If The Kenosha Protestors Were An Armed Mob, Kyle Rittenhouse Wouldn’t Be Alive

Whenever we have a mass shooting or other gun violence, the reply we always get from the NRA crowd or the Second Amendment expansionists is…if more people were armed, some good guy with a gun would take out the miscreant. So if the Kenosha protests were actually populated by an armed mob, why wasn’t there a good guy with a gun available to take out Kyle Rittenhouse? Instead, he not only shot and killed two American citizens and severely wounded a third, he initially walked away unharmed and scot free. So where was the armed mob? Where was that good guy with a gun.

And the excuse being given for Master Rittenhouse’s mayhem is that he was afraid, fearful for his life. Why? He had an AR-15 in his possession and was part of a militia. Where was his militia? Usually a military unit trains as a team. Each member has a role. They have rules of engagement and know how to quantify and qualify a threat. They take action as a team accordingly. They have a chain of command to give orders and provide guidance. They have each others back. So why was Master Rittenhouse isolated and out of his group? It is apparent that these rag tag militias aren’t units but simply a bunch of wannabe cosplayers.

Now, one of the important skill sets for a police officer is identifying individuals by their personal characteristics: height, weight, race, complexion, hair color, eye color, dress, and AGE. There are a number of videos running around showing Kenosha Police officers interacting with the ‘militia’ members, including Master Rittenhouse. The officers are thanking them for being there, doing a little chit chatty thing, and handing out water. A lot of people are busting their chops for supporting the militia but in this post I am not going there. What I do wonder is at some point didn’t anyone of those officers look at Master Rittenhouse and wonder if he were old enough to be carrying that AR-15? Not a single one of them? A lot of problems could have been prevented by asking a couple of questions.

After the shootings, the police reportedly rolled up in a number of vehicles to respond to shooting and saw Master Rittenhouse carrying his weapon with his hands up. They didn’t perceive him as a threat so they didn’t stop to question him. This is the penultimate white privilege. But they were supposedly responding to shooting in the direction that this teenager was leaving from. Even if not a threat or not involved, shouldn’t they ask if he was ok? If he knew what was going on and what he knew about what they were heading into? And maybe check to see if his gun had been discharged? And again, nobody looked at him and wondered if he was old enough to be here with a gun?

Now, why would a young white man not be considered a threat? Nearly every elementary school, black church, night club, synagogue, high school, movie theater, Sikh temple or country western concert that has been a target of a mass shooting…has been shot up by a white man. Kyle Rittenhouse is the perfect example of a threat to commit mayhem in a crowd with a rifle.

And he had shot three people. He was apparently certain he had killed his first shooting victim as he was recorded talking on his cell phone telling someone that he had shot and killed somebody. Would you be in your right mind if you had shot and killed someone just moments before? Despite not appearing to be a threat, wouldn’t Master Rittenhouse appear to be distraught? Dazed and confused? Someone in need of assistance? And experienced police officers never noticed that?

Now, as noted, the police said that it was hectic and they were responding to a lot of shooting when they passed by Master Rittenhouse. I call bullshit on that one. I think the only shooting was by Master Rittenhouse himself. There are NO other reports of injuries due to gun shots that night. There are no reports of windows being shot out. There are no reports of bullet holes in police cars, any other vehicles, or any buildings in the area. There are no reports of shell casings being recovered. There are no official reports of other shooters…or even people with firearms…other than the other militia men who were in Kyle Rittenhouse’s company just a short time earlier.

And as Kyle Rittenhouse assembles the group of lawyers who are going to defend him, we are going to hear a lot of increasingly desperate and insane postulations on what went down. He was afraid for his life so he shot three people who didn’t have guns. He was being shot at , yet as I said earlier there are NO reports of other gun shot victims. If he was a target and wasn’t hit, I would imagine someone else in the crowd would have been, or would have seen it. The latest one today he was being hunted? Yes people were chasing him because he shot and killed someone. But again, he was the one with the gun. There is a reason that there are laws against 17 years olds open carrying a rifle. It’s not a frivolous decision.

Yes, there was a lot of confusion in Kenosha last Tuesday. Two men lost their lives, another will take serious time to heal, and one teenager has forfeited his life. And the police failed in their jobs a half dozen times and most likely contributed to the harm that they were supposed to be preventing. A lot of time needs to go in to reviewing all of the things that went wrong and work needs to be done to correct and reform how we do policing in America. Unfortunately, this time it was Kenosha’s turn as ground zero in Donald Trump’s dystopian America.

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