The American teenager who shot two people during a demonstration in the city of Kenosha says he did nothing wrong. “I defended myself,” 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse said in court. It was the first time he made a public statement about the events of August 25, 2020.
In Kenosha, the streets of Kenosha last summer for days after a black man, Jacob Blake, was shot by white cops. Blake survived, but was partially paralyzed. Demonstrations, which were initially peaceful, turned grim in the evenings, turning into arson and looting.
Firearm and first aid kit
On the third night of the protests, the then 17-year-old Rittenhouse had gone to Kenosha with a rifle, claiming to protect local businesses. There were more heavily armed men doing that there.
Rittenhouse also had nurses with him to provide first aid to the injured. He said he had looked after a few people, including a woman whose ankle he had bandaged. He also said he had removed graffiti from a school wall and extinguished a fire at a church.
In the chaos that ensued that night, he shot two men dead and wounded a third.
These are images of those last two shooting incidents:
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