Thrill Seekers in Kenosha

I didn’t follow the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. When I read a headline about it early on, I just thought, “Oh God, what now?” But after the verdict, I began to get interested and read articles about everyone involved. People were making judgments on both sides of the issue and about the four young men involved (the shooter and the shot) but the evidence to me suggested that the issues they were commenting on may not have had much to do with why those young men came to Kenosha. 

Our past president defended Rittenhouse as a hero prior to the trial and our current president attacked him prior to the trial. You can find similar stories in the media where he is cast either as a hero or a criminal, both before and after the trial.

I would like to think the jury deliberated for 3 ½ days to sift through the evidence and, at least by appearances, they did. The jury apparently wasn’t told that the three people Rittenhouse shot were criminals (Rosenbaum was a convicted child rapist, Huber served a prison term for trying to strangle his brother, and Grosskreutz had a 10 year criminal record). But their actions during the riot certainly suggested aggression. For example, witnesses testified that Rosenbaum, the first person shot, was “acting hyperaggressive” and threatening to “f-ing kill” people. He was killed when he tried to take Rittenhouse’s gun. Huber, apparently thinking Rittenhouse was a shooter, hit him in the back of the head with a skateboard. Grosskreutz had a pistol in his hand when he approached Rittenhouse and was shot. Kyle Rittenhouse, on the other hand, apparently loved law enforcement and guns.

There appears to be a lot of speculation as to why Kyle Rittenhouse went there and was armed but the jury may also have wondered about why the three men who were shot went there. Were they there because they believed in the Black Lives Matter racial injusticeissue, because they hated police, or because of the possibilities for violent interactions? Was Kyle Rittenhouse there because he believed in law and order, to help a friend, or because of the possibility of acting out a fantasy of a violent protection of property?

From my time in combat in Vietnam, I suspect that the underlying motivations for their being in Kenosha had a lot to do with the venue including the protests, rioting and arson. Some of the people I served with in combat re-enlisted for another year to stay and fight in Vietnam. From a few conversations I had with them, their motivation was clearly the adrenaline. Although you may be afraid, combat is also a huge adrenaline rush. There was nothing to suggest that they signed up to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. From the evidence I’ve seen about all four of the young men involved in Kenosha, it was the possibility of violence in Kenosha that motivated them, making them more alike than not. 

I wonder, in the case of the three men that were shot, would they have been there if there was only going to be a peaceful sit-in? Would Kyle Rittenhouse have come if he had only been asked to clean up the car-related properties? Would any of the four have shown up if there had been no possibility for violent interactions? 

I don’t know. But if I’m right about the underlying motivations, all the commentary from the politicians and media are putting motivations related to their own issues, e.g., BLM or rioting onto the actions of these four men. In other words, politicians and pundits are looking for heroes and villains in their left/right views while the young men are just looking for thrills.

Of course, the idea that the four were primarily thrill-seekers is just a hypothesis and it is only backed up with, let’s call it, fifty-fifty facts. Those would be facts reported by some of the media that are just as likely to be false as true. 

Nevertheless, many but not all, have said that the jury system in this case worked. But here’s an interesting thought experiment. Of the over 3,000 county courts in the United States, given the exact same evidence in each, how many juries would have found Kyle Rittenhouse guilty? At least that’s something for those who go thrill-seeking to think about.