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kennyn-77

Jury selection begins for Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed 2 protesters : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...lection-trial-kyle-rittenhouse

rittenhouse justice trial race

shared by kennyn-77 on 01 Nov 21 - No Cached
  • When jury selection begins Monday in the high-profile trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two protesters and wounded another last year in Kenosha, Wis., the small manufacturing city will again be in the national spotlight.
  • But what has been lost and will be at the heart of this case are two homicides.
  • Defense attorneys will argue Rittenhouse acted in self-defense
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Rittenhouse faces multiple felony charges of homicide and recklessly endangering the safety of others, along with one misdemeanor count of possession of a dangerous weapon by a minor.
  • On Aug. 25, 2020, Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, traveled a short distance from Illinois in response to a call from a Kenosha-based militia group saying it hoped to protect businesses from protesters.
  • Conservatives immediately took to social media with some painting Rittenhouse as a martyred patriot and others lionizing him.
  • Most recently, he upheld a long-standing rule in his courtroom that the men whom Rittenhouse shot can't be called "victims" during the hearing. He did say the defense can refer to them as "rioters, looters and arsonists."
  • Despite Rittenhouse's reported ties to white nationalist groups, including the Proud Boys, Simpson doesn't believe he belongs in jail.
  • But it's not a normal case. It will determine whether Rittenhouse was a defender of law and order during violent unrest, or a vigilante responsible for needless deaths.
mattrenz16

Kyle Rittenhouse Trial In Kenosha Killings Delayed Until November : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...illings-delayed-until-november

shared by mattrenz16 on 11 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • A Wisconsin judge on Wednesday delayed the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, who is charged with fatally shooting Black Lives Matters protesters in Kenosha last summer.
  • Prosecutors as well as Rittenhouse's defense attorneys had asked for the postponement, arguing they needed more time to build their respective cases. Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder also set a meeting for May, to ensure that the new timeline still works for the two legal teams.
  • Months after his release, Rittenhouse was spotted in a Wisconsin bar with possible members of the Proud Boys, an extremist group that federal prosecutors say played a critical role in storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • In February, Schroeder refused to issue a new arrest warrant or increase Rittenhouse's bail, after he failed to update his current address with the court. But he did prohibit the shooter from associating with white supremacists.
  • On Wednesday, Rittenhouse's lawyers said they needed extra time to finish up a public opinion poll "to get a feel for whether Rittenhouse can expect to get a fair trial in the county, or if there might be reason to seek a change of venue or a jury pool from another county," the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.
anonymous

Justice Barrett Joins Supreme Court Arguments For The First Time : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...nosha-shooter-set-at-2-million

kenoshaprotests kylerittenhouse jacobblake kenosha militia wisconsin

shared by anonymous on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • A Wisconsin court commissioner on Monday set bail at $2 million for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old accused of killing protesters in Kenosha,
  • Rittenhouse is accused of fatally shooting two demonstrators and injuring a third during protests on Aug. 25 that followed the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot several times at close range by Kenosha police and is now paralyzed.
  • The charges include first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Rittenhouse's lawyers argued that because he had allegedly acted in self-defense and has no prior criminal record, the bond should be set at $750,000.
  • He noted the national network of supporters who have taken up Rittenhouse's cause and said he considered him a flight risk.
  • Rittenhouse faces up to life in prison if convicted.
  • Give Send Go, a self-described "Christian crowdfunding site," raised nearly $550,000 to help cover Rittenhouse's legal fees before organizers say they were forced to stop receiving donations.
  • "We believe that Mr. Rittenhouse has already proven that he is a significant flight risk and his reckless actions against my client who he severely injured, as well as the victims killed demonstrate that he is a significant risk to the public," Motley added.
  • Rittenhouse took off running and Rosenbaum chased after him. Videos of the incident show Rosenbaum, who was unarmed, threw a plastic bag at Rittenhouse, who responded by firing about five shots into the 36-year-old.
zarinastone

