MSNBC “PoliticsNation” host Al Sharpton said Friday on “Deadline” that Kyle Rittenhouse’s not guilty verdict means all Americans protesting were in danger.
Sharpton said, “I think the broader context of this verdict today is most disturbing, which is why I think the president and the governor have to speak to this. There needs to be clearer federal legislation. We can argue about the case in particular. But when you look at the broad message that came out of this, is they have said now that vigilantes can go to protests and kill people and say that they were defending themselves. Which puts all Americans, particularly those that want to protest for whatever issue, in danger.”
He continued, “The precedent that it set, that you can have a judge sit there and say people can be killed, but you can’t call them victims, but you can call the other side what you want, then let a tumbler sit in front of a man charged with murder and let him choose his own jury.”
Sharpton added, “I think that many of us are far more concerned about what the broad message this verdict gives than to arguing what the legal experts ought to argue, and rightfully so, about the particulars of the case. The message coming out of it — don’t forget the two people in Michigan that went on their front stoop brandishing guns when people were protesting in the front, they visited to the trial to support Kyle Rittenhouse. So you have in one block of time people that are pro-gun people can support Rittenhouse, to see him acquitted but when Black ministers sit with people in Georgia after a young man was killed, who had no gun, we are called all kinds of names and told we ought to be barred from the courtroom in the same news cycle. That’s the problem we are facing in the country today. It took a tremendous blow with this verdict.”
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