Demonstrators In Kenosha March To Protest Rittenhouse Verdict
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Anger and frustration were on display in the streets of Kenosh Sunday as protesters reacted to Friday's acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse. Crowds called for criminal justice reform saying the court system protected the wrong man.
Just days after Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted on all counts, leaving him a free man this weekend, protesters gathered, rejecting the verdict and calling for this to move to the federal level.
Protesters took to the same streets Rittenhouse used last August when he shot three people, killing two, during protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
The trial and the 'not guilty' verdict that followed have been divisive, with Rittenhouse supporters labeling him a patriot and hero. People at the protest labeled him a vigilante who "profited from a corrupt legal system."
Sunday loved ones of those who were shot by Rittenhouse and family of Jacob Blake spoke.
"It feels like these men who died, that they don't matter," said Kariann Swart, the fiance of Joseph Rosenbaum, who was fatally shot. "But they do matter. They're our loved ones."
"President Biden sold us out," said Jacob Blake's uncle, Justin Blake. "He betrayed our family. He betrayed the people behind us."
"We didn't accept Emmett Till's verdict. We didn't accept the verdict of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and we will not accept this verdict," said Bishop Tavis Grant with the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Notable were the large guns that several people were seen carrying as they walked among the protesters. They said after what happened on these street last year it was a necessary precaution.
The protest ended right back where it started without violent incident.
KENOSHA REACTION
— Marissa Parra (@MarParNews) November 21, 2021
Rev Jesse Jackson was expected to march the route Kyle Rittenhouse took the night he shot and killed two people last summer, but we were just informed he can't make it
Roughly 50 protesters here at Civic Center Park in Kenosha @cbschicago pic.twitter.com/8H4gQ0OgjD
This comes one day after Rev. Jesse Jackson led a march through downtown Chicago. He was supposed to be at the protest in Kenosha as well, but a spokesperson said he instead decided to work on a letter to the Department of Justice asking them to step in.