The U. S. Congress must act to outlaw racist murder¹
Attorney General Merrick Garland:
Indict Kyle Rittenhouse for murder under Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 - Conspiracy Against Rights²
Millions of people have been appalled while watching the sham “trial” of Kyle Rittenhouse going on in Kenosha, Wisconsin. There, in front of the whole world and before a judge who has made his sympathies with Rittenhouse clear, this wannabe soldier for white supremacy is on trial for the murder of two people and shooting of a third who were protesting the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake.
Those who care about justice are also disgusted by the trial before a nearly all-white jury of Travis McMichael, his father Greg, and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, for their murder on Feb. 23, 2020 of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, in a suburb of Atlanta Georgia.
In both cases the defendants are claiming that they shot their victims in self-defense, although the killers in both cases went out armed, looking to inflict violence on someone. Both murders were captured on video, in the Arbery murder by one of the murderers.
It is clear that Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder has already decided the Rittenhouse case. He has barred some video evidence, dismissed one charge, has prohibited saying those shot were “victims”, and excoriated the prosecution for questioning the defendant’s conduct after the murders. Meanwhile, Rittenhouse cried crocodile tears on the witness stand in an attempt to paint himself as the victim.
What is clear, as noted by many viewers of the trial, is that the system of white supremacy is acting to protect its own. The criminalization of Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous people has saturated the culture of the United States since the beginning of this nation. Racist murderers can always claim to have been afraid of their victims and they will be protected by racist judges. The same judicial system routinely keeps survivors of police torture and wrongful conviction incarcerated for decades after their innocence has been proven.
The US will never know justice as long as Black and Latinx people are criminalized while white supremacists are allowed to kill with impunity. This must end, Now! The U. S. Department of Justice must act with speed to arrest, try and convict Rittenhouse and the killers of Ahmaud Arbery for first degree murder. We demand justice for Jacob Blake, justice for Ahmaud Arbery, justice for Joseph Rosenbaum, justice for Anthony Huber, and justice for all those who have been killed by white supremacy!
#
1 18 U.S. Code § 1111 – Murder. Applies only “Within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”
2 USC Title 18 Sewction 241 states that “If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; …. They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.”