This is another of those cases where so much misinformation has been put out it's made me even more cynical about the media (like the Associated Press reporting on the recent Netflix walkout). Glenn Greenwald, Bari Weiss and Jesse Singal (three people I disagree with on a lot of things) have said some very pertinent things about this. It's made me very appreciative of the, sometimes frustrating, embargoes on reporting of active UK criminal cases. Even after the verdict I've seen reporters continue to repeat some of the factoids, in the Norman Mailer sense of the word, about this case.
I suspect Kyle Rittenhouse isn't exactly my cup of tea, and it seems insane that anyone asked a 17 year old to go out with a gun during a riot and protect their business. However, after seeing the evidence, I believe that Ziminski, who was armed with a gun, and Rosenbaum, who had raped several boys, had nefarious intentions towards Rittenhouse that night. That first shooting was clearly self-defence. After that things became tragically confused. The three other men who attacked Rittenhouse, one of whom had a gun, believed Rittenhouse was an active shooter and attacked him. Rittenhouse again had reason to believe his life was in danger and shot two of them, killing one. This is what happens when the authorities cede their responsibilities to out-of-their depth teenagers with guns.