Kyle Rittenhouse bragged about being a vigilante in inteview before shooting in Kenosha

The teenage Kenosha gunman accused of shooting dead two protesters on Tuesday night with an AR-15 sat front row at a Trump rally earlier this year and is an avid Blue Lives Matter activist who boasted about his role as a vigilante before the shootings. 

Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was arrested on Wednesday at his home in Antioch, Illinois, some 20 miles from Kenosha, where riots over the shooting death of Jacob Blake have been raging now for four nights.  He is accused of killing two people at the protests on Tuesday night while trying to ‘defend’ the city. 

Disturbing videos from Tuesday night’s protests show Rittenhouse walking through the streets with an AR-15 before the shootings and appearing to surrender to cops after them. 

He walked towards police vehicles with his hands in the air as other protesters yelled at the cops to arrest him, claiming he’d just shot two people. 

Shockingly, the teenager was not arrested until the following day. Now, he is in custody and has been charged as an adult. 

In January this year, Rittenhouse sat front row at a Trump rally in Des Moines, Iowa, this year. 

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The young Trump fan also once participated in a youth public safety cadet program. 

On Tuesday, shortly before Rittenhouse opened fire, he gave an interview to right-wing news outlet The Daily Caller.  

Armed with a rifle slung across his body, the teen told the reporter he was a certified EMT and explained he was patrolling the streets of Kenosha to provide medical attention to anyone in need and was helping protect local businesses from looters and rioters. 

‘People are getting injured. Our job is to protect this business and part of my job is to also help people,’ Rittenhouse said of his militia.  

‘If there’s somebody hurt, I’m running into harm’s way,’ added Rittenhouse, who was seen earlier guarding a local car shop with a group of armed militia members. 

‘That’s why I have my rifle because I can protect myself, obviously. I also have my medkit.’

He also claimed he had been ‘de-escalating’ a potentially violent situation earlier in the night, during which he and the rest of his vigilante crew ordered protesters to leave a church that they had targeted.  

When asked if the outcome would have been different if police officers responded to the scene instead, Rittenhouse replied: ‘I feel like there would be a lot more casualties and a lot more people injured.’

‘So I think the police are fine where they’re at and [should] let us run the medical, because EMS is not coming in’, he continued. ‘Us citizens, we need to help each other.’ 

In a press conference addressing the shooting, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth told reporters it was possible the gunman was part of an armed militia that had earlier asked the department if they could become part of the police force to help protect the city. In Wisconsin, it is legal for people 18 and over to openly carry a gun without a license but it is not legal for anyone under 18 to own a gun.

Beth called it a ‘scary thought’ that untrained members of the public might ever be given the same duties or privileges as police. 

‘Oh, hell no. What a scary, scary thought that would be in my world,’ he said.

But footage from the night shows police thanking a group of armed militia that Rittenhouse was a part of and giving them water.  

‘We appreciate you being here,’ an officer was heard saying to the group over a loudspeaker. 

The sheriff later defended officers by saying, ‘Our deputies would toss water to anybody.’ 

Earlier in the evening, Rittenhouse invited the Daily Caller reporter to join him as he searched for people who needed medical assistance. 

He was confronted by protesters who said he’d been threatening them with his gun.  

As Rittenhouse approached the group to offer medical help, one man tells him: ‘I remember you, you were telling us to get off the car [makes gun gesture] now you’re talking about medical?’

Rittenhouse, who appeared stunned by the confrontation, quickly walks away from the man, ignoring his comments and continued to search for people in need of care down the street.   

After the chaos on Tuesday night, a Facebook group called the Kenosha Guard popped up. 

It quickly amassed 3,000 members and issued a call to ‘patriots’.  

‘Any patriots willing to take up arms and defend our city tonight from the evil thugs? 

‘No doubt they are currently planning on the next part of the city to burn tonight,’ it said. 

The group was deleted by Facebook.   

Much of Rittenhouse’s Facebook was devoted to praising law enforcement.

