Kyle Rittenhouse acquittal highlights racial divides, protest fears: NIU experts

DeKALB – Northern Illinois University experts in law, race and sociology weighed in Friday on the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty of all charges against him for the fatal shooting of two men in Kenosha, Wisconsin last summer.

Some said the verdict highlights racial divides and protest fears already prevalent in the country.

NIU associate professor Joseph Flynn said he thinks the jury’s verdict for Rittenhouse, formerly of Antioch, is another example of how the nation’s criminal justice system, while complex, “does tend to lean toward the benefit of white folks.”

“Whether it’s designed that way or not, I don’t think is necessarily the point,” said Flynn, who also is associate director of NIU’s Center for Black Studies. “It’s a combination of how the system is structured, how it operated and the people who are involved in it.”

Rittenhouse, 18, had been on trial for fatally shooting two men and injuring another in August 2020. Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, claimed it was self defense when he killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26. He also wounded demonstrator Gaige Grosskreutz, now 28.

The shootings took place during a protest for Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot and paralyzed by a white Kenosha police officer.

After days of deliberations, a jury found Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts Friday. Rittenhouse had been charged with homicide, attempted homicide and reckless endangering. He would have faced a life sentence if found guilty.

[ Kyle Rittenhouse cleared of all charges in shootings that intensified debate over vigilantism, guns and racial injustice ]

Simón Weffer-Elizondo, an NIU sociology professor, said he’s concerned the verdict might spur an increase of weapons at protests.

Weffer-Elizondo referenced the November 1980 Greensborough, North Carolina, massacre during which the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party shot and killed five participants of a “Death to the Klan” march that had been organized by the Communists Workers Party.

“And they got off scot-free,” Weffer-Elizondo said. “So, subsequently throughout the South, anytime there were protests around issues of race, the Klan showed up with weapons because they felt there were no repercussions. Should we expect that to happen? I don’t know, but it certainly increases the possibility.”

Weffer-Elizondo and Flyyn said the case and verdict also bring about an inevitable commentary on race. The case was part of an extraordinary confluence of trials that reflected the deep divide over race in the United States: In Georgia, three white men are on trial in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, and in Virginia, a trial is underway in a lawsuit over the deadly white-supremacist rally in 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia.

Especially when violence is involved, does race play a factor in how the court system views justification of deadly force?

“I can’t say to be completely honest here,” Weffer-Elizondo said. “I think we need to wait and hear what the jury says. But as someone who studies race and patterns of verdict [..] it’s only natural to come to a conclusion that perhaps if Rittenhouse was African American or Latinx it would have been different results.”

Flynn said a key factor is historical context.

“When you add that layer of race, I’m very hard-pressed to think of a situation in which an 18-year-old Black kid could stand in front of a jury and say, ‘Well I was there to just help out,’ " Flynn said. “I can’t see that.”

The verdict also reignited the debate surrounding gun laws, specifically what responsibilities fall on the carrier and how accountability is handed down.

“If we’re going to expand the laws for people to be able to carry firearms, there needs to be a higher burden for those people who are carrying,” Flynn said. “It’s all about responsibility, right? It’s great that you have a gun, whatever. But if you have a gun and you are walking consciously into a potential situation, it’s somewhat disingenuous to turn around and say, ‘Oh I feared for my life.’”

Weffer-Elizondo said while the conversation seems focused around the Second Amendment, some are forgetting the First Amendment, which includes the right to peacefully protest.

“I am concerned this could in general stifle people being willing to express their opinion on whichever side they’re on,” Weffer-Elizondo said.

He said he expects to see candlelight vigils and gatherings following the verdict in the coming days, especially in communities of color.

“Most likely by people who are concerned with the social justice issue and certainly on this story of verdict, the idea that if Rittenhouse wasn’t white, would there have been a different verdict?” Weffer-Elizondo said.

NIU law professor Dan McConkie, who’s worked as a prosecutor before, said he thinks it’s “actually pretty simple,” why Rittenhouse’s defense team was successful.

“The charges have to do with violence to others, and it’s always a successful defense if the jury feels that the defendant acted in self defense,” McConkie said. “This was obviously a pretty close case, even if you think Rittenhouse shouldn’t have been there with his AR-15, and I think he shouldn’t have. But the way the law looks at a situation like this is from Rittenhouse’s position.”

McConkie said Rittenhouse is presumed innocent, so the burden of proving otherwise fell on the prosecutors. He said the defense’s argument – that each time Rittenhouse fired his weapon at his victims because they were attacking him first – was enough to convince the jury. Neither victim whom Rittenhouse fatally shot were armed.

He said he didn’t think the actions by Judge Bruce Schroeder, which gained widespread media attention, impacted the verdict or swayed the jury. Schroeder was seen playing Jeopardy with potential jurors during jury selection, ruled that the misdemeanor charges of underaged weapon possession be dropped against Rittenhouse mid-trial and let the teenager pull names earlier this week to select who would be an alternate during deliberations.

“The judge is a colorful character, but so are lots of judges,” McConkie said. “And this judge has been on the bench for decades, so he’s especially comfortable in his own skin. I think he was trying to have a rapport with the jurors, these are people giving up their time, keep things light, use humor.”

McConkie said the jury was tasked with something more narrow than the larger background issues of the Black Lives Matter movement, Second Amendment rights or white supremacy.

“They were simply asked, ‘Did Rittenhouse act in self defense?’” McConkie said. “There’s the courtroom and there’s the courtroom of public opinion.”

Flynn said a guilty verdict might have pointed to the lesson of personal responsibility in deadly situations. In this case, a not guilty verdict created a “volatile situation,” he said.

“It can set up a scenario in which a person can come into any given protest with a loaded weapon and wield that weapon openly,” Flynn said. “That’s frustrating to me. The jury’s verdict is the jury’s verdict, but there should be some kind of responsibility when you bring a gun into a situation.”

• The Associated Press contributed to this story.