VOICES  WHY I COULDN’T BRING MYSELF TO WATCH THE TRIAL OF ANOTHER WHITE VIGILANTE

It only took the jurors about three days to do what always felt inevitable: allowing Kyle Rittenhouse to walk away from his trial a free man.

Rittenhouse is the teenager who shot and killed two men and wounded another with an AR-15 style rifle as violent protests against police brutality swept through Kenosha, Wisconsin last year following a white police officer shooting and paralyzing a Black man, Jacob Blake, after being called to an apartment complex for a domestic violence dispute.

For many of us watching, it was difficult to understand how a teenage boy that brought a military style weapon to a protest is somehow the victim in all of this when he’s the one still living and breathing.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors portrayed Rittenhouse as an “active shooter” who roamed the streets of Kenosha looking to spark violence.