Kyle Rittenhouse Pleads Not Guilty to All Charges

By Samuel Allegri

January 5, 2021 Updated: January 5, 2021

Kyle Rittenhouse pleaded not guilty to all charges related to the Aug. 25 shootings in Kenosha.

Rittenhouse, 18, is charged with five felonies, including first-degree homicide and attempted homicide.

His lawyer, Mark Richards, appeared alongside the accusee in a videoconference court trial.

Rittenhouse claims that his acts were done in self-defense.

Kyle Rittenhouse

Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with killing two people and injuring another during demonstrations on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, listens to defense attorney John Pierce during an extradition hearing in Lake County in Waukegan, Ill., on Oct. 30, 2020. (Nam Y. Huh/Pool via Reuters/File Photo)

At the time of the alleged crime, Rittenhouse was 17. He has also been charged with possessing a “dangerous weapon” while being underage.

The virtual court arrangement lasted about four minutes. He had previously been released from custody after posting $2 million in bail.

His attorney said that he only fired his rifle after being attacked by protestors following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, who resisted arrest.

Rittenhouse’s defense attorney initially asked for the bail to be set at $750,000, noting that he has no criminal record, quickly turned himself in voluntarily after the incident, and has an “overwhelming” claim of self-defense.

“Who attacked my client first?” Richards asked. “Rosenbaum, then the mob, not demonstrators, but rioters with ill intent in their heart.”

Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger asked for the $2 million bond, noting that Rittenhouse faces life in prison if convicted of the homicide charges, which makes him a flight risk.

kyle rittenhouse

Kyle Rittenhouse in an undated photograph. (Kyle Rittenhouse/Tik Tok)

“The defendant doesn’t want to be here and if released won’t come back,” Binger said.

During a previously held hearing, Richards put on view various screenshots from video footage that were recorded during the incident.

Photos showed Rittenhouse running away from a protester who had a firearm and Rittenhouse on the floor after being struck with a skateboard.

“The state is trying to put forth a one-sided, stilted view of what happened,” Richards asserted.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/kyle-rittenhouse-pleads-not-guilty-to-all-charges_3644700.html

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/943242106/how-private-money-from-facebooks-ceo-saved-the-2020-election

How Private Money From Facebook's CEO Saved The 2020 Election

Bill Turner knew he had a tough job. He took over as acting director of voter services in Chester County, Pa., in September, just two months before a divisive presidential election amid a pandemic. Huge voter turnout was expected, and COVID-19 required election managers like Turner to handle mail-in ballots on a scale they'd never seen and confront the threat of their staffers becoming sick.

These challenges had forced many election offices to burn through their budgets months earlier. Turner had previously served as the county's emergency manager, experience that seemed apt for overseeing an election that many observers feared would become a catastrophe.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, and Priscilla Chan, his wife, donated $350 million to a nonprofit that gave grants to election officials around the United States.

Ian Tuttle/Getty Images

With a tight budget and little help from the federal government, Chester County applied for an election grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a previously small Chicago-based nonprofit that quickly amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to help local election offices — most notably, $350 million from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

"Honestly, I don't know what we would have done without it," Turner said.

The coronavirus pandemic — and Congress' neglect — necessitated an unprecedented bailout of election offices with private money funneled through the little-known nonprofit. And the money proved indispensable.

Turner is one of 25 election directors from swing states interviewed by APM Reports who said the grant money was essential to preventing an election meltdown amid worries over a pandemic and a president who continues to openly question — without evidence — the legitimacy of the process.

The Center for Tech and Civic Life gave grants to more than 2,500 jurisdictions this year to help departments pay for election administration. The money arrived as historically underfunded election department budgets were sapped from unforeseen purchases during the primaries and were forced to spend money on election workers, postage and printing for the increasing number of voters who wanted to vote by mail.

. . .But through a series of interviews, public records requests and a review of public meetings, APM Reports pieced together the details of grant awards in the five swing states that decided the election. APM Reports obtained more than 30 applications and grant agreements between local election offices and the Center for Tech and Civic Life. The documents show requests mainly focused on the logistics of the election: increased pay for poll workers, expanded early voting sites and extra equipment to more quickly process millions of mailed ballots.