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Jury finds Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts

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A Kenosha jury just delivered a verdict that split the country down the middle.

After four days and roughly 26 hours of deliberation, a 12-member jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin returned its verdict on Friday, November 19, 2021: not guilty on all five felony counts against Kyle Rittenhouse. The 18-year-old had faced charges stemming from the fatal shootings of two men and the wounding of a third during the unrest that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake in August 2020. Judge Bruce Schroeder presided over a trial that had already drawn national attention long before the jury left the room.

• The jury deliberated for approximately 26 hours over four days before acquitting Rittenhouse on all counts, including first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, and two counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety.
• The charges traced back to August 25, 2020, when Rittenhouse used a semi-automatic AR-15-style rifle to fatally shoot Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wound Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, amid the Kenosha unrest.
• Judge Schroeder had already dismissed two lesser charges — a curfew violation and unlawful possession of a firearm by a minor — before the case went to the jury.

The Verdict Read in Court

As the court clerk read the consecutive not-guilty verdicts, Rittenhouse began trembling and broke down sobbing, collapsing onto the defense table before his attorney, Mark Richards, wrapped him in an embrace. Outside the courthouse, Richards told reporters that his client felt an immense sense of relief and was heading home to try to move forward with his life. The moment capped a trial that had turned an 18-year-old defendant into one of the most polarizing figures in the country’s ongoing debate over self-defense laws.

Details of the Formal Charges

Rittenhouse walked into court facing first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, and two counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety — charges tied directly to the deaths of Rosenbaum and Huber and the wounding of Grosskreutz on the night of August 25, 2020. Prosecutors built their case around the claim that Rittenhouse had escalated a chaotic scene rather than defended himself against it; the defense countered that each shot was fired only after Rittenhouse was chased, struck, or had a weapon pointed at him. Judge Schroeder’s decision to drop the curfew and weapons-possession charges before deliberations narrowed the jury’s task to the five felony counts that ultimately ended in acquittal.

Reaction From the Courtroom and Washington

Lead prosecutor Thomas Binger issued a statement acknowledging his disappointment with the outcome but stressing that the jury’s verdict had to be respected, and he urged the Kenosha community to remain peaceful in its aftermath. President Joe Biden also weighed in, saying he stood by the jury’s decision even as the case continued to generate fierce debate across cable news and social media.

The jury system works, and we have to respect it.

The case had already become a lightning rod well before the verdict, with commentary splitting sharply along political lines — a divide that mirrors how politicians have handled other charged moments on live television. Coverage of the trial itself also became a story in its own right, with cable hosts and online personalities weighing in constantly, not unlike the pattern seen among reporters who’ve stumbled badly on social media while covering breaking news.

Richards said his client was simply relieved to be going home. For a defendant who spent 18 months as the face of a national argument he never asked to be part of, that was the entire story on Friday — no appeal, no retrial, just a not-guilty verdict on every count and a trembling teenager collapsing into his lawyer’s arms in a Kenosha courtroom.