbaum is still 20 feet away from him. To my mind, it's far from certain that this was the first time Rittenhouse pointed his gun at Rosenbaum, but we'll never know.
Now to my main point:
> In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate.
If I think to how I personally would have acted in Rittenhouse's position from the moment Rosenbaum threw the bag at him, I think I would probably also have been in a state of adrenaline-fueled panic, and I would have probably made very similar choices.
I don't really have any arguments that Rittenhouse only fired his gun at people he (reasonably, whether rightly or wrongly) believed were attacking him. I do think it's a stretch to think that they were all trying to kill him, particularly Huber (is this further evidence to support my hypothesis above that maybe Rittenhouse escalated the lesser threats of being disarmed or of being detained to threats of deadly force? Hard to say).
To be honest, I think things started to go wrong a lot earlier than that though. He chose to go to a location where he was expecting people to get injured, brought a gun with him, and associated himself with a band of people who believed that they were some kind of private security force.
No-one died that night (or any other night of the unrest) apart from the people Rittenhouse killed, there were no other reported injuries from gunshots, no mob attacks[0], which makes it seem relatively unlikely that anyone would have died if Rittenhouse had not been there, or had not brought his AR-15.
Whatever the ins and outs and the specifics of the case might be, I still think that Facebook were right to err on the side of caution here - technically he may not have committed a crime, but he still killed people, and although the doctrine of 'innocent until proven guilty' holds, his 'innocence' hung on an affirmative defence, which sort of swings it the other way to a certain extent.
[0]: I gather there were some minor injuries to a firefighter and a police officer, but couldn't find details on the circumstances.
At that time tempers were already flaring nationwide and I find both the above, as well as it's inverse, plausible. Most likely, both sides were clashing, as is oft the case in situations as volatile as this.
Returning to the NYT's video of Rosenbaum, there's a few things to note. One, that he was potentially mentally ill (relevant?), and two, he was directly antagonizing the "militia", sufficiently so that the other protestors felt it necessary to stop him [1].
In the later part, of the same video (note that there's a cut though), Rosenbaum seemingly suddenly pursues[2] and continues chasing. Only after he gets quite close (in my opinion; 18:04 or so), do we hear the first shots. There could be a hypothetical in between to fill in the gap, but given the available evidence that I'd observed, I gave more credence to Rosenbaum ultimately initiating.
>To be honest, I think things started to go wrong a lot earlier than that though. ...
So, I think that while I'd agree with you that yes, the problem started long before the first shot, I would think that it's better to evaluate it at point of firing. Otherwise we'd be chasing this rabbit hole till the end of time.
The protestors and rioters shouldn't have been there earlier as curfews were in place, and the police should have been enforcing law. The side arguments of open carry vs gun ownership and the inherent lethality increase a gun brings to any conflict, all the way to "gun rights". These arguments however are all applicable to the situation but are far more general, and I feel, a too tempting distraction.
I thus divide these into two different questions (or more, if necessary) so they can be addressed piecemeal. 1: At the time of firing, was Rittenhouse justified. 2: All the other bits and bobs about the context of the situation and who should have been there.
For the first, I've continued to make my case above, while for the second (rest?), this comment is long enough as it is, and I'll leave it open for now if you want to pick that one up.
><On facebook's topic ban> This one is a bit more dear an issue to me, being a question of speech rights. But it's also one of those which I haven't come to anything solid. However, picturing myself in that situation, I'd be aghast to have a whole pile of media flaming me and having whatever scant opposition to that narrative literally blocked.
EDIT:
Oops, I missed your line on Rittenhouse's belief in his immediate danger. I think we've already come to the same conclusion in a different thread in which the government, and it's dereliction of it's duty to maintain order is probably the one who should be most at fault (correct me if I've misplaced your position).
[1] https://youtu.be/VpTW2AJE9MQ?t=846 [2] https://youtu.be/VpTW2AJE9MQ?t=1056
Agreed.
> two, he was directly antagonizing the "militia"
Again, we see a part of the story here which definitely supports that interpretation. There's also a part of the video you linked to which (I believe) shows the police asking the 'militia' not to point their guns at people[0], which to me suggests that they had been doing this prior to the request from the police. I think it's impossible to know whether Rosenbaum's behaviour was in response to some (perceived?) aggression against him in the first place.
> I gave more credence to Rosenbaum ultimately initiating.
Potentially. However, Rittenhouse is running, with his gun, towards a location where Rosenbaum's 'side' are up to something. Maybe Rosenbaum believes Rittenhouse is going to go and shoot some of the other protestors (or vandals, whatever), and that's why he starts chasing. As you say, it's a long chain back to where the first 'provocation' may have happened. It's clear that the situation developed over the course of the whole day, rather than in the 15 seconds leading up to the killings.
> I'd be aghast to have a whole pile of media flaming me and having whatever scant opposition to that narrative literally blocked
Yes, but at the end of the day, you shot and killed not just one person, but two. The president of the USA was publicly in his corner[1]. I'm not sure I'd say that the opposition to the narrative was blocked, it was just against Facebook's policies. They get slammed when they don't react quickly enough[2], strongly enough[3], etc., and then they get slammed when they do take stronger action, so frankly it's hard to see how they could get it right. I get the free speech implications, but if your only forum for free speech is through Facebook, we have much worse problems in society than whether they allow you to post 'Rittenhouse is a hero' or not.
> the government [...] should be most at fault
That's a pretty accurate summary of my position. Failing to properly maintain order led to the formation of vigilante groups (and it seems these were even encouraged by law enforcement), which ultimately led to the clashes which resulted in Rosenbaum and Huber's deaths.
