The judge presiding over the Kyle Rittenhouse trial revealed on Tuesday that someone had been caught photographing members of the jury.
This comes days after Minneapolis-based BLM activist Cortez Rice claimed to know that there were cameras in the courtroom to doxx and intimidate the jury.
“This morning at the pickup there was someone there [who] was video recording the jury—which the officers approached the person and required him … to delete the video, and returned the phone to him,” Judge Bruce Schroeder told the jury. “I’ve instructed if it happens again they [police] are to take the phone, and bring it here,” the judge added.
“I’ve been assured that … the video, which had been taken, has been deleted, and new procedures are being instituted so that something like that … should not recur,” ” Schroeder told the jury.
https://youtu.be/PA7ekv1sP6c
Rittenhouse is facing trial on six charges, including first-degree intentional homicide, for shooting three antifa agitators—killing two of them—during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020. The city was roiled with civil unrest for over a week in the aftermath of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, who was wanted at the time on a warrant for felony sexual assault, trespassing, and domestic abuse.
In a now deleted video, Rice, who refers to himself as George Floyd’s nephew, said he knew that people in the courtroom were taking pictures of the jurors in the trial.
“I ain’t even gonna name the people that I know that’s up in the Kenosha trial. But it’s cameras in there. It’s definitely cameras up in there. There’s definitely people taking pictures of the juries and everything like that,” Rice said in the now deleted video.
“We know what’s going on, so we need the same results,” he added.
In the wake of a media backlash, according to Alpha News, Rice has since back-peddled, claiming that he never said he knew who was spying in the Kenosha courtroom, only that he knew people were there with cameras.
But Rice’s message was clear, Fox News host Tucker Carlson argued on his show Tuesday night.
“‘Videotape the jurors. If they’re afraid, they’ll do exactly what we want’—that’s what he’s saying,” Carson said. “Jury intimidation is a serious felony in this country, but as far as we know, the Department of Justice isn’t doing anything to stop it in this case, they’re all busy looking for Ashley Biden’s diary,” he added, referring to the scandal-ridden diary that ended up in the hands of conservative journalists and activists, late last year, and prompted FBI raids on several Project Veritas journalists in recent days, including James O’Keefe.
Blaze Media host Jason Whitlock noted that “fear and cowardice rolls downhill just like human waste.”
“Now we have 18 jurors in the crosshairs because men have failed, and this society has failed to uphold the rule of law,” he said. “We now have thugs in control of our society, and so when the prosecutors don’t do their job, when the media doesn’t do it’s job, when politicians don’t do their job, 18 ordinary citizens are now in the crosshairs.”
The prosecution rested on Tuesday after another full day of testimony that in large part damaged their case, and cast doubt on their integrity.
Rittenhouse’s lawyers then began presenting his defense, calling witnesses who were on the streets with the teen that night “and described him as pale, shaking, sweating and stammering after the shootings.”
Rekieta Law has been covering the trial and offering live commentary. Tuesday’s coverage is below: