- 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse has been arrested in Illinois after allegedly opening fire on protestors in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, killing two people and wounding another
- Rittenhouse was arrested in his hometown of Antioch, Illinois, a 30-minute drive from the site of the shooting
- According to the Wisconsin Police Department, Rittenhouse will be charged with first-degree murder
- Initially arriving as part of a militia group, Rittenhouse came to Wisconsin to support police during the state’s ongoing Black Lives Matter protests
- He is currently awaiting an extradition hearing to transfer his custody from Illinois to Wisconsin
17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse has been arrested in Illinois, after allegedly opening fire on protestors in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, killing two and wounding another.
According to the Wisconsin Police Department, Rittenhouse will be charged with first-degree murder.
Initially arriving as part of a militia group, Rittenhouse came to Wisconsin to support police during the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, which were sparked after the shooting of Jacob Blake late last week.
Footage of the incident shows Rittenhouse running through the street with a semi-automatic rifle before stumbling and falling onto the ground. From that position, he then fired several shots into a crowd of protestors, who immediately begin to disperse.
A later video showed Rittenhouse moving towards police with his hands raised, as they called for witnesses of the shooting, but at the time he was not arrested.
Following the shooting, the Antioch Police Department and Wisconsin authorities issued an arrest warrant for the teenager, charging him with first-degree intentional homicide.
Rittenhouse was subsequently arrested in his hometown of Antioch, Illinois, a 30-minute drive from the site of the shooting.
He is currently awaiting an extradition hearing to transfer his custody from Illinois to Wisconsin.
The events in Kenosha were triggered by the shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday. According to witnesses, Jacob Blake had been attempting to break up the fight. Despite surviving the attack, his lawyers have informed the public that he is now paralysed and is unlikely to walk again.
Following the recent death and subsequent uproar that occurred when George Floyd was killed by police in the neighbouring state of Minnesota, protestors descended upon the city to protest the shooting.
This, in turn, led the Governor of Wisconsin and the City of Kenosha to deploy National Guard troops and impose a mandatory curfew. Amid the chaos, a number of local militia groups, with Kyle Rittenhouse among them, attended the protests with the intension of supporting police.