Kyle Rittenhouse took jabs at “the left” and said he’s looking into legal action against people who he feels misrepresented his case.
Rittenhouse, recently acquitted on all charges in a racially-charged multiple homicide trial, stood by his stance that he was acting in self-defense when he killed two people and injured one other in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The 18-year-old blamed the charges against him on “a mob mentality” during an interview with Tucker Carlson that aired Monday night.
“And apparently, a lot of people on the left, it’s criminal to want to protect your community,” Rittenhouse said.
The exonerated teen said he’s hoping to lead a quiet life as an Arizona State University student, even as he receives numerous threats and feels his life has been “extremely defamed” by the case.
Carlson asked if the shooter was confident the government would protect him, and Rittenhouse replied “I hope so, but we all know how the FBI works.”
Rittenhouse was 17-years-old when he went armed with a semiautomatic rifle to Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020 amid anti-police brutality and anti-racism protests.
He has claimed he was protecting a local business when he shot a man who threatened him and tried to take his gun. He ran, but was pursued by other protesters and clashed with them, ultimately shooting two more people before running toward police.
Rittenhouse said he plans to take legal action amid what he felt were media misrepresentations and people who called him a white supremacist.
“I have really good lawyers who are taking care of that right now,” Rittenhouse said. ”So, I’m hoping one day there will be some, there will be accountability for the actions that they did.”
Carlson replied, “You’re intent you’re not going to let that go?”
“Like I said, I have really good lawyers handling that,” Rittenhouse said.
Early in the interview, Rittenhouse described his version of events throughout the night and his experiences in a juvenile detention facility and jail as he awaited trial. He said even after his deadly confrontation and walking to police to tell them he had shot people, he didn’t expect the charges against him.
“I didn’t know I was gonna be arrested for defending myself because everything was on video,” he claimed. “But part of the reason I think I was arrested is because of the mob mentality. And they were like, ‘oh yeah we’re just gonna arrest him’ even though there was videos already out showing I was attacked and having to defend myself.”
He described telling his parents about the confrontation, saying his mother “was in shock.”
“She wanted to go into hiding and I said no the right thing to do would be to turn myself in, I didn’t do anything wrong,” Rittenhouse said.
He blamed his original legal team, who he later dropped, for pushing a narrative that he was in an unorganized militia, a claim he denied.
“I’m not a racist person, I support the BLM movement,” Rittenhouse said. “I support peacefully demonstrating and I believe there needs to be changed. I believe there’s a lot of prosecutorial misconduct not just in my case but in other cases.
“It’s just amazing to see how much a prosecutor can take advantage of somebody,” he added. “Like if they did this to me, imagine what they could have done to a person of color who maybe doesn’t have the resources I do or is not widely publicized like my case.”
Rittenhouse also told Carlson that he felt President Joe Biden had “defamed” him when he tweeted out a video implying that he was a white supremacist.
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