Milwaukee Buck: The Kyle Rittenhouse/Kenosha Riots Trial

CLAY: Buck is in Milwaukee right now and not far away from Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the Kyle Rittenhouse trial has begun surrounding the Kenosha, Wisconsin, riots. And I’ve been doing a lot of reading on this, Buck, ’cause I like to know all the backstory as the trial takes place. So for people out there who may not have been aggressively following this story, the Kenosha riots were in the wake of the Jacob Blake incident.

And for those of you who may have forgotten, Jacob Blake was shot; he was armed with a knife. There were no charges that were brought against the officers who shot him. Also, he was later subsequently charged, I believe — or had been charged — with sexual assault before that. He was armed — and again, there were no charges brought against the police.

So he has been charged with a crime. He was 17 years old at the time that he did this, and his defense is essentially self-defense. He is saying that he was attacked, that his life, he felt like he was in danger, and that is why he decided to fire the weapon that he had, and therefore he is not responsible for any of the allegations, any of the criminal charges that have been brought against him because his defense is that he was acting in self-defense.

Now, you’re just 40 miles away from this trial, Buck, and this is me having done criminal law in the past. I try not to get involved in all of the external noise — and certainly there is a great deal of external noise here — and just look at the facts in the case. Ultimately, this is going to come down to, “Does the jury believe or not believe that Kyle Rittenhouse was in danger and that he had a reason to be exercising self-defense?”

BUCK: So he has a number of charges he’s facing. First degree, recklessly endangering safety use of a weapon punishable by up to 12-1/2 years, first degree reckless homicide use of a dangerous weapon. He’s facing decades in prison for this, depending on how the jury finds. A few things to note on all this. One is that there’s video, and a lot of us have seen the video of the second incident.

There’s actually additional footage that now has come forward from the federal government side because they had some surveillance going on because this was a riot zone, because BLM rioted. Now, that doesn’t change the facts of the case one way or the other. It does set the scene, though, for what’s going on. BLM rioted in Kenosha because they — well, what?

What was accomplished by this other than a people being attacked, stores being burned to the ground, people being terrified in their community. No, BLM makes everything worse for everyone. That he was the actual result of the riots and the protest, that undermined police. But put that aside for a second. The footage that we have…

The footage that we’ve seen certainly in the second instance, Clay, to me — as somebody who’s had training in use of force, who’s actually had to carry guns for his job — it’s clear self-defense. If you can be armed — and he’s very visibly armed, it was an AR. It wasn’t concealed carry situation. If you’re visibly armed and a mob can run up to you hit you with a skateboard kick you in the head — and have a guy who actually runs up to you with a pistol in hand — and you cannot use your rifle, then there’s no such thing as self-defense.

Then we’ve actually neutered, we’ve taken away the ability of an individual to defend oneself in a lethal-force situation, not only based on what we’ve seen and the testimony so far would I say that Kyle Rittenhouse should be found not guilty. I think that a more-fair, less-politicized prosecutor’s office would have said this is not a case we should bring with the possible exception of — what was this — failure to comply with an emergency order from state or local government, which is punishable by a $200 fine.

Yes, that he violated. He violated that. Okay, the $200 fine, he should have to pay it. Decades in prison for defending himself? Clay, it’s very hard for me not to look at this and say this is part of a plague that is going on across the country of politicized prosecution; people given the fearsome powers of the prosecutor’s office, using that as a weapon for political purposes.

They want to make an example of this guy because no one’s allowed to stand against the rioting BLM mob, Clay. No one’s allowed to stand athwart this and say, “I will defend myself with lethal force if necessary if you attack me.” This is wrong.” I think there’s a lot of politics behind this.

CLAY: I think there’s politics, and I think what’s gonna ultimately come down to is, the jury is going to have to reconcile — and I’m talking about this not as an advocate of any particular side. Just looking at it from the criminal court perspective. The jury is gonna have reconcile self-defense within the context of this is a kid who decided to arm himself with a rifle and go out into the streets when riots were going on.

I think there’s a lot of people out there listening to us right now who would say, “Hey, if this were my 17-year-old kid, I would be like, ‘Heck no! You’re not gonna be out in the streets at all.'” This is, by the way, white, black, Asian, Hispanic. I wouldn’t want my teenagers out anywhere near any of this incident — much less out armed — because of the danger that might ensue. So the jury is going to have to analyze, ’cause what they’re gonna try to sell on the other side — the prosecutor — is this idea that he went out with a gun intending to find someone to shoot, right? That is what they are going to sell.

BUCK: That is what they are trying to sell. The prosecutors are trying to convince people of that, Clay. I think the video evidence, the video evidence makes that an incredibly hard sell, certainly in the second instance. Now, there’s not clear video evidence of the first instance in the same way, I should say. There’s a lot of different evidence being brought to bear. But he was chased. If you chase…

If I have a visible sidearm — AR, doesn’t matter — and someone chases me and wants to do violence to me, I’m not going to wait to see if they can knock me unconscious, take my weapon, and use it against me, and in case last day earth. If someone knows I have a gun and they want to do violence again against me, I’m going to defend myself.

I would even say this goes — yes, this is a basic right in our laws in this country, this goes back to English common law, this goes back to biblical law. If someone’s coming at you, you have a basic human right to be able to defend yourself. I don’t see how… To your point, Clay, about going out there that’s a whole other discussion — and it’s a valid one, too, especially as you see some of what happens when people try to be good Samaritans.

CLAY: And the jury is gonna have that in their mind. I’m just trying to think about it from the jury perspective who is being pitched two different sides of the story and has to make a determination about what they believe.

BUCK: You know, there was a shooting — it’s actually Andy Ngo put this one out, and I remind everybody of this. It was back on August 20th, and the police have released the video because they’re looking for an individual. Back on August 20th in Portland, where they’ve had thousand shootings in Portland claim and this comes after the BLM movement, right?

So we know what’s happened to this country as a result and Kenosha was one of the casualties of that. But you had somebody who intervened. A 30-year-old guy intervened, two teenaged girls were beating each other up. The police have just released this video. A guy intervened to separate them, and one of the male friends of these two teenage girls…

He goes to his car, gets a sidearm, shoots dead the Good Samaritan right then and there. So this is the environment that we’re operating in now in this country. I know a lot of conservatives… It’s one thing you’re saying defend you, gonna defend your own family. Of course. That’s sacrosanct. You’re always gonna do that. You’re gonna get involved in someone else’s situation? You’re gonna step in?

I know that’s the right instinct. I know that’s the honorable thing. But in the situations in which people are finding themselves now, not only do you have to worry about your own safety, Clay, you have to worry — and this is what Kyle Rittenhouse is seeing, I believe — about the state deciding that you are the problem. You who step in to defend the weak, the defenseless, you are the problem. They want to make an example of you for reasons of politics. I’m worried. I don’t know how this jury will go. You never know how a jury’s gonna go.

CLAY: That’s right.

BUCK: And the Rittenhouse situation is troubling, to say the least.

CLAY: And not only that, the jury — whether they acknowledge it or not — also may be thinking in the back of their minds, “If we don’t convict this guy, there may be riots.”

BUCK: That’s right.

CLAY: That certainly is an ever-present thought, I believe, in any juror’s mind.

BUCK: Almost like, “If you don’t like Joe Biden, there might be riots too.” It’s almost a similar thinking.

CLAY: No doubt.