the trial opens in the United States

A delicate trial opens on Monday in the United States where a young white man is due to plead guilty to murder charges for shooting two people in clashes on the sidelines of major anti-racism protests in the summer of 2020.

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Then aged 17, Kyle Rittenhouse had joined armed men who presented themselves as “vigilante groups»Eager to protect the town of Kenosha, in the north of the country, shaken by riots after a police blunder.

Himself equipped with a semi-automatic rifle, he opened fire under confused circumstances, killing two men and wounding a third. All of his victims are white. Arrested soon after, he was charged with murder and released on bail of two million dollars. He faces life imprisonment.

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His lawsuit, which reflects American society’s fractures over guns and movement Black Lives Matter (black lives matter), will begin with the selection of jurors. Prosecutors should then portray him as a right-wing extremist who came to Kenosha on purpose to do battle with anti-racist protesters. His lawyers will plead the right to self-defense, ensuring that he fired to protect himself from the rioters who were pursuing him.

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On August 23, 2020, Kenosha burst into flames, because white police seriously injured a young black man, Jacob Blake, by shooting him in the back during an arrest attempt. During the third night of riots, Kyle Rittenhouse, who had posted numerous messages of support for the police on the internet, had driven about thirty kilometers to patrol the city.

Several videos have captured his movements. On one of the tapes, he appears to run away before another youngster collapses to the ground with a bullet in the head. In another, we see him being chased by a group, falling to the ground, turning around, weapon in hand. Shots are then audible.

«You saw the video he was trying to escape them“, Commented Republican President Donald Trump during a visit to Kenosha in September 2020.”I imagine he was in a mess and probably would have been killed“. Since then, the young man has become a muse in certain right-wing circles for whom the great mobilization against police violence in the summer of 2020 was the work of violent radicals, “antifa” Where “anarchists».

Trial judge Bruce Schroeder has vowed to keep politics out of court. But he aroused perplexity by refusing prosecutors to speak of “victimsAbout the people killed or injured by Kyle Rittenhouse, while allowing his lawyers to call them “rioters or looters».

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