Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges, but he is unquestionably morally guilty

I first entered a courthouse in December of 1966, when I was in the eighth grade. My father worked at a home improvement center, and someone had given him a bad check. He was therefore the complaining witness in a criminal case and had to go to court to testify.

I guess I had shown some interest in law even then, so since it was over the December vacation, my father brought me with him to observe. Before the case in which he was testifying was called, I watched the other trials.

The case right before his involved an accusation of theft. At the end of the short trial, the judge said to the defendant, “I find you legally innocent but morally guilty.”

Those words, uttered in a small courthouse on the south side of Chicago over a half-century ago, were what came to mind when I heard the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case Friday. Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges, but he was unquestionably morally guilty.

He fired the gun that killed two people and seriously wounded a third. He was responsible for creating the circumstances in which this tragedy occurred.

I am saddened and frightened that some want to make Rittenhouse a hero. It is a reflection of a deep divide in our country that this terribly misguided teenager could be celebrated by anyone.

After police officers shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisc., there were protests and demonstrations. The shooting received national attention, including a cancellation of all NBA games.

Rittenhouse, who lived in Illinois, decided to go to Kenosha. Then 17, he armed himself with an AR-15 rifle, which he was too young to legally obtain or possess. He went onto the streets of Kenosha in violation of a curfew. He testified during the trial that he was doing this to help protect local businesses.

Everything imaginable is wrong with this. A 17-year-old should not have a military-style assault weapon, let alone in such a tense situation. He was neither trained in nor capable of law enforcement. No police department would hire him.

Rittenhouse was simply a vigilante, taking the law into his own hands. This situation was a recipe for a disaster, and that’s exactly what occurred.

Joseph Rosenbaum, a person with a history of mental illness who had been released from the hospital the day before following an attempted suicide, allegedly grabbed at Rittenhouse’s gun and was shot four times and killed.

Anthony Huber apparently struck Rittenhouse with a skateboard. Huber was shot and killed when Rittenhouse thought Huber was reaching for a weapon.

Gaige Grosskreutz felt his life was in danger when he saw Huber killed. Grosskreutz reached for a weapon and was shot and wounded by Rittenhouse.

The central issue before the jury was whether the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Rittenhouse did not act in self-defense. The question for the jury was a narrow one: When Rittenhouse fired his gun, did he feel sufficiently in danger to justify doing so? The jury, in acquitting Rittenhouse, felt that the prosecution did not meet its heavy burden of proving otherwise.

But there’s a profound difference between being acquitted and having done nothing wrong. What Rittenhouse did is indefensible on so many levels. All of us, whatever our political views, should condemn his actions as terribly irresponsible and dangerous.

Seventeen-year-olds should not have AR-15s. No one should bring a weapon like that to a tense protest situation, especially not a teenager. Law enforcement should be left to trained officers; people shouldn’t take the law into their own hands.

Yet the political right wants to celebrate Rittenhouse. Former President Donald Trump has labeled the case against him “prosecutorial misconduct” and called Rittenhouse a “poster boy” for “innocence based on self-defense.” In making these claims, Trump and others are ignoring the context: Rittenhouse provoked what occurred and killed two people.

He was, in the words of the judge from long ago, legally innocent but morally guilty.

This story was originally published November 22, 2021 at 12:17 PM.