ASU protests show how deeply the justice system failed Kyle Rittenhouse
Corrections & Clarifications: Kyle Rittenhouse did not carry a gun across state lines. He was eventually arrested and later acquitted by a jury. The Kenosha County district attorney said video evidence shows that Jacob Blake had a knife at the time a Kenosha policeman shot him.
The criminal justice system failed Kyle Rittenhouse.
Yep.
I said what I said.
That failure of justice has a direct relationship to the protest movement from some Arizona State University students who don’t want to share a classroom with a killer.
To state the obvious, I think Rittenhouse should have been arrested the night he showed up armed at the protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. I also believe there was enough evidence for him to have been found guilty of the homicide and weapons charges he faced after shooting three people, killing two of them, and saying he was there to protect property, which he didn’t own.
But he wasn’t found guilty.
Of course, he wasn’t.
Judge turned Rittenhouse's trial into a sideshow
The young white man was acquitted on five felony charges in a trial in which the judge turned the whole thing into a sideshow.
Now, we have students who want ASU to ban him because they believe, as I do, that Killa Kyle should be locked away from the rest of us who don’t think broken windows and stolen property are worthy of human life.
Start by blaming the judge, Bruce Schroeder, who turned the whole trial into a sideshow that seemed to have as much in common with justice as a pile of Clydesdale manure has with a plate of Christmas cookies.
Schroeder wouldn’t allow the prosecution to use the term “victim” to describe the people whom Rittenhouse shot. He was fine with the defense using words like “rioter,” however.
The judge also caused a distraction during the proceedings when his cellphone rang and played “God Bless the USA,” a tune Donald Trump used to walk out to during his rallies.
And then Schroeder had Rittenhouse sit with him, shoulder to shoulder, during jury selection.
I’m no lawyer, but I have covered court cases, and I’ve been watching “trials of the century” on TV since O.J. Simpson, and I can’t recall seeing that move even once.
Appearance of bias helped no one, including Kyle
All of it gave the appearance of bias, which wasn’t fair to anyone, not even Rittenhouse.
Regardless of how deplorable his actions were or how despicable his motivations might have been, he deserves a fair shot at justice.
It just doesn’t seem like justice was done here.
How is it justice that a minor was able to cross a state line and open fire at people who were angry that a Black man got shot in the back?
If a Black person can get shot in the back by police for having a knife, why shouldn’t a white person be shot for having a gun? A smoking, long, scary gun?
And you’ll forgive me for drawing a comparison that isn’t absolutely parallel, but wasn’t Tamir Rice killed for having a toy gun? So, a 12-year-old Black kid can get killed in a Cleveland park by police for having a toy pistol?
But a 17-year-old white kid in Kenosha doesn’t immediately get arrested after shooting people with a gun that looks like something soldiers would carry through the brush in Vietnam or the desert in Afghanistan?
It just doesn’t look like justice.
No wonder students are protesting at ASU
Consequently, student groups at ASU are planning campus rallies and circulating online petitions, demanding the university make statements opposing white supremacy and keep Rittenhouse away from them.
The university, for its part, said that Rittenhouse had enrolled as an online student, but that he’s not an ASU student any longer.
Rittenhouse has said that he was taking online classes at ASU and that he wanted to eventually attend in person.
And, frankly, he should be allowed to, but since Judge Schroeder made the trial all about himself, we’re all left to wonder whether it was fair.
It doesn’t seem like it was.
That leads to protests.
It’s going to prevent Rittenhouse from getting on with his life, which he should be allowed to do after an acquittal.
I said what I said.
The criminal justice system failed Kyle Rittenhouse.
It failed all of us.
Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @SayingMoore.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ASU protests show how deeply the courts failed Kyle Rittenhouse
