Riot civil unrest trainer instructions
Take, for instance, cases in which bad cops create danger and confusion through incompetence or excessive aggression, and then they respond to the danger or confusion they created by using deadly force. The narrow nature of the self-defense inquiry is one reason people can escape responsibility for killings that are deeply wrongful in every moral sense. The defense has presented evidence not only that Rittenhouse was attacked, but that there was reason to believe he acted- under Wisconsin law-to “prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself.” The jury will have to determine whether Rittenhouse’s belief was reasonable, and whether it was reasonable for each person he shot. Rittenhouse has presented a considerable amount of evidence that he was not a hunter, but instead felt himself hunted, and fired solely on men who he believed presented a direct threat.
The law allows even a foolish man to defend himself, even if his own foolishness put him in harm’s way.Īnd so although the combination of video and testimonial evidence shows a confused and isolated 17-year-old carrying an adult weapon in a dangerous place, it also shows that he was chased by his first victim and attacked with a skateboard by his second victim, and that he shot and wounded his third victim when he pulled out his own handgun. Instead, they produce a narrow inquiry into the events immediately preceding the shooting. Such claims are not assessed by means of sweeping inquiries into the wisdom of the actions that put the shooter into a dangerous place in a dangerous time.
Riot civil unrest trainer instructions trial#
The trial itself has not gone well for the prosecution, for reasons that relate to the nature of self-defense claims. For millions he’s become a positive symbol, a young man of action who stepped up when the police (allegedly) stepped aside. And second, regardless of the outcome of the trial, the Trumpist right is wrongly creating a folk hero out of Rittenhouse. First, absolutely no one should be surprised if Rittenhouse is acquitted on the most serious charges against him. French is also a senior editor at The Dispatch.Īs the Kyle Rittenhouse trial comes to a close, two things are becoming clear at once. About the author: David French is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of its newsletter The Third Rail.