[0]: https://youtu.be/VpTW2AJE9MQ?t=980 [1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racia... [2]: https://www.politico.eu/article/facebook-content-moderation-... [3]: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-01-15/facebook-tw...
Grosskreutz stated outright during the trial that he had no reason to believe Rittenhouse had shot anyone. Despite this, there is video of him pulling his gun while he was chasing Rittenhouse down. Maybe this was just mob mentality Maybe this is because he was associated with violent revolutionary groups to the point that he was invited to speak at their rallies.
If going to a riot with a gun is stupid, chasing a guy with a gun is at least as stupid. The fact that he was running toward where EVERYONE knew the police were lined up makes this even more strange. Why risk your life when you can corral the shooter into the police?
Could you share a link? I could only find part of his testimony where he says that he thought Rittenhouse was an active shooter.
2:11:20 -- Grosskreutz denies he was chasing Rittenhouse.
2:23:30 -- he establishes that when he saw Rittenhouse, he was just helping people
2:27:00 -- he says he believed there was an active shooter, but had no information about who it was and apparently had no way to say why he believed this to be the case.
On the video Grosskreutz was taking with his camera, it is shown that Rittenhouse says that he is going to the police. Grosskreutz claims he though Rittenhouse said "he shot first" even though they sound absolutely nothing alike.
2:30:00 -- he says he was NOT chasing Rittenhouse. Instead, he just happened to be coincidentally pulling his gun while he happened running in the same direction. At the same time, he says he was running that direction because Rittenhouse was. Make of this inconsistency what you will.
2:31:00 -- he sees people mobbing Rittenhouse
2:32:00 -- he says he was concerned about Rittenhouse's safety. This DIRECTLY argues against the idea he believed Rittenhouse was an active shooter.
2:35:00 -- he believed Rittenhouse was in physical danger (even though he just denied seeing jump kick man kick Rittenhouse)
2:36:00 -- he says Huber was slinging his skateboard by the trucks (note: a skateboard is 11 pounds while a baseball bat is only 2 pounds). He says that as a medic, this concerned him. He says he believed Rittenhouse was in danger of head trauma and being seriously hurt. He even claimed in his police report that he told Huber to stop hitting Rittenhouse (though he says in hindsight this was untrue). Once again, there is no reason for concern if he believed Rittenhouse was a dangerous active shooter.
2:37:30 -- he claimed to the police that Rittenhouse just shot him. He completely left out that he had a gun and was advancing and that no shots were fired when he put his hands up.
2:38:30 -- he claims the anesthesia somehow made him forget about the gun while still allowing him to remember everything else with perfect clarity.
2:44:00 -- delving into prosecutorial misconduct where the prosecutors suddenly decided to tell the detectives not to execute a search warrant (they don't want Brady evidence is my read given all the other misconduct allegations).
2:48:00 -- he testifies that EVERYONE who put up their hands and backed off -- even the guy with a club -- do NOT get shot. Once again, this is not what an active shooter does.
2:51:30 -- the point where the prosecution lost case. He contradicts his testimony to the prosecutor in the face of an image of his bicep being vaporized (his word) while his gun is pointed directly at Rittenhouse's head.
I admit though that I’ve only seen the highlights of the cross, which I why I asked for a link.
I might go away and watch the rest of cross this evening.
He had a gun he had a right to have, in a place he had a right to be, at a protest that he had a right to be involved in as much as the protesters, and killed two people rightfully in self defense. What's the problem here? If people don't want to be killed, I would recommend they don't chase down an armed man and imminently threaten his life.
I think Rittenhouse had reason to fear for his life, but I don't agree with the statement that they were imminently threatening his life as a fact.
It may be true that Rosenbaum had threatened Rittenhouse's life. But neither Huber nor Grosskreutz had done so.
You may ask whether Grosskreutz pointing his gun at Rittenhouse constitutes threatening his life, and the answer to that is... maybe? But if the fact alone of pointing a gun at someone is threatening someone's life, then we have to rewind and look at whether Rosenbaum had reason to fear for his life.
We have video evidence of Rittenhouse pointing his gun at Rosenbaum while Rosenbaum is still at least 20 feet away.
Well put, I disagree only with your last sentence, unless cynical. I think prosecution made a mistake going after intentional homicide charges. All resources and focus should have been on a successful felony gun conviction. Only then should the prosecutor turned to felony murder charges. Even with the jury's finding, the judge should have partially overturned the jury's finding, and found guilty on lesser but included charges to ensure at least a few years of incarceration.
The intentional homicide charge was the right thing for the state to do, but I also think it was right he was found not guilty.
Based on the law as it's written, I don't think there's anything that Rittenhouse could actually have been charged with that he could have been found guilty of (except possibly the dismissed curfew violation charge). I just can't reconcile that with the fact that a kid took a gun to a protest and killed two people, which I think almost everyone would agree is not a good outcome for society (although I know there have been discussions about the value of human life around Rosenbaum particularly).
I'd also have to ask. The jury, with more exposure to the evidence than anyone else here found him not guilty. What exceptional case/point would you make to say that would show Rittenhouse's guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt". Furthermore, the maximal, and I mean maximal, punishment for the misdemeanor is 9 months, far less than the few years you suggest.
All of this just leads me to believe that no one of "good quality" shows up to those events with the idea of causing excess trouble (outside of peacefully demonstrating). How else could it be that the three people who he shot had vast criminal back grounds (which don't apply to his self defense because he did not know about the criminal history when he was shooting them) being that of a child molester and domestic abusers and Kyle himself was on video beating up some girl.
When bad situations happen amongst a crowd of people, the "good quality" people see themselves out and try to leave while the "bad quality" people get hype and try to instigate further.