The mother of Kyle Rittenhouse, Wendy Rittenhouse, spoke with the Chicago Tribune about what happened in Kenosha a few months ago. Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old medic, was helping to guard a business during riots when things turned deadly. He was chased, attacked, and ended up shooting three people. Two of them died.
Since then, he has been held in jail, charged with multiple counts of murder among others.
His mother, along with many others, agree on one thing: No one should have been there.
“No one should have been there,” she said. “The protesters should not have been there, also. My son shouldn’t have been there either.”
Wendy Rittenhouse agreed that her son shouldn’t have been there, and placed blame on police and politicians for the chaos that Kenosha saw.
“The police should have helped the businesses out instead of having a 17-year-old kid helping him,” she said. “The police should have been involved with these people that lost their businesses. They should have stepped up. I’m not mad at the police. I’m not. They have a hard enough job as it is.”
Apparently never owning a gun herself, Wendy Rittenhouse says she grew up around guns and has a respect for them, which she instilled in Kyle as he grew up.
“I believe in my Second Amendment. I do,” she said. “I’m 100% right to bear arms. If it’s a handgun, a 12-gauge, a 22, AR-15. You have to respect the gun. And I told my son, ‘you have to respect the gun’ and everything like that.”
She told the Tribune that she watched parts of the videos from that night, and one in particular made her “sick”. It wasn’t the videos of the people being shot, but rather a video that showed the people who were chasing after her son.
“Self-defense,” she said, as her voice rose. “He was in danger.”