Protesters in Manhattan demand action after Rittenhouse acquittal
Emma Kaplan of the New York Revolution Club is enraged by the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict.
BY DEAN MOSES
Anger erupted Friday evening in
New York after what many called a
“miscarriage of justice”: the acquittal
of Kyle Rittenhouse.
Protesters fl ooded the city streets on
Nov. 19 after Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen
accused of killing two men and wounding
another with a rifl e during civil unrest last
year in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was found not
guilty on all counts.
The trial, which became the latest
hotbed of political division in the country,
saw far right groups advocate for
Rittenhouse’s freedom while those on
the left sought a conviction. Despite the
jury’s verdict, protesters in Manhattan on
Friday night said the teenager remains
guilty in their eyes, and was exonerated
only through an unbalanced criminal
justice system.
From Brooklyn’s Barclays Center to
Manhattan’s Washington Square Park,
protesters not only cried out in anger, but
they also called for a “revolution.”
“He Rittenhouse went to slaughter
people and he did. And now we just saw
with this verdict that came down and
actually gave the fascist and these white
supremacists, a green light to murder protesters,”
Emma Kaplan of the New York
Revolution Club said at a demonstration
in Washington Square Park. “We protested
last summer, we need to take it back and
we need to re-polarize for a revolution,”
she added.
As hundreds began to gather in Brooklyn,
dozens set off from the Village, marching
through the streets waving signs and
yelling, “Black Lives Matter!” Lugging
banners and thrusting arms skyward, the
group looked to reignite a movement akin
to the summer 2020 protests, which saw
thousands stride through the Big Apple in
a pushback against the murder of George
Floyd.
“They don’t even need a badge anymore.
PHOTOS BY DEAN MOSES
They train them when they’re young to go
and kill people. Kill protesters and Black
people,” Josh Santiago, a protester said.
“Everybody out here needs to get with this
revolution.”
Demonstrators highlighted that the
criminal justice system works, but only for
a select few. Rittenhouse’s acquittal comes
less than 24 hours after Muhammad A.
Some protesters called for a revolution.
Aziz spent over fi ve decades wrongfully
convicted for the assassination of Malcolm
X—an 83-year-old victim of what he and
his supporters called a broken and corrupt
system.
Even President Joe Biden received condemnation
at the demonstrations for saying
that “the jury system works;” however, New
York offi cials did not share this opinion.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams released
a statement ahead of attending the
Barclay’s protest calling the verdict a prime
example of injustice.
“This trial and the verdict it produced
are clear and devastating representations of
the way our country and our legal system
view innocence and guilt, vigilantes and
villains, race and the fi ght against racial
injustice. A white seventeen-year-old killing
protesters with a weapon of war is celebrated
and acquitted. A black seventeenyear
old walking the community with a bag
of Skittles is criminalized and murdered,”
Williams said, referring to the Trayvon
Martin murder in Florida back in 2012.
“Across the country we see people committed
not to changing systems of injustice
but using those systems to harm those who
would object or protest against them. This
verdict sets a new standard that will only
encourage future Kyle Rittenhouses – some
in the streets armed with weapons, some in
government armed with oppression.”
Though the peace was mainly kept in
Manhattan, individuals reportedly lashed
out in parts of Queens, leading to several
arrests.
According to Queens City Council Member
Robert Holden, the protesters (whom
he described as “anarchists”) vandalized
cars and other property, tore down American
fl ags and turned over trash cans in the
vicinity of Crowley Park, on 57th Avenue
in Elmhurst, and in neighboring parts of
Middle Village on Nov. 19.
“Five arrests were made on charges
including felony riot, weapons, criminal
mischief and others,” Holden tweeted.
“Our community will not tolerate these
senseless crimes, and we thank the police
offi cers in @NYPDQueensNorth for the
work they did in defending us.”
The NYPD said that while it supports
individuals’ rights to protest, acts of vandalism
and violence won’t be tolerated.
With reporting by Robert Pozarycki
Protesters begin marching.
2 November 25, 2021 Schneps Media