Teen acquittal brings cheers, outrage in US

Jury clears youth accused after two were shot dead, sparking nationwide protests

Protesters angry about 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse being found not guilty in Kenosha, Wisconsin, over the shooting deaths of two protesters last year demonstrated on Friday evening in Chicago and several other cities. In New York, they shut down the Brooklyn Bridge and in Portland they forced open a jail gate, prompting the Multnomah County sheriff's office to declare a riot.

Protests were held over the verdict in several US cities, including Los Angeles, into Saturday. About 1,000 people organized by Black Lives Matter Chicago and other local activist groups marched through downtown Chicago on Saturday afternoon.

On Friday, after a two-week trial in one of the most highly politicized US court cases since that of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who shot George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last year, a jury of five men and seven women acquitted Rittenhouse, who was charged with homicide, attempted homicide and reckless endangering for killing Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz, now 28, in summer last year during a night of protests over the shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, 29, by a white Kenosha police officer.

Rittenhouse, a then-17-year-old former police youth cadet, said that he went to Kenosha from his home in Antioch, Illinois, with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle to join others to protect property from rioters but that he came under attack and defended himself. He and those he shot were white.

The shootings came amid racial justice demonstrations that swept the country following the killing of Floyd.

While Rittenhouse's lawyer told jurors that his client "feared for his life" as he was attacked by rioters, prosecutors tried to show that Rittenhouse acted as a vigilante who overreacted.

But the prosecution faced an uphill challenge because Wisconsin law requires the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Rittenhouse did not act in self-defense.

"I think that anyone who saw the evidence could see that the jury might have a difficult time coming to a unanimous decision that Kyle Rittenhouse wasn't defending himself," Julius Kim, a defense attorney and former prosecutor in Wisconsin, told National Public Radio.

The ruling drew mixed voices from Rittenhouse supporters at the courthouse and gun rights advocates, highlighting how the verdict brought swift and mixed reaction.

Gun debate

Some who condemned the verdict fear that it will intensify a national debate over guns, vigilantism and law and order in a country already polarized and divided on those issues.

Those who welcomed the acquittal saw it as a victory for the exercise of the Second Amendment right to carry a gun and to defend oneself. Supporters donated more than $2 million toward Rittenhouse's legal defense.

The Gun Owners of America, a gun rights organization, announced its intention to send Rittenhouse a new AR-15 rifle in reward for his "defense" of the Second Amendment.

"Self-defense is a God-given right, and Kyle defended himself," said Dudley Brown, executive director of the National Foundation for Gun Rights in Loveland, Colorado.

Nik Clark, president of Wisconsin Carry, a gun rights group, was quoted by The New York Times as saying, "I don't think people want to endure the kind of thing Kyle just went through. So I think they will think twice about picking up their guns and coming when this happens again."

Former president Donald Trump, who at the time of the shootings said it appeared Rittenhouse had been "very violently attacked", congratulated Rittenhouse on the verdict, saying "if that's not self-defense, nothing is".

The nation's lawmakers reacted along party lines, with many Democrats criticizing it and Republicans largely praising it.

President Joe Biden told reporters at the White House: "I stand by what the jury has concluded. The jury system works and we have to abide by it."

Biden later called for calm and said that "while the verdict in Kenosha will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken".

The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, said: "In America today: you can break the law, carry around weapons built for a military, shoot and kill people, and get away with it."

The Mayor of Oakland, California, Libby Schaaf, said the verdict "gives vigilantism a free pass and fortifies white privilege".

Eric Adams, the mayor-elect of New York, said the verdict sends a "dangerous message" and is an indictment of "irresponsible laws" tied to gun use and self-defense.

Agencies contributed to this story.