Kyle Rittenhouse Claims He Supports BLM In First Interview Since His Controversial Trial

Kyle Rittenhouse has claimed to be a supporter of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in his first post-trial interview.

On August 24, 2020, when he was 17, Rittenhouse travelled 20 miles from Illinois to Kenosha where protests had erupted over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. It was here, the following evening, that he fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and injured Gaige Grosskreutz using an AR-15-style rifle.

Attorney Mark Richards claimed that the teenager had acted in self-defence on the night in question, describing Rittenhouse as a ‘scared kid who protected himself from a mob’ who had travelled to Kenosha to provide medical assistance and defend a local business.

Demonstrations have sprung up in cities across the US in the aftermath of the verdict, with some fearing this could well set a precedent for vigilante violence on those protesting for equality.

In a clip aired by Fox News ahead of the broadcast, Rittenhouse argued:

I’m not a racist person. I support the BLM movement and peacefully demonstrating.

In a previously-shared clip from the interview, Rittenhouse can be heard to state, ‘It’s the stuff that keeps you up at night,’ adding, ‘Once you finally do get to sleep, your dreams are about what happened and you’re waking up in a dark, cold sweat.’

An off-camera voice can then be heard asking Rittenhouse about his feelings on the verdict, to which he replies that the ‘jury reached the correct verdict’:

Self-defence is not illegal. I believe they came to the correct verdict and I’m glad everything went well. It’s been a rough journey but we made it through it. We made it through the hard part.

According to a statement from Fox News, the documentary, which is made by Tucker Carlson Originals, is set to ‘include additional portions of the interview as well as exclusive behind-the-scenes access to Rittenhouse and his defence team’.