To Paramilitary Groups, Rittenhouse Verdict Means Vindication
The New York Times
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.
The powerful storm, fueled by a whirling mass of cold air originating from the Arctic, was expected to leave much of the southern United States in the low-teens or single-digit degrees.
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Officials said the agent was shot on Interstate 91, which was closed for several hours near the border with Canada.
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As Donald J. Trump prepares to take the oath of office for a second time, much of the world seems to be bowing down to him and demoralized opponents are rethinking the future.