Bail set at $2M for teen accused in Wisconsin shootings - ABC News - 1 views

abcnews.go.com/...d-wisconsin-shootings-73977794

Politics US racism

shared by zarinastone on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Bail was set at $2 million on Monday for a 17-year-old from Illinois accused of killing two men during an August protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after the father of one victim told the court the teen “thinks he's above the law" and would disappear if freed before the trial.
  • Kyle Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, is charged with fatally shooting Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber during a protest over a police shooting in August.
  • In addition to the homicide charges, Rittenhouse faces counts of attempted homicide, reckless endangerment and being a minor in possession of a firearm.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Police later explained that they didn't arrest him at the scene because it was chaotic.
  • “The defendant doesn't want to be here and if released won't come back,” Binger said.
  • A legal defense fund for Rittenhouse has attracted millions of dollars in donations.
  • “Kyle Rittenhouse thinks he's above the law,” Huber said. “He's been treated as much by law enforcement. For him to run wouldn't surprise me.”
  • President Donald Trump has said Rittenhouse's actions might have been warranted, suggesting that the protesters might have killed him.
  • Grosskreutz's attorney, Kimberley Motley, asked for $4 million bail, calling Rittenhouse's behavior “inexcusable.”
  • Keating set bail at $2 million, saying Rittenhouse has no ties to Kenosha, he fled the state after the shootings and he faces life in prison if convicted.
  • The shootings happened two days after a white police officer trying to arrest Jacob Blake shot the 29-year-old Black man seven times in the back, paralyzing him from the waist down. Video of the shooting sparked several nights of protests in Kenosha, a city of about 100,000 on the Wisconsin-Illinois border.
aleija

In Rural Virginia, a Militia Tries to Recruit a New Ally: The County Government - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...virginia-county-militia-.html

shared by aleija on 07 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • After Virginia passed gun laws, conservatives began invoking the state’s colonial-era constitution, which calls for a “well regulated militia.”
  • whereas a militia was “the last best hope” when liberties are threatened by “a tyrannical government,” then be it resolved: Halifax County would support a local militia.
  • Throughout one of the most tumultuous political years in memory, armed paramilitary groups have marched: crowding into statehouse galleries, violently defending public monuments and now planning to show up at the polls on Election Day.
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  • n the winter of outrage that followed, gun owners poured into Richmond, crowded county board meetings and formed paramilitary groups in one county after another.
  • But not everyone saw this fight as just about gun policy. It was also about power.
  • “Virginia is not the Virginia it used to be,” lamented John Sharp, a supervisor in Bedford County, which passed a militia resolution in May. “We’re outvoted.”
  • “Biden’s coming for us; there will be a war,” said Paul Cangialosi, who works with the Virginia Militia Alliance, created after last year’s election to organize armed groups across the state. “We don’t fix this at the ballot box, I hate to say it. We’re too divided.”
  • The founders saw militias, Mr. Abbott explained, as preventing “governments who had the majority from being able to impose their will on people who didn’t want their will.”
  • “If we do this tonight, what we’re doing is we’re just provoking or enhancing the possibility that we’re going to have civil unrest,” he said, talking of the fatal shootings at the August protests in Kenosha, Wis.
dytonka

Donald Trump's history of inciting violence through his words and tweets: A timeline - Vox - 0 views

www.vox.com/...ence-tweets-racist-hate-speech

shared by dytonka on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • The president then told the Proud Boys, an alt-right hate organization, to “stand back” and “stand by.”
    • dytonka
      dytonka on 03 Nov 20
       
      He will never live this down lol
  • he often walks back such statements, returning to a message of hate and harm. Recently, he defended a teenage supporter who shot three people at a Black Lives Matter protest.
  • une 16, 2015: When Trump announced his bid for president at Trump Tower in New York City, he made disparaging comments about Mexicans. His repeated insults have been said to incite violence and hate toward immigrants in the years that followed
clairemann

