MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) – A judge on Thursday refused prosecutors’ request to issue a new arrest warrant for an 18-year-old from Illinois who is accused of killing two people during a police protest against Wisconsin brutality in last summer.
Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder also rejected prosecutors’ request for a $ 200,000 bail increase from Kyle Rittenhouse, who came to Kenosha in August as hundreds of people protested the police shooting at Jacob Blake, a black man.
Assistant district attorney Thomas Binger said in court documents that prosecutors realized that Rittenhouse was no longer living in his apartment in Antioch, Illinois, when a court notice was returned undeliverable. Kenosha’s detectives traveled to the apartment on February 2 and found someone else living there. This man said he had been renting the place since mid-December.
Rittenhouse’s lawyers argued that the threats forced Rittenhouse to hide. He moved into an undisclosed “safe house” after conservative groups paid his initial $ 2 million bail in November. His lawyers say they offered to reveal his current address to prosecutors, but only if they agreed to keep it sealed.
“It is a matter of concern to the defense that any publicly available information about Kyle’s location would result in immediate damage to the Rittenhouse family,” wrote Mark Richards, one of Rittenhouse’s lawyers.
Binger declined to make a deal, saying the address of a murder defendant is a public record.
Rittenhouse’s lawyers provided Schroeder with the current address of Rittenhouse in a deposit on February 3 with a request to keep it secret. Binger said the address is just a PO box.
“This is completely unacceptable,” wrote Binger in a brief reply.
Kenosha was involved in violent protests that lasted several nights in August after a white policeman shot Blake, paralyzing him from the waist down.
Prosecutors allege that Rittenhouse, who is white and was 17 at the time, responded to a call from the group on social media to protect Kenosha’s business. During a demonstration on the night of August 25, Rittenhouse reportedly opened fire with an AR-15 rifle against Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz, killing Rosenbaum and Huber and injuring Grosskreutz. Prosecutors accused Rittenhouse of several charges, including murder.
Rittenhouse said he shot self-defense after Rosenbaum, Huber and Grosskreutz attacked him. Supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement painted Rittenhouse as a white supremacist on the trigger. Conservatives upset about the destruction of property during recent protests portrayed him as a patriot exercising his right to bear arms.
In January, Rittenhouse was seen drinking at a Mount Pleasant bar and posing with two men while making gestures of white supremacy. Five men also serenaded him with the hymn of the neo-fascist group Proud Boys.
Rittenhouse could drink alcohol in a bar under Wisconsin law because he was with his mother.