[ad_1]
Rittenhouse, who prosecutors say traveled 30 miles to Kenosha from his home in Antioch, Illinois before the shooting around 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, is charged with six criminal charges, including murder and attempted murder.
The criminal complaint accuses Rittenhouse of firing an assault rifle at three protesters who tried to subdue him, killing 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum and 26-year-old Anthony Huber.
It refers to several videos recorded by witnesses, including one in which Rittenhouse is seen calling a friend there and telling them: “I just killed someone.”
A Lake County, Illinois, judge postponed his extradition to Wisconsin on Friday while the teenage defendant organized a private legal team. Rittenhouse, a former YMCA lifeguard who is being held without bail, did not appear at the live-streamed hearing.
Blake’s shooting in front of three of his sons has made Kenosha, a predominantly white city of about 100,000 people on Lake Michigan, the latest focus of ongoing national protests over police brutality and racism.
It also galvanized protesters who gathered in Washington on Friday to commemorate the 1963 march where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic “I have a dream” speech.
The summer of protests ignited after video footage showed a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of a black man, George Floyd. Floyd later died and the fired officer has been charged with murder.
Blake, who was paralyzed by the shooting, had been handcuffed to a hospital bed due to an outstanding warrant. The handcuffs were removed on Friday and officers guarding Blake withdrew after the warrant was overturned, his attorney, Pat Cafferty, told Reuters.
The order was based on a criminal complaint filed against Blake in July by his ex-girlfriend, the mother of three of his children, which was handed over to Reuters on Friday.
In the complaint, the woman told police that Blake broke into her home on May 3 and sexually assaulted her before stealing her truck and debit card.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said earlier this week that police had been searching for Blake in connection with his ex-girlfriend’s complaint at the time of the shooting and that investigators recovered a knife from the floor of the car in the Blake was leaning when he was shot.
Blake’s lead attorney, Ben Crump, has said his client did not have a knife in his possession and did not provoke or threaten police.
In Kenosha, volunteers helped business owners clean up after days of riots and arson that followed the shooting in the back of a black man, Jacob Blake, 29, by a white police officer, some painting “Black Lives Matter” or “We Love Kenosha” in bricked up shop windows.
“I’m mad,” said factory worker John Hall, as he helped paint messages on a storefront. “Some people who did this don’t even live here. These are the only stores we have.”
Hall, a father of three who moved to Kenosha from Chicago eight years ago to raise his children in a safer community, said the painted messages were meant to indicate hope, adding: “Slowly but surely we will get this back and rebuild.” .
More than 1,000 National Guard members were on the ground in Kenosha on Friday in the event of further violence, Major General Paul Knapp said at a news conference.
The protesters have demanded that criminal charges be brought against three police officers involved in the arrest and shooting of Blake. Authorities say Officer Rusten Sheskey fired all seven shots into Blake’s back. Sheskey has been licensed.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice, which is in charge of the investigation, said Friday that Sheskey and another officer, Vincent Arenas, tried to detain Blake with tasers before Sheskey fired his gun.
It was the first time the identity of Arenas, a Kenosha police officer had been revealed since February 2019. The department identified the third officer as Brittany Meronek, who joined the force last January.
Reuters
