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    The people Kyle Rittenhouse shot can’t be called ‘victims’, a judge says. Surprised? | Akin Olla

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    OpinionRaceThe people Kyle Rittenhouse shot can’t be called ‘victims’, a judge says. Surprised?Akin OllaThough he crossed state lines with a semi-automatic rifle and shot three people, Rittenhouse has been treated with an alarming degree of grace Sun 31 Oct 2021 06.25 EDTLast modified on Sun 31 Oct 2021 06.26 EDTIn the midst of the unrest following a police officer’s shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old boy from Illinois, shot and killed two anti-police brutality protesters and wounded a third. This week the presiding judge in Rittenhouse’s trial has decided that the men that Rittenhouse shot cannot be called “victims” during the trial.Despite purposefully crossing state lines armed with a semi-automatic rifle, Rittenhouse has been treated, before and after the act, with an alarming degree of grace. Rittenhouse’s case is about a lot more than just one armed vigilante seeking to protect the status quo at the expense of human lives: it is about an entire system that pushed him to violence.In August 2020, Rittenhouse and other white men answered a call to action by a former Kenosha city alderman for the formation of a militia to “take up arms” to defend Kenosha “from the evil thugs”. During the evening of the shooting, the presence of this militia was supported by local police officers who offered them water and affirmations, saying, “We appreciate you guys, we really do.”According to the militia member Ryan Balch, a police officer told him that officers would be pushing protesters back towards the armed men, claiming that police believed the militia would “deal with” the protesters. After Rittenhouse shot the three men, witnesses shouted for his arrest but nearby officers appeared to let him disappear into the night and return to his home state of Illinois.After the shooting, Rittenhouse was celebrated by conservative figures like Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter and, of course, President Donald Trump. A rally was held in his honor and hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised in support of his legal defense. At least one police officer donated to the fundraising effort, commenting, “God bless. Thank you for your courage … You’ve done nothing wrong.”Erin Decker, the Kenosha county Republican party chair, suggested that Rittenhouse was innocent and that “about 80% [of people in the area] support what Kyle did”. The Department of Homeland Security prepared talking points sympathetic to the shooter, prepping officials to say that he arrived in Kenosha to defend small business owners. As his case begins, it is clear that he will continue to receive support from many of those embedded in American institutions.Kenosha county circuit judge Bruce Schroeder, who is presiding over the controversial case, had already made some questionable decisions while setting the parameters of the trial. Schroeder has ruled that the men shot by Rittenhouse cannot be described as “victims’’ in court because the phrase is too “loaded” and may sway the opinions of the jury. Schroeder also advised against Rittenhouse’s legal team referring to the men he killed as “looters” and “arsonists” but did not forbid them from doing so – a double standard that props up rightwing talking points about protesters during last year’s summer uprisings against police brutality.Gaige Grosskreutz, the survivor of the attack, has not been charged with any crimes related to the protests, and the vast majority of 2020’s protesters engaged in peaceful action. Though those killed by Rittenhouse were white, the victim-blaming rings of the comments that often follow the murder of Black Americans at the hands of police and vigilantes. In 2014, more money was raised in support of the police officer who killed 18-year-old Michael Brown than was raised for Brown’s memorial service.The judge has given Rittenhouse’s defense more room to maneuver, while blocking some damning evidence against Rittenhouse from entering the case. This evidence includes a video of him expressing a desire to shoot people that he thought were looters and photos of him posing with members of the far-right organization the Proud Boys – who used Rittenhouse’s name to promote a rally in Portland.While Judge Schroeder may see his decisions as justified, he is still feeding into a larger pattern that surrounds Rittenhouse and the criminal justice system at large. The reality is that Rittenhouse was, compared with a Black man, less likely to be arrested for his crime, more likely to be bailed, less likely to be convicted and less likely to receive a prison sentence. It isn’t hard to imagine that a Black man in his position wouldn’t even be alive today – much like Philando Castile, who was shot by a police officer for simply disclosing that he had a firearm in his possession during a traffic stop.Rittenhouse may have pulled the trigger, but there is a larger system at play, a system that sent him to Kenosha and will probably send him back home after the trial.
    Akin Olla is a contributing opinion writer at the Guardian
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      Joe Biden: Black Lives Matter activists helped you win Wisconsin. Don't forget us | Justin Blake