We Need to Stop Calling Armed Rightwing Groups 'Militias' | Time - 0 views

time.com/...ghtwing-groups-are-not-militia

US trump election politics gop crisis SCOTUS

shared by clairemann on 30 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Over the last month, ever since the indictment of 13 men for plotting to kidnap the governor of Michigan, the word “militia” has appeared in thousands of newspaper headlines and TV news reports.
  • But all of these headlines are wrong, and almost every instance of the use of the word militia by journalists—as well as politicians and even law enforcement—has been wrong. Why? Because there is no such thing as a legal private paramilitary militia.
  • “The use of the word ‘militia,’ when you are talking about anything other than a state militia like the National Guard, is just wrong. Using that term without putting the world ‘unlawful’ in front of it suggests there is some constitutional authority or legitimacy for their existence, which there isn’t.”
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  • All 50 states prohibit private militias. They are illegal. Such organizations were banned starting with the Militia Act of 1903, and then amended by the National Defense Acts of 1920 and 1933.
  • So, to the media, by all means use the word militia for the National Guard, but don’t use it for vigilante groups that go by the name Oathkeepers or III%ers or the Wolverine Watchmen or any other name.
  • These groups use the name militia as a camouflage for their often violent and anti-democratic views. The term evokes the Minutemen of the Revolutionary War, citizen-soldiers who fought the British. But these guys are not heroes; they don’t deserve that historical cover.
  • In the middle of a national pandemic, in a nation riven by social justice protests, with historically high levels of unemployment, and with a contentious presidential election days away, we are at a moment that experts say is a perfect launchpad for acts of intimidation and violence by unlawful militias.
  • These groups saw Barack Obama not only as a Black man, but as a foreigner, an alien, un-American, and not of this country. This belief was aided and accelerated by the birther movement, whose primary promoter was none other than Donald J. Trump.
  • Oh, but doesn’t the 2nd Amendment protect them? Unlawful militias always cite the Second Amendment as providing the DNA of their founding and the justification for their continuation. This, too, is wrong.
  • For these unlawful militias, Election Day could become their Super Bowl. “Local officials, law enforcement, and voters,” says McCord, “need to know that groups of armed individuals have no legal authority under federal or state law to show up at voting locations claiming to protect or patrol the polls.”
  • The First Amendment’s provision of free speech and free assembly is not in conflict with the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. Yes, burly white guys in camouflage can own guns, they can freely express their opinion that the federal government is going to confiscate their guns, they can “peacefully assemble” to protest that idea, they just can’t do so brandishing their guns and intimidating people, especially voters.
  • “twisted patriots.” They are overwhelmingly white men who appropriate Revolutionary War imagery to cloak their anti-government views.
  • These groups mushroomed in 1990’s after the federal government launched sieges in Ruby Rudge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas. But their appeal dimmed after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people.
  • it is regulated by the State. The Supreme Court, in 1886 and in the Heller decision of 2008 written by Justice Scalia, explicitly permits the states to prohibit “private paramilitary organizations.”
  • Trump’s role in the resurgence of unlawful militias is impossible to measure, but according to both Holt and McCabe, he is seen as a kindred spirit.
  • “there has been a major realignment of militia movement in the U.S. from anti-federal government writ large to mostly supporting one candidate.” That candidate is Donald Trump. When Trump tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”; when he said the Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by”; when he expressed sympathy for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year old vigilante charged with killing two protesters in Kenosha; when he smiled as his supporters cheered “Lock her up” about Gov. Whitman—after the kidnapping plot was revealed—he is seen as an inspirational figure and a cheerleader for violence.
  • With the election days away and a possible indeterminate or contested result, what can and should states do? It is a bedrock of our civil law that the government—and only the government—is able to legally and legitimately use force in the maintenance of public safety.
  • “Local authorities in all 50 states,” says McCord, “should know that the law empowers them to restrict paramilitary activity during public rallies and elections, while preserving the rights to free expression and peaceful assembly.”
Javier E

