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A teenager who walked among protesters in Kenosha, Wis., carrying a military-style semi-automatic rifle was arrested and faces a charge of first-degree intentional homicide in connection with shootings that left two people dead on Tuesday night.
Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Illinois resident, appeared on multiple videos taken throughout the night by protesters and bystanders who chronicled the events as peaceful protests gave way to chaos, with demonstrators, armed civilians and others facing off against one another and the police in the darkened streets.
The New York Times’s Visual Investigations unit analyzed hours of footage to track Mr. Rittenhouse’s movements in the moments leading up to, and during, the shootings.
Mr. Rittenhouse was arrested early Wednesday in his hometown