An Illinois teenager has been charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a demonstrator in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, was charged Wednesday with first-degree intentional homicide in a shooting late Tuesday during a clash between protesters of police brutality and right-wing militia group members.
The militia members had gathered to protect a gas station from looters and vandals, and video shows police offer Rittenhouse water shortly before the shooting and thank him for being there.
Another video shows Rittenhouse open fire with a rifle after he fell to the ground and then calmly walk toward police vehicles with his hands raised in surrender. Other people can be heard yelling that he had shot someone.
However, no officers are seen getting out of the vehicles, which continue advancing toward protesters, to apprehend Rittenhouse — who then fled the state and was considered a fugitive.
He was arrested later Wednesday back in his hometown. He is reportedly being held in the Lake County Juvenile Detention Center near Vernon Hills awaiting an extradition hearing.
According to The Daily Beast, Rittenhouse’s Facebook page “included numerous photos with Blue Lives Matter-style pro-police slogans and imagery, as well as of an Armalite rifle similar to the one he appears to have been photographed carrying in Kenosha.”