Revealed: Trump-linked consultant tied to Facebook pages warning election will cause civil war | US elections 2020 | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...rning-election-cause-civil-war

civil war right-wing disinformation gop

shared by Javier E on 05 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • The page makes free use of political memes, but many posts link to a small cluster of rightwing websites designed to appear like news outlets. Increasingly, over the course of 2020, the page has been warning of a stolen election, and suggesting this will lead to civil war.
  • According to California records, AFF Media was incorporated on Donald Trump’s inauguration day, 20 January 2017; in other documents, Dino Porrazzo Jr is listed as CEO and CFO, and Dino Porrazzo Sr as secretary. But the Guardian has discovered that the Porrazzos are further involved in running a dizzying array of interconnected sites and social media pages. The Annenberg Public Policy initiative lists two of their websites on its “Misinformation Directory” of “websites that have posted deceptive content”.
  • the content of the Porrazzo pages does appear to trigger extreme responses among users. Hundreds of user comments on the page’s posts suggest the use of violence against perceived political enemies. On a 5 September post linking to a Right Wing Tribune article suggesting that Democrats will foment civil war if Biden loses, one user commented, “a short civil war with the democrats and those who support socialist policies will go a long way to help Make America Great Again”.
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  • Another connects civil war to their belief that a Trump loss is impossible, writing “If [Biden] wins, it’ll be from fraud on an industrial scale, and the lesson that’ll have to be taught for that will necessarily be no less industrial.”Many welcome the prospect of armed conflict – one writes “That’s fine with me open season on democrats!”. Another deployed accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse as a positive example, writing “I think it will be more whining, crying, rioting, looting and a lot of Kyles protecting their cities, towns and neighborhoods.”
  • Asked to comment on the site’s apparent reach, and the nature of its community, Lewis, the extremism researcher, said: “This is not some dark corner of the internet, this is not a fringe thing, it’s mainstream Republicans that are stoking this.”
Javier E

Accused document leaker Jack Teixeira fixated on guns and envisioned 'race war' - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...xeira-discord-leaked-documents

