Teen charged in Kenosha killings, Kyle Rittenhouse, had a history of praising police

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Demonstrators retreat from tear gas in front of the Kenosha County Courthouse on Monday night. (Brandon Bell / Getty Images)

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Riot police are seen through shattered glass in Portland, Ore., on Tuesday. (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

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Protesters raise their hands as LAPD officers converge on them from both sides in the Third Street underpass Aug. 26. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Protesters nervously wait as LAPD officers converge on them from both sides in the Third Street underpass. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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A person holds their hands up while walking with other protestors in the Third Street tunnel. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

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A person inside the OUE Skyspace building looks outside after people participating in a protest tagged the windows. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

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Demonstrators in Los Angeles rally in favor of Senate Bill 107 that seeks to defund police departments. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Protesters in Kenosha, Wis., where Jacob Blake was shot multiple times in the back by police. (Getty Images)

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A vigil for Jacob Blake on Tuesday in New York. (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

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A demonstrator dressed as Spider-Man joins others in Kenosha, Wis. (Brandon Bell /Getty Images)

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A flag flies near a department of corrections building ablaze in Kenosha. (Morry Gash / Associated Press)

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An explosive device detonates during a clash between police and protesters outside the Kenosha County Courthouse late Tuesday. (David Goldman / Associated Press)

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Portland, Ore., City Hall’s shattered window. (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

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Charred vehicles sit in a lot following a night of protest and vandalism in Kenosha, Wis. (Morry Gash / Associated Press)

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A drone image of the charred remains of a department of corrections building in Kenosha. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

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Volunteers help clean up at a department of corrections building that was destroyed in Kenosha. (Morry Gash / Associated Press)

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Protesters help a man Tuesday in Kenosha. (Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency )

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Riot police officers advance amid clouds of tear gas in Kenosha. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

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Protesters observe a moment of silence while marching Wednesday night near the scene of Jacob Blake’s shooting in Kenosha. (David Goldman / Associated Press)

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Protesters gather near the shooting scene on Wednesday night in Kenosha. (Morry Gash / Associated Press)

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Protesters in cars in Kenosha. (David Goldman / Associated Press)

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A protest march Tuesday in Kenosha. (Morry Gash / Associated Press)

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A protester launches a projectile toward police during a confrontation outside the Kenosha County Courthouse late Tuesday in Kenosha, Wis. (David Goldman / Associated Press)

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A protester moves away from a smoke canister Tuesday in Kenosha. (Morry Gash / Associated Press)

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A line of riot police officers on Tuesday in Kenosha. (Brandon Bell / Getty Images)

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Police stand guard near a burning department of corrections building in Kenosha on Monday night. (Morry Gash / Associated Press)

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A protester takes cover during clashes outside the Kenosha County Courthouse late Tuesday. (David Goldman / Associated Press)

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A protester lies injured during clashes with police outside the Kenosha County Courthouse late Tuesday. (David Goldman / Associated Press)

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The words “Black lives matter” appear on the message board at Oracle Park in San Francisco, where the scheduled Dodgers-Giants game was canceled after players chose not to play in protest of the police shooting in Kenosha, Wis. (Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)

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An empty court in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., where the Milwaukee Bucks-Orlando Magic playoff game was canceled. After Bucks players chose not to play in protest, all three scheduled NBA games Wednesday were called off. (Kevin C. Cox / Pool photo )

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Inter Miami players wearing Black Lives Matter shirts gather on the field before their MLS soccer match against Atlanta United was called off in an act of protest on Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (Jim Rassol / Associated Press )

By Jaweed Kaleem

and Chris Megerian

Aug. 26, 2020 8:42 PM PT

KENOSHA, Wis. — The arrest of a teenager on charges of killing two people amid clashes in this city over the police shooting of a Black man has stoked the nation’s culture wars yet again and presented an incendiary challenge to President Trump’s reelection campaign.

Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, a white youth who has often praised police, is charged with homicide in what officials described as a vigilante act that resulted in three protesters being shot, two fatally, late Tuesday night. After the incident, onlookers alerted police that Rittenhouse — who was underage and not allowed to openly carry a weapon — was roaming the street with a semiautomatic rifle slung around his neck.

Since his arrest Wednesday across the border in Antioch, Ill., details have emerged that Rittenhouse posted to social media in support of the pro-police Blue Lives Matter movement. He spoke to reporters before the shooting about being a self-styled citizen patrol who came to Kenosha to protect businesses from vandalism.

He appears in photos at a Trump rally this year in Des Moines. A TikTok video from the account @kylerittenhouse33, first reported by BuzzFeed and later deleted, appeared to show Rittenhouse’s recording from the rally. The account had the bio of “BLUE LIVES MATTER” and “Trump 2020.”

Demonstrators retreat from tear gas in front of the Kenosha County Courthouse.

Rittenhouse’s alleged actions coincide with this week’s Republican National Convention, where the president’s campaign promise of “law and order” is a dominating theme. Speakers this week have warned about “crime, violence, mob rule” and spiraling “chaos and violence into our communities.”

Those warnings were largely directed at nationwide protests that erupted after the death at police hands of George Floyd nearly three months ago in Minneapolis. Trump has portrayed liberal cities as overrun with anti-police liberals bent on violence. Rittenhouse complicates that story even as it springs out of demonstrations against another episode of alleged police brutality and racial injustice.

Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old Black man Kenosha police shot on Sunday — seven times in the back as he tried to enter an SUV where his three children sat — lay paralyzed in the hospital as the city entered a fourth night of unrest, with authorities saying Wednesday that he had a knife in his car but no gun. The incident happened when police responded to a domestic dispute.

Late Wednesday, the Trump campaign released a statement on the shooting in which Rittenhouse is charged.

“President Trump has repeatedly and consistently condemned all forms of violence and believes we must protect all Americans from chaos and lawlessness,” said campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh. “This individual had nothing to do with our campaign and we fully support our fantastic law enforcement for their swift action in this case.”

Officials in Kenosha, a majority-white city of 100,000, said that they were unprepared and unaccustomed to consecutive nights of up to 1,000 people protesting, some of which turned violent and left businesses burned and charred in Kenosha’s Uptown business district.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers accepted the president’s offer to send federal law enforcement to the city after initially rejecting it. The governor said they would reinforce the Wisconsin National Guard and local police who patrolled downtown streets. Roads have been barricaded, and the county courthouse, the main site of demonstration clashes, is surrounded by a fence.

Democrats have accused the president of instigating violence by dispatching federal forces to cities experiencing unrest, such as Portland, Ore., where city officials said they didn’t want the troops’ presence. One of Trump’s tweets in particular this summer has been singled out. After riots in Minneapolis, he wrote that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The phrase harks back to the ’60s, when it was used to describe police crackdowns on Black civil rights activists.

“My heart breaks for the families and loved ones of the two individuals who lost their lives and the individual who was injured last night in Kenosha,” Evers said in a statement. “We as a state are mourning this tragedy.” The governor has called the protests in Kenosha a reflection of the “pain, anguish and exhaustion of Black people in our state and country.”

Kenosha’s mayor, John Antaramian, said Wednesday that a 7 p.m. curfew had been extended through at least Sunday and expressed shock at the state of his city. “I’m not good at this,” said the Democrat, who was mayor from 1992 to 2008 and elected again 2016. “I’ve been mayor for a long time. This is not what I’m used to.”

Police Chief Daniel Miskinis and Sheriff David Beth said they believed armed individuals, possibly members of militia groups, were behind some of the violence. “I don’t want violence regardless of which side of any issue you are on,” Miskinis said.

In Uptown Kenosha, a business district near the shore of Lake Michigan that has rapidly undergone redevelopment over the years, store owners, some of them supporters of and participants in the protests, boarded up or guarded their doors Wednesday afternoon after driving in past the ashes of a Mexican restaurant, furniture store and used-car dealership that had burned down.

“I grew up here, and I usually know the people who are out protesting. These folks out there, though, I don’t recognize a lot of them, and I wonder where they’ve come from,” said Alvin Owens, a Black community organizer who recently opened up a barbershop and teen resource center off Sheridan Road, a main north-south street at the heart of much of the unrest.

As tear gas fills the air, police try to push back demonstrators.

“I’m in pain for Blake and his family, and there is no way you can watch the video of police shooting him and think it’s OK,” said Owens, 52. “As someone who was out there myself protesting — pepper-sprayed one night, tear-gassed the other, I also am concerned about police tactics. But Black Kenosha loves its city, and we don’t need to destroy our own downtown.”

Joseph Centeno, who two years ago moved his pet supply store, K-9 Kibble, to a now-scorched stretch of Sheridan Road, said he was “praying” for peace. “I don’t want to lose focus here; the incident with Mr. Blake is tragic. I pray that he heals and the family gets better. But I think there is an opportunity for the principles of Black Lives Matter to move forward positively.”

The U.S. Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into Blake’s shooting. Wisconsin law enforcement agencies on Wednesday released more details in the Blake case and on the shooting in which Rittenhouse faces charges.

The people who died Tuesday, in an area near a gas station where demonstrators congregated after police dispersed them from in front of the county courthouse, were a 26-year-old from Silver Lake, Wis., and a 36-year-old from Kenosha.

Of the three officers now on leave as the Wisconsin Department of Justice investigates Blake’s shooting, the department identified the one who shot him as Rusten Sheskey, who has been with the force for seven years. In a statement, the department said police were called Sunday to a home after a woman said her “boyfriend was present and not supposed to be on the premises.”

Kenosha police do not wear body cameras, but the statement matches what’s seen on bystander videos, which show police trying to arrest Blake before he walks to his car door, opens it and is shot in the back after Sheskey grabs him by his tank top. Blake falls onto the car horn, which goes off continuously. The state Justice Department said police tried to Taser Blake before the shooting, which “was not successful in stopping Blake.”

Blake’s lawyer, Benjamin Crump, has said Blake was “simply trying to do the right thing by intervening in a domestic incident” and described the officers as “irresponsible, reckless and inhumane.” Crump, who has represented the families of several other Black men shot or arrested by police, including Floyd, said Blake’s sons, ages 3, 5 and 8, were in the car as police shot him.

The state Justice Department said it will release its report on the shooting to the district attorney, who will decide whether to press charges, next month.

Kaleem reported from Kenosha and Megerian from Washington.