Kyle Rittenhouse Proud Boys Affiliation Excluded From Upcoming Trial

A judge has ruled that prosecutors in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial cannot present evidence of his link to the Proud Boys.

This ruling by Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder on Friday is a crushing blow to the prosecution as they work to prove that Rittenhouse killing two people was racially motivated. The teen fatally shot two protesters during an August 2020 protest for Jacob Blake in Wisconsin when he was 17-years-old.

Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger was hoping to show how Rittenhouse had adopted the beliefs of the white nationalist group. Binger called the teen a “chaos tourist” who traveled from Antioch, Illinois, to Kenosha armed with a Smith and Wesson AR-15 style gun with a 30-round magazine. The teen fatally shot protesters, Anthony Huber, and Joseph D. Rosenbaum. A third man, Gaige Grosskreutz, was shot in the arm but survived.

Lawyers representing the now 18-year-old said that the crime could not have been racially motivated since his victims were white. However, the assistant district attorney claims that since everyone there was protesting the unjust police shooting of a Black man, Rittenhouse felt compelled to harm them.

Rittenhouse has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, and two counts of reckless endangerment. He also faces a misdemeanor charge of being a minor in possession of a firearm.