terrorist US leak discord guns racism

shared by Javier E on 14 May 23 - No Cached
  • “Jews scam, n----rs rape, and I mag dump.”Teixeira raised his weapon, aimed at an unseen target and fired 10 times in rapid succession, emptying the magazine of bullets.
  • Previously unpublished videos and chat logs reviewed by The Washington Post, as well as interviews with several of Teixeira’s close friends, suggest that he was readying for what he imagined would be a violent struggle against a legion of perceived adversaries — including Blacks, political liberals, Jews, gay and transgender people — who would make life intolerable for the kind of person Teixeira professed to be: an Orthodox Christian, politically conservative and ready to defend, if not the government of the United States, a set of ideals on which he imagined it was founded.
  • For Teixeira, firearms practice seemed to be more than a hobby. “He used the term ‘race war’ quite a few times,” said a close friend who spent time with Teixeira in an online community on Discord, a platform popular with video game players, and had lengthy private phone and video calls with him over the course of several years.“He did call himself racist, multiple times,” the friend said in an interview. “I would say he was proud of it.”
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • In the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, Teixeira told friends that he saw a storm gathering. “He was afraid they would target White people,” his friend said. “He had told me quite a few times he thought they need to be prepared for a revolution.” The friend said Teixeira spoke approvingly of Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager who shot three people, two fatally, during protests that summer in Kenosha, Wis., claiming that he had acted in self-defense
  • Teixeira wanted his online companions, many of them teenage boys, to “be prepared for things the government might do, reinforcing to them that the government was lying to them,”
  • Teixeira asserted that “lots of FBI agents were found to have sympathized with the Jan 6 rioters,” and he said naive members of the intelligence community, of which he was technically a part, had been “cucked.” He referred to mainstream press as “zogshit,” appropriating a popular white-supremacist slur for the “Zionist Occupied Government.” Friends said that during live video chats, Teixeira expounded on baseless accusations of shadowy, sinister control by Jewish and liberal elites, as well as corrupt law enforcement authorities.
  • Already united by their love of guns and their Orthodox Christian faith, two members of Thug Shaker Central said their nascent political beliefs became hardened and more polarized during the isolation of the pandemic. Unable to see their local friends in person, the young members spent their entire days in front of screens and came under the influence of outsize online figures like Teixeira. Some on the server saw him as an older brother — others, friends said, like a father figure.
  • In interviews, some of the members struggled to explain worldviews that had developed largely online, and expressed remorse. Several admitted they had become radicalized during the pandemic and were influenced by Teixeira, whose own politics seemed animated by social grievances and an obsession with guns.
  • The members may have sensed they were treading into dangerous political waters, even before leaked classified documents started circulating. During video chats, some hid their faces behind masks, fearful of being publicly identified with a group of self-professed bigots, Teixeira’s close friend said.
  • The interest in video games and conservative politics was accompanied by an acute obsession with violence, the friend said. “He would send me a video of someone getting killed, ISIS executions, mass shootings, war videos. People would screen-share it, and he would laugh very loudly and be very happy to watch these things with everyone else. He absolutely enjoyed gore.”
  • After he enlisted in the U.S. Air National Guard in September 2019, Teixeira also feared that his own racist and violent statements would jeopardize his chances of getting a security clearance. “He was worried something from Discord would come up during his interview,” said the friend, who met him when the application was still pending. Teixeira changed his online handle to an innocuous version of his surname and became “less active” in the community for a time, the friend added, in an effort not to create more incriminating evidence.
  • But Teixeira already had an offline record that arguably should have raised concerns for the officials who approved his security clearance. In March 2018, Teixeira was suspended from his high school “when a classmate overheard him make remarks about weapons, including Molotov cocktails, guns at the school, and racial threats,” according to a Justice Department filing last month that argued Teixeira should remain in jail while he faces charges under the Espionage Act stemming from his alleged leaks.
  • Teixeira’s close friend, who knew him after he had graduated high school, said he had confessed to wanting to take a gun to school and carry out a shooting.
  • “He had told me multiple times about when he was younger, his desire to shoot up his school,” the friend said. “He hated his school.”
  • “To my knowledge, he never hurt anyone physically, but he absolutely talked about it pretty often,” the friend added. Other friends confirmed Teixeira talked about attacking his school, but they said they didn’t take his threats seriously.
  • The YouTuber added that Discord deleted the civil-discussion channel on April 24 after “multiple members” received notices from the company.
  • Teixeira’s gaming and political cultures overlapped, the friend observed. “Once you start getting into the more niche video games, a lot of those communities are much more conservative. I think he found a small place where his views got echoed back to him and made them worse.”
  • The Post obtained previously unpublished screenshots from the server and recordings of members playing games together. Racist and antisemitic language flowed through the community, as did hostility for gay and transgender people, whom Teixeira deemed “degenerate.” The line between sarcasm and genuine belief became increasingly blurred. On video calls, users held up a finger, jokingly imitating members of ISIS. In their rooms were flags associated with Christian nationalism and white power.
  • Friends may not have taken seriously Teixeira’s threats against his high school. But he voiced approval of some shooters, particularly when they targeted people of different races and faiths. Teixeira was especially impressed by a gunman’s rampage at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, which left 51 people dead and 4o injured. “He was very happy that those people died,” the friend said, because they were Muslim. The shooter live-streamed his massacre as though he were in a video game.
  • “He was very against gun control. And so he would talk about wanting to kill ATF agents or when ATF agents would show up to his house, like theoretically preparing your house so that they would die in some strange trap.”
  • In arguing that Teixeira should remain in jail while he faces charges, federal prosecutors pointed to his threats of violence in high school. But among online communities whose members hold “more extremist conservative views,” the friend said, “it’s really common to joke about killing government agents like that, so it never seemed worrying to me.”
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