Men Shot By Kyle Rittenhouse Cannot Be Called ‘Victims’, Judge Rules [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• A Wisconsin judge presiding over the Kyle Rittenhouse case has ruled lawyers cannot refer to the two men he is accused of killing as “victims.” 
• Rittenhouse is charged in the shooting deaths of two men who were protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake in August of last year. A third man was wounded.
• Judge Bruce Schroeder says defense attorneys can call the men who were shot “arsonists” “rioters” or “looters.” Prosecutors say Rittenhouse, who was 17-years-old at the time, brought an AR-15 across state lines in response to a militia group that said it wanted to protect businesses from protesters.

The judge overseeing the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse has decided that the prosecutors may not refer to the two men Rittenhouse shot and killed during the 2020 riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as “victims.”

Judge Bruce Schroeder ruled that prosecutors may not refer to the two men as “victims” at any point, saying that such a term would carry inherent bias and could unfairly color the jury’s opinion. Such a ruling is common when the jury is tasked with deciding if an action constitutes self-defense.

“The word ‘victim’ is a loaded, loaded word,” said Schroeder, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The defense can’t use “pejorative terms” in opening statements, specifically “rioter” and “looter,” to refer to the men killed by Rittenhouse. However, they may do so in their closing statements if they have provided sufficient evidence that the men Rittenhouse shot were, in fact, rioting and looting.

“The terms that I’m identifying here such as ‘rioter,’ ‘looter’ and ‘arsonist’ are as loaded, if not more loaded, than the term ‘victim,’” one of the prosecutors, Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, contested.

The jury selection for Rittenhouse, 18, begins on Nov. 1. He is pleading “not guilty” in the deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, as well as the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz.

Rittenhouse, who was 17 in August 2020, says he shot his AR-15 in self-defense during the riots following the shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man, by a white police officer.

Source: Yahoo! News