The girlfriend of one of the men killed by Kyle Rittenhouse during riots and unrest in Kenosha, Wis., last year and who is now awaiting a jury’s decision on several charges including two counts of murder said she has “a lot of sympathy” for the teen.
And while Hannah Gittings, 25, who was dating Anthony Huber, 26, the second man shot by Rittenhouse the night of Aug. 25, 2020, also said she thinks the then-17-year-old minor was caught up trying to be “king of the hill,” she does not believe he was in the city just to protect businesses after rioting broke out following the police shooting of a black man named Jacob Blake.
“If these people had just done what they said they were going to be doing, standing outside of the property making sure nobody was ruining these buildings and businesses whatever, that’s cool, but you weren’t,” Gittings told the New York Post.
“This kid was walking around like hot s**t, looking for a reason to say, ‘Oh I gotta do something about this,’” she claimed, adding that she believes he fell in with a group of people who were acting like vigilantes in the city.
(Video Credit: WISN 12 News)
“I do have a lot of sympathy for this kid because he is just a kid to me so it was just like a really dumbass kid who unfortunately became the figurehead for this,” she told the paper.
In addition, Gittings blames the city of Kenosha as well for her boyfriend’s death, adding that officials need “to be held responsible for allowing this militia to show up and do exactly what they came here to do.”
“You are not going to tell me that these motherf**kers did not know that this militia was here. You’re not gonna tell me that,” she railed, adding that she believes an outside special prosecutor should be appointed to look into the issue.
“They gotta put some heat on this kid because if they let him completely off the hook, then they have to totally take responsibility for allowing what happened to happen,” she added.
On the August night that her boyfriend was killed, Gittings said she went to the protests with Huber, who was a friend of Blake’s. She told The Post that Huber was there to video and document the rioting and unrest when he attempted to stop Rittenhouse as the teen was being chased after he shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum moments earlier. Rosenbaum was also chasing Rittenhouse at the time.
Huber was killed after he clubbed Rittenhouse with a skateboard and appeared to try and snatch his AR-15 rifle.
Gittings went on to say that there is a “difference in character” between Rittenhouse and her deceased boyfriend.
“One of them goes out, taking advantage of a vulnerable situation so that he can live out his fantasy of being king of the world and one of them out there doing absolutely nothing, nothing f**king wrong and being presented with yes, an active shooter situation and leaping into action without a second thought of his own safety,” Gittings claimed.
She also said it has been hard to watch the trial, which has lasted about two weeks.
“The outcome of this trial, it could go literally any way in the world, good or bad for us and it still would not change any of this for us,” she told The Post.
Jon has over 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.
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