To Paramilitary Groups, Rittenhouse Verdict Means Vindication

His acquittal has reinvigorated support on the right for armed responses to racial justice protests and unrest.

On Friday, as Kyle Rittenhouse stood in a courtroom in Kenosha, Wis., awaiting the verdict in his trial, a large bald man with mutton chop sideburns sat in a pew several rows behind him. As a court clerk announced Mr. Rittenhouse’s acquittal on all charges, a faint smile passed across the man’s lips.

“I’m walking on sunshine,” the man, Kevin Mathewson, said the next day. A local private investigator and former city alderman, he had attended every day of the trial, in which he had more than a passing interest.

Mr. Mathewson had become a prominent and divisive figure in Kenosha. Days after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, Mr. Mathewson had created an organization called the Kenosha Guard, an armed group that declared its intent in a Facebook post “to deter rioting/looting” amid racial justice demonstrations in Kenosha. In August 2020, after the police shooting of a Black man named Jacob Blake brought a wave of protests and rioting to the city, Mr. Mathewson had written on the Guard’s Facebook page urging Kenoshans to take to the streets with guns to defend the city. His Aug. 25 post went viral, drawing thousands of RSVPs and comments threatening violence.