Defendant Kyle Rittenhouse checks his compartment telephone arsenic helium waits with his attorneys for the justice to relieve the assemblage during his proceedings astatine the Kenosha County Courthouse successful Kenosha, Wis., connected Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021. (Sean Krajacic/The Kenosha News via AP, Pool) (Sean Krajacic, 2021, Sean Krajacic, Kenosha News, All rights reserved)

NEW YORK – Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted connected charges stemming from sidesplitting 2 men and wounding different during the unrest that followed the shooting of a Black antheral by a achromatic constabulary officer, says successful a caller interrogation that he's “not a racist person” and supports the Black Lives Matter movement.

“This lawsuit has thing to bash with race. It ne'er had thing to bash with race. It had to bash with the close to self-defense," the 18-year-old tells Fox News big Tucker Carlson successful an interview acceptable to aerial Monday night. Rittenhouse is white, arsenic were the men helium shot.

Rittenhouse was 17 past twelvemonth erstwhile helium traveled 20 miles from his location successful Antioch, Illinois, to Kenosha, Wisconsin, which had been racked with protests successful the aftermath of the Aug. 23 shooting of Jacob Blake. That shooting and the effect successful Kenosha — protests that turned destructive — became portion of the nationalist reckoning implicit police usage of unit against Black radical pursuing George Floyd's decease successful Minneapolis the erstwhile May astatine the hands of police.

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Rittenhouse, equipped with an AR-style semiautomatic rifle, joined others who said they were intent connected protecting backstage spot from imaginable harm connected Aug. 25. During his trial, prosecutors argued that the teen arsenic a “wannabe soldier” who went looking for occupation that night. Rittenhouse countered that helium fired successful self-defense aft helium was attacked and successful fearfulness for his life.

The shootings rapidly made Rittenhouse a rallying outcry for supporters of Second Amendment rights and those angered by the sometimes convulsive protests seen successful immoderate American cities aft Floyd's death.

Rittenhouse was photographed successful a barroom earlier the proceedings with evident members of the far-right Proud Boys. Rittenhouse's attorneys person said helium is not a achromatic supremacist.

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“I’m not a racist person. I enactment the BLM movement, I enactment peacefully demonstrating,” Rittenhouse tells Carlson successful excerpts of the interrogation released by Fox News up of its airing.

A assemblage past Friday found Rittenhouse not blameworthy connected charges of homicide, attempted homicide and reckless endangering successful the deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz, present 28.

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