A recipe for disaster: Late on the night of Tuesday, August 26, Kyle Rittenhouse was walking the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin. He wore a backwards baseball cap embroidered with an image of the American flag, blue surgical-style gloves, and he carried a long gun. He was not seen to be wearing any kind of protective face covering. He was, and remains for the time being, just seventeen years old.

Protesters had been gathering nightly since that previous Sunday to demand justice for a man named Jacob Blake who was shot in the back seven times, at point-blank range, by a Kenosha police officer named Rusten Sheskey. Mr. Blake remains in the hospital, and is said to have a very long and painful road to recovery ahead of him. He sustained injuries to his arm, stomach, a kidney and his liver. Most of his small intestine and colon were removed. Perhaps most devastating of all, he is paralized from the waist down and may never walk again.

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Just a kid

Social media posts by Kyle Rittenhouse suggest that he is an avid supporter of the police, has long-aspired to be among their ranks one day, and also very vocally stands behind the “back the blue” movement. Records show that he participated in a youth program for hopeful law enforcement enthusiasts, and, according to Marine Corps service spokeswoman Yvonne Carlock, had attempted to join the Marines back in January, but had “been disqualified from serving after discussing his options with recruiters.” No further details were given due to the service’s privacy guidelines.

On that Tuesday night, it is alleged that Kyle Rittenhouse was involved in an altercation that led to him shooting and killing Joseph Rosenbaum, aged 36, Anthony Huber, aged 26, and injuring Gaige Grosskreutz, also 26. A charge of reckless homicide has been filed in connection with Rosenbaum’s death, and one of intentional homicide with Huber’s. A third charge, assumedly stemming from Grosskreutz’s sustained injury, of first degree: attempted homicide, has also been filed. Additionally, Rittenhouse faces two counts of first degree: recklessly endangering safety.

Wendy Rittenhouse is Kyle’s mother. It has been speculated that she herself drove Kyle across state lines, from their home in Antioch, Illinois, so that he could be present in the thick of things on the streets of Kenosha, toting a first aid kit and the alleged murder weapon- an AR-15-style long gun.

One can’t help but wonder- if she did in fact facilitate the alleged crimes to any extent, albeit inadvertently- what were her intentions, and what did she think would happen? What was going on in her mind? Did she fully understand what she was doing, what her son thought he was doing? Did she understand the gravity of the situation, the bloodshed and the anguish sweeping across this country like a firestorm? Did she comprehend what was happening on the ground in Kenosha? If she did, how on Earth could she bring her boy to those streets, to that fight, to that place that was not his?

Should she be held accountable alongside her son?

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In the hands of a babe

According to gun legislation in the Rittenhouses’ home state, “Illinois prohibits any person under age 18 from possessing a handgun. State law also prohibits any person from knowingly transferring a handgun to any person under age 18.”

The state also prohibits any individual, minor or adult, from possessing firearms if they do not hold a FOID (Firearm Owner Identification) card. If a minor wishes to obtain such a card, they must have the written consent of his or her parent or legal guardian. One would hope that Illinois and other states with stipulations such as this require said written consent to be notarized with an original birth certificate and/or legal guardianship paperwork, and state-issued picture ID’s present for all parties involved.

The Giffords Law Center cites Illinois state law on their website with the following: “When a minor under the age of 21 legally acquires a FOID card by obtaining the permission of a parent or guardian, that parent or guardian becomes liable for civil claims for damages resulting from the minor’s use of firearms or ammunition.”

According to the Transport Firearm Brochure provided by the state of Illinois, “a person commits a Class 4 Felony if he or she carries or possesses a firearm contrary to the aggravated UUW law of the Criminal Code (i.e., unlawfully carries on their person or illegally transports a firearm in a vehicle)…” if they are “under 21 years of age and in possession of a handgun, unless the person is engaged in lawful recreational activities such as practice shooting on targets.”

According to Wisconsin gun laws, “Possession of a gun by anyone under 18 is a misdemeanor, unless that gun is being used for target practice, hunting or the child is a member of the armed forces.”

Additionally, in Wisconsin, “…giving, loaning or selling a dangerous weapon to someone under 18 is a felony and carries a sentence of up to 3½ years in prison and a $10,000 fine unless the firearm is used for target practice or hunting. If that gun is used in a homicide or suicide, the person can be charged with a felony carrying up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.”

You don’t need a law degree to put all of this information together: it is safe to assume that if Kyle Rittenhouse’s mother did indeed transport him and his weapon over state lines, no matter how you look at it, she is likely to face her own slew of charges.

And she should.

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We deserve better than this

If a part time novice writer at a local paper in Southern New Hampshire can find all of this information and bring it to the table, so to speak, why isn’t it being blasted from our televisions and mobile devices by nationally syndicated broadcasters and newspapers? Where are their teams of fact checkers and writers? Where are the producers, the publishers, the owners and the investors?

Why did I have to dig, really dig, for even brief mentions of Wendy Rittenhouse’s possible involvement in this?

Would we be hearing more about it if the Rittenhouses were a poor family from Chicago’s Southside instead of the “bedroom community” of Antioch? What if Kyle, a minor armed with a deadly weapon, was there to walk with and protect the protesters, labeled as “dangerous thugs” and “militant ANTIFA” by our very own president, instead of allegedly initially standing guard at a single business that he reportedly had no connection to?

What if they were Black?

Would our president Tweet a different tune then? Would the media shine a brighter light on how and why this was allowed to happen in the first place?

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Divided, we fall

An ill-informed America is a fractured America, and we have most certainly been found wanting. It is only with dependable, reliable and truthful news that we are ever going to develop and maintain intelligent, independent thought on matters such as this. And until we achieve that, we are nothing but broken and divided. This division further fuels the deeply ingrained racism that runs through the veins of our nation and continues to suppress and murder, both slowly and swiftly, our Black brothers and sisters.

We must not let this opportunity pass us by. We must demand the whole truth. If we hold the media to a higher standard, we hold ourselves to a higher one as well- and that could be the very foothold we need to really start climbing this mountain that we call “Change.”

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