A judge postponed a decision on Friday on whether 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse should be returned to Wisconsin to face charges in the killing of two people on the streets of Kenosha during unrest following the police shooting of a local Black father, Jacob Blake, last Sunday.
The Illinois judge granted Rittenhouse’s request to delay the extradition hearing to 25 September, during a brief hearing that was streamed online from the Lake county courthouse in Waukegan, Illinois, about 16 miles directly south of Kenosha, on the shore of Lake Michigan. Rittenhouse did not appear.
Rittenhouse is from Antioch, Illinois, slightly west of both Kenosha and Waukegan, and was arrested on Wednesday in connection with the shootings of protesters in Kenosha on Tuesday night. He has been charged with killing two people and injuring another, according to the criminal complaint disclosed on Thursday.
The charges have been filed by prosecutors against Rittenhouse in Kenosha county include first-degree reckless homicide in the death of Joseph Rosenbaum and first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Anthony Huber, according to the complaint.
Rosenbaum had a two-year-old daughter, according to local reports, while Huber leaves behind a stepdaughter. A third man, 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz, was injured in the shooting but survived.
Rittenhouse could face a life sentence if convicted of first-degree intentional homicide, the most serious crime in Wisconsin. He also faces one count of attempted first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment.
Rittenhouse was also charged with possession of dangerous weapon by someone under the age of 18. Authorities allege Rittenhouse used a Smith & Wesson AR-15 style .223 rifle.
Under Wisconsin law, Rittenhouse, who is 17, was too young to legally posses the rifle he was alleged to have been carrying as he confronted protesters.
According to the criminal complaint, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, of Kenosha, followed Rittenhouse into a used car lot, where he threw a plastic bag at the teen and attempted to take his weapon.
The medical examiner found that Rosenbaum was shot in the groin, back and hand.
Rittenhouse then ran down the street and was chased by several people who shouted that he had shot someone before he tripped and fell, according to the complaint and video footage. Anthony Huber, 26, of Silver Lake, was shot in the chest after apparently trying to wrest the gun from Rittenhouse, according to the complaint.
Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, who appeared to be holding a gun, was then shot in the left arm after approaching Rittenhouse, the complaint said.
The attack late on Tuesday, largely caught on cellphone video and posted online, and the shooting by police on Sunday of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black father of six who was left paralyzed from the waist down, made Kenosha the latest focal point in the fight against racial injustice that has gripped the country since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
Kenosha police faced questions about their interactions with Rittenhouse on Tuesday night. According to witness accounts and video footage, police apparently let the gunman walk past them and leave the scene with a rifle over his shoulder and his hands in the air, as members of the crowd yelled for him to be arrested because he had shot people.
David Beth, Kenosha county sheriff, blamed a chaotic, high-stress scene he said can cause “tunnel vision” among law officers.
Video taken before the shooting shows police tossing bottled water from an armored vehicle and thanking civilians armed with long guns walking the streets. One of them appears to be the shooter.
Rittenhouse was assigned a public defender in Illinois. Under Wisconsin law, anyone 17 or older is treated as an adult in the criminal justice system.
Rittenhouse’s attorney, Lin Wood, said the teenager was acting in self-defense.
Blake was shot in the back seven times on Sunday as he leaned into his SUV, in which three of his children were seated. Authorities on Thursday named the officer who fired at Blake as Rusten Sheskey, who has been employed by the Kenosha police department for seven years.
The national and state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday called for the resignation of Beth and the Kenosha police chief, Dan Miskinis, over their handling of Blake’s shooting and the subsequent protests. The US Department of Justice said it was launching a civil rights investigation into the shooting to be led by the FBI.
Ben Crump, the lawyer for Blake’s family, said on Tuesday that it would “take a miracle” for Blake to walk again.