I've been hesitant to weigh in on this story. I feel too close to it.
I work just up the street from the used car lot Kyle Rittenhouse was supposedly trying to defend, and just around the corner from Kenosha's Uptown district, which was almost completely destroyed as a result of the riot. The Kenosha Fire Department was still trying to put out the flames when I arrived at work the next morning. While our building was untouched by fire, the air inside reeked of smoke.
I know people who no longer speak to each other because of the Jacob Blake shooting, the riot, and the deaths that came from it all.
And yes, I call it a riot, not a protest.
There were protests that night. People may riot in protest.
But to call what happened a protest is like calling a hurricane "a weather event."
That said, a riot is no place for a 17-year-old boy to be gallivanting around with an AK-15. I really don't care if he had a father who lived in Kenosha once upon a time, or that he wanted practice being an Emergency Medical Technician. This was not the movies. It was not a video game.
Real people were bound to get hurt or killed.
Young Master Rittenhouse could just as easily have been one of them.
And his killer would have claimed self-defense.
No comments:
Post a Comment