The NY Times has put together a devastating reconstruction of the night 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse killed two people. A few takeaways:
There is a very good case to be made that the police deliberately herded the protestors down a street where heavily armed white supremacists and other gun-crazed psychopaths were waiting. In fact, one of the armed rightwingers (Ryan Balch, above) was video’d strongly suggesting in real time that he knew that the police planned to do exactly that. The police could have forced them down a different street, one not overrun with neo-Nazis. They didn’t — and if the police didn’t know exactly what would happen, they didn’t care.
The amount of madness on the streets that night is in stark display in the video. Not just Rittenhouse and not just his first victim. There’s the revolting, strutting narcissistic entitlement of Balch; the dead-eyed white chief of police dodging tough questions with a barely concealed smirk; and even a paramedic who brought his own gun, smiling as he non-justifies this stupidity: “It’s my right.” (He who got wounded by Rittenhouse). And then there are the police who actively encourage the white supremacists and even drive by Rittenhouse after his killing spree, as he tries to surrender, people screaming at the police that this kid just shot people. The cops ignore them, he’s just a white guy with a gun walking towards them, after all. Harmless.
And you can’t help thinking, “If Rittenhouse was black…” and we all know how the next phrase would read.