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      Three months ago, a Kenosha police officer shot my nephew, Jacob Blake, seven times in the back in front of his children. Jacob was rushed to the hospital, where for days he was shackled to his bed, only to find he’d been paralyzed from the waist down. The officer who shot him, Rusten Sheskey, has yet to be charged with a crime and is currently on paid administrative leave.Days after the shooting, Donald Trump came and went, showing little empathy for our family, and calling for a violent crackdown on protests for racial justice. The press, too, came and went, as the drama of uprising transitioned into the long, slow work of healing and change. But even after the cameras left, after the president ignored our pain and took off in his motorcade, Kenoshans kept organizing.In close concert with the Blake family, grassroots organizations in Kenosha began turning protest power into electoral power in one of the most competitive swing states in the country. From the start, our goal was to counteract voter suppression and make sure everyone in our community had their voice heard at the ballot box.On 20 October, our family joined hundreds of activists and community members in a peaceful march from Kenosha to Milwaukee, receiving support along the way from luminaries like the former Ohio state senator Nina Turner and the Rev Jesse Jackson. The march took over 14 hours, ending in Milwaukee’s Red Arrow Park, where Dontre Hamilton was killed by a police officer in 2014. The message of the marchers was simple: south-eastern Wisconsin has seen too much violence at the hands of the police. It’s time for Wisconsinites to vote out the politicians who have allowed, and often encouraged, this violence in our communities.Make no mistake: now that Biden’s won the election, he owes this country real racial justice reformFor many of the activists in Kenosha, including Jacob’s family, this meant voting Trump out of office. In the last two weeks before the election, we took this message door to door in a canvassing sprint across Kenosha, a city where the Joe Biden campaign itself had very little presence on the ground. But for the thousands of low-propensity voters we spoke to one-on-one in the city of Kenosha, Biden’s 20,000 statewide vote margin might have looked a lot smaller.Mainstream Democrats often invoke “loyalty” as the quality they hope to inspire in their voters. But “loyalty” is a two-way street: party leaders shouldn’t expect it if they can’t deliver for the voters who put them in office. And on this front, particularly with Black voters, Biden is far from perfect. He spearheaded the 1994 crime bill, for instance, which expanded mass incarceration and hurt Black communities across the country.Kenosha’s community leaders are taking a chance on Biden, believing that this turning point will push him to learn from past mistakes and take a moral stance in this moment of national division. And we are tired of Trump’s hateful racism and the increasingly explicit imprimatur he’s given to violent white supremacists. But make no mistake: now that Biden’s won the election, he owes this country real racial justice reform.He must start with the most obvious steps: executive orders that address the immediate need for federal remedies to protect Black and Brown citizens from police brutality; appointing a special prosecutor to investigate both criminal and civil rights violations in the Floyd, Taylor, Blake, Cole and Anderson cases. More broadly, Biden must recognize that poverty and racism are pandemics in their own right, each of which has been exacerbated by Covid-19. Beginning to remedy them will require not just an emergency economic stabilization package, but a national moratorium on foreclosures and evictions for the next 12 months, and a prioritization of funding for the communities of color hit hardest by the virus.These demands are not coming from Kenosha alone, but from all across the country, where the Black Lives Matter movement – the largest social uprising in our nation’s history – has inspired a new generation of voters and activists. So while racial justice leaders may have helped Biden take back the White House, come January 2021, we’ll be reminding him exactly who got him there. More

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      Trump blames racism in policing on 'bad apples' during visit to Kenosha

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      Wisconsin

      US president defended law enforcement while touring Wisconsin city that became flashpoint after police shooting of Jacob Blake

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      ‘It’s called choking’: Donald Trump blames racist policing on ‘bad apples’ – video

      Donald Trump brought his politics of division to Kenosha, Wisconsin, planting himself firmly on the side of law enforcement rather than civil rights protesters during a contentious visit to the city.
      The US president insisted that racial injustice in policing is due to “bad apples” rather than being “systemic” and that a silent majority of Kenosha residents are most concerned about “law and order” rather than racism.
      Kenosha became the latest flashpoint in a long summer of unrest in America after Jacob Blake, an African American man, was shot seven times in the back by police as he tried to enter his vehicle. Three nights of protests set off more than 30 fires and culminated in a 17-year-old militia supporter allegedly shooting and killing two demonstrators – an act that Trump has pointedly failed to condemn.
      Since then, marches organized both by police sympathizers and Blake’s family have been peaceful with no vandalism. But, critics say, Trump has seized on vivid TV pictures for political gain with no intention of healing or unifying.
      On Tuesday, the Blake family held a community gathering at the shooting site with a DJ playing music and tables set up so people could register to vote, get a haircut, take a coronavirus test or write a messages to put in Blake’s hospital room. The president was not invited.
      Trump’s motorcade passed crowds of demonstrators, some holding pro-Trump signs, others jeering while carrying placards that read Black Lives Matter. Under heavy police guard, including several armored vehicles, Trump toured the charred remains of a block including a furniture shop that was burned down. More

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      Jacob Blake family reject 'orange man in the White House' as Trump tours nearby

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      As Donald Trump toured parts of the Wisconsin city of Kenosha on Tuesday – against the wishes of local government officials – the family of Jacob Blake, the young Black father now paralyzed after being shot by city police, had a message for the visiting US president.Justin Blake, Jacob’s uncle, kicked off a community party on the same Kenosha block where his nephew was shot multiple times in the back by a police officer. The shooting triggered yet another harsh examination of US police practices and led to the gun deaths of two protesters, killed by a white militia supporter last week.“We’re not going to let anyone smudge my nephew’s name,” said Justin Blake, as Trump held court elsewhere with local law enforcement and criticized the protesters who had taken to streets after the shooting.“We don’t have any words for the orange man in the White House,” Blake added.Trump’s visit came to a town at the center of US politics following Blake’s shooting, the nights of protest and vandalism that it triggered, and finally the deaths of two protesters allegedly at the hands of Kyle Rittenhouse, who now stands charged with murder.Trump had billed his trip to Kenosha as a unifying move, but Blake’s family declined to meet with him and his schedule was dominated by meetings with local police officials and business leaders. He toured damaged property and paid far more attention to the destruction than to the police shooting that preceded it.To many residents, especially Black citizens, Trump’s visit was roundly unwelcome, echoing the local mayor, John Antaramian, and Wisconsin governor, Tony Evers, who had asked the president not to come. At the local courthouse, about 100 Trump supporters and a similar number of Black Lives Matter supporters traded chants back and forth. About 50 yards away, members of the national guard sat laughing and joking behind the courthouse wall.Jacob Ansari, a 42-year-old IT security adviser, wore a shirt depicting the Republican party being thrown into the trash. He said: “The president has no business being here and inflaming tension. He’s riling up his supporters and bringing in all these people who aren’t wearing masks and who have the potential to incite more violence.”He added: “People frame everything around broken windows and property, and not the actual human lives that are being hurt by bad cops and white supremacists. I think we all need to come out and stand up in this moment and say that none of this is OK. It’s not OK for the president to come out and whip up his potentially violent supporters.” More