Activists have taken to the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin to show opposition to the not-guilty verdict handed down to Kyle Rittenhouse, and some took aim at President Joe Biden.
Among several dozen people that gathered on Sunday was Justin Blake, uncle to Jacob Blake who was shot and injured by Kenosha police. Blake appeared to blame Biden for the verdict, accusing the president of betraying his supporters.
“President Biden sold us out. He betrayed our families. He betrayed the people behind us,” Blake reportedly told a crowd of demonstrators.
Biden’s initial reaction to the Rittenhouse verdict last week did not go over well with some of his supporters, after the president said, “the jury system works,” in the immediate aftermath of the jury’s decision that Rittenhouse was not-guilty on all five charges he faced.
In a follow-up statement, however, Biden said he and others felt “concerned” and “angered” by the decision.
Rittenhouse maintained throughout the trial that he acted in self-defense when he shot and killed two men and injured another during Black Lives Matter protests in the city in August 2020. The protests were marred by violence, looting, and vandalism.
Blake, who appeared at a previous Kenosha protest with activist Jesse Jackson, claimed the problem of police violence against minorities “goes all the way to the White House,” adding that “nothing’s been done” under Biden, and that he hasn’t supported the families of victims of police shootings, like George Floyd’s family.
“Where has he been for the Floyd family?” Blake asked, demanding that he and others be invited to the White House to see that a plan of action is being put in place.
Bishop Tavis Grant, national field director with the Rainbow Push Coalition, was also among Sunday’s speakers, saying he was “outraged” by the verdict. Rainbow Push Coalition is a non-profit which focuses on the pursuit of “social justice” and “civil rights,” among other things.
Grant also called for those who had “sympathy” for Rittenhouse to show the same sympathy for Chrystul Kizer, who is black and was convicted at 17 of first degree homicide for shooting a man sexually assaulting her and others. She is currently waiting on an appeal with the Supreme Court. Activists on Sunday argued that the apparent difference in how Rittenhouse’s and Kizer’s cases are being treated exposes a hypocrisy in self-defense cases, while others have said the Rittenhouse verdict may help Kizer’s own case.
Protesters on Sunday marched in Civic Center Park in Kenosha. Demonstrators carried signs with messages such as ‘the whole system is guilty’ and ‘Party for Socialism and Liberation’. At one point, they chanted, “Anthony and JoJo,” in reference to Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum, the two men Rittenhouse shot and killed.
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