Judge Bruce Schroeder who was overseeing the homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse has been criticized heavily after the teenager was acquitted of all charges on Friday, November 19. The Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes alleged that the circuit judge “virtually demanded” the jury to declare Rittenhouse innocent.

Taking to Twitter, Barnes shared, “Over the last few weeks, many dreaded the outcome we just witnessed. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is what we should expect from our judicial system, but that standard is not always applied equally. We have seen so many Black and brown youth killed, only to be put on trial posthumously, while the innocence of Kyle Rittenhouse was virtually demanded by the judge.”

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MSNBC host Joy Reid also seemed not happy with the result and tweeted, “In the Rittenhouse case, the 13th juror was the judge.” Colin Kaepernick, civil rights activist and former football quarterback, called the judgment result of “white supremacy”. He wrote on the social media platform: “We just witnessed a system built on white supremacy validate the terroristic acts of a white supremacist. This only further validates the need to abolish our current system. White supremacy cannot be reformed.”

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also agreed with Kaepernick and posted, “What we are witnessing is a system functioning as designed and protecting those it was designed for. My heart still breaks for the communities and families whose grief now compounds, and the countless others who will be denied and deprived in similar scenes across the country.”

 

 

Criticizing the decision of the court, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio added, “Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum are victims. They should be alive today. The only reason they’re not is because a violent, dangerous man chose to take a gun across state lines and start shooting people. To call this a miscarriage of justice is an understatement.”

 

 

 

 

Rittenhouse was accused of fatally shooting two men -- Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26 — and injuring Gaige Grosskreutz, 28, on August 25, 2020, after protests erupted in the Wisconsin town of Kenosha following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. He was facing numerous charges, including first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree recklessly endangering safety, first-degree intentional homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18, and use of a dangerous weapon. However, on November 19, he was found not guilty of those charges.