In a photograph posted by his mother, he is wearing what appears to be a blue law enforcement uniform as well as the kind of brimmed hat that state troopers wear.  

Kenosha Police Chief Dan Miskinis later appeared to blame protesters for being out past the dawn to dusk curfew. 

‘Everybody involved was out after the curfew. I’m not going to make a great deal of it, but the point is that the curfew is in place to protect,’ he said. 

‘Had persons not been out in violation of that, perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened.’ 

Rittenhouse, identified in court papers as a lifeguard at a YMCA in Lindenhurst, Illinois, was assigned a public defender in Illinois for a hearing on Friday upon his extradition to Wisconsin.   

 

Cellphone videos from Tuesday night captured the horrifying violence. The footage emerged before Rittenhouse was identified or arrested.  

They showed the gunman running away in the moments after the gunshots rang out and he could be heard saying: ‘I’ve just killed somebody’. 

Onlookers were filmed desperately trying to put pressure on the injured man’s head wound with a t-shirt as they yelled: ‘We’ve got to keep him alive’ and ‘put pressure, put pressure.’ 

It is not yet clear what happened in the lead up to the initial shooting but police fear it may have stemmed from a conflict at a gas station between ‘self-styled militias’ defending local businesses from looters. 

Separate videos that captured the other two shootings showed a group of protesters tailing the gunman as he ran down the middle of the street. Someone in the crowd can be heard asking ‘What did he do?’ and another responds that the man had shot someone.  

The videos show the gunman stumbling and falling in the street before one pursuer took a flying kick at him, while another appeared to strike him with a skateboard. 

The gunman fired three of four shots from a seated position, hitting at least two people, including one who fell over clutching his chest and another who stumbled away putting pressure on his arm, according to the videos.  

As the crowd scattered, the shooter stood up and continued walking down the street as police cars arrived.  

Witness Sam Dirks, 22, from Milwaukee, said he had seen the suspected gunman earlier in the evening and he was yelling at some of the protesters.

‘He was definitely very agitated. He was pacing around, just pointing his gun in general. Not necessarily at anyone specifically,’ Dirks said.

Another witness, Julio Rosas, 24, said that when the gunman stumbled and fell, ‘two people jumped onto him and there was a struggle for control of his rifle. At that point during the struggle, he just began to fire multiple rounds and that dispersed people near him.’

‘The rifle was being jerked around in all directions while it was being fired,’ Rosas said.

Another protester Devin Scott told the Chicago Tribune that he witnessed the initial shooting and helped provide aid to the victim shot in the head.  

‘We were all chanting ‘Black lives matter’ at the gas station and then we heard, boom, boom, and I told my friend, that´s not fireworks,’ the 19-year-old said. 

‘And then this guy with this huge gun runs by us in the middle of the street and people are yelling, ‘He shot someone! He shot someone!’ And everyone is trying to fight the guy, chasing him and then he started shooting again.’

Scott said he rushed to help the injured man, saying: ‘I was cradling him in my arms. I was trying to keep this kid alive and he wasn’t moving or nothing. He was just laying there. 

‘I didn’t know what to do and then this woman starts performing CPR. There was no pulse. I don’t think he made it.’  

In the wake of the killings, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers authorized 500 members of the National Guard to support local law enforcement around Kenosha, doubling the number of troops sent in. The governor’s office said he working other states to bring in additional National Guard troops and law officers.     

Before the gunfire erupted, police in riot gear fired rubber bullets, tear gas and flash-bang rounds to push back demonstrators who defied a dawn-to-dusk curfew and gathered outside a courthouse and adjacent park. 

About 300 demonstrators defied the city’s 8pm curfew again after Governor Tony Evers declared a state of emergency earlier following a night of violence and destruction that saw rioters set fire to businesses and vehicles across the city. 

The shooting of Blake comes three months after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis which sparked nationwide protests against police brutality and racism.   

The Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department also deployed at least four armored patrol vehicles fitted with roof turrets from which deputies fired tear gas canisters into the crowd, many of whom hurled water bottles, bricks, firecrackers and other objects back at police.

But there was no immediate sign of buildings or cars being set ablaze, as happened on Monday night.

Demonstrators, some of whom were wearing helmets and equipped with makeshift protective gear, were seen trying to storm a black iron fence that had been installed earlier to protect the court from rioters. 

Meanwhile, officers dressed in riot gear stood guard behind the barrier, holding up shields as protesters shouted expletives and hurled bottles at them. 

Footage from the scene also showed people throwing fireworks in the direction of cops as they ignored their orders to disperse. 

In one video shared by a journalist on Twitter, one man was seen trying to set fire to an American flag before being deterred by pepperballs fired by police.  

Kenosha County sheriffs deputies warned crowds over loud speaker that they were participating in an unlawful gathering while urging them to leave the area. 

The crowd responded by chanting ‘black lives matter’, prompting police to fire rubber bullets. 

Several military-style armored patrol vehicles were also called in and were seen maneuvering around the county courthouse, firing tear gas at the crowd.

About three hours after declaring the protest an unlawful assembly, authorities had managed to push Tuesday night’s crowd out of the downtown park, with demonstrators scattering down streets. 

The disturbances came hours after Governor Evers vowed to deploy additional National Guard troops in a bid to restore order in the town, while Blake’s mother publicly appealed for calm during a press conference held outside the court.    

On Tuesday, President Trump, who has consistently denounced the BLM protests that have rocked the country in recent months, urged Wisconsin officials to call in the National Guard to quell the unrest, despite troops already being on the ground. 

‘Governor should call in the National Guard in Wisconsin. It is ready, willing, and more than able. End problem FAST!’ Trump tweeted. 

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows later revealed Governor Evers had turned down Trump’s offer for federal assistance, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. 

A spokeswoman for Evers told the paper: ‘The governor informed them that we would be increasing Wisconsin National Guard support in Kenosha and therefore would not need federal assistance in response to protests but would welcome additional federal support and resources for our state’s response to COVID-19.’   

Blake, 29, a father of six, was struck from behind at point-blank range in a hail of bullets fired on Sunday by police who were following him with guns drawn as he walked away from officers to his car and opened a door to the vehicle.

Three of his young sons inside the automobile – aged three, five and eight – witnessed their father being gunned down, according to civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Blake family.

A bystander captured the encounter in video footage that immediately went viral, unleashing outrage over the latest in a long series of instances in which police have been accused of using indiscriminate lethal force against African Americans.

Blake, who had been attempting to break up a quarrel between two women, was struck by multiple gunshots fired at him, all by one officer.  

Crump also revealed Blake was undergoing surgery for his injuries, adding that the bullets severed his spinal cord and shattered his vertebrae. Another attorney said there was also severe damage to organs.

‘It’s going to take a miracle for Jacob Blake Jr to ever walk again,’ Crump said.

The legal team plans to file a civil lawsuit against the police department over the shooting. Police have not explained why Blake was shot.

At a news conference earlier in the day, Blake’s parents expressed anguish over the shooting while decrying two previous nights of looting, vandalism and arson that overshadowed peaceful street protests.

‘They shot my son seven times, seven times, like he didn’t matter,’ Jacobv Blake Sr said tearfully as he spoke to reporters alongside other family members and lawyers. 

‘But my son matters. He’s a human being and he matters.’ 

Blake’s mother, Julia Jackson, said the damage in Kenosha does not reflect what her family wants and that, if her son could see it, he would be ‘very unpleased.’ 

After a night during which protests devolved into unrest, Gov. Evers had called for calm Tuesday saying: ‘We cannot allow the cycle of systemic racism and injustice to continue.’

‘We also cannot continue going down this path of damage and destruction.’

The night before crowds destroyed dozens of buildings and set more than 30 fires in the southeastern Wisconsin city’s downtown. 

On Monday, heavily armed residents were also seen standing guard outside buildings and local shops in case they were targeted by rioters. 

In footage shared online, a group of men were seen carrying rifles and wearing combat gear as they protect local shops. They denied they are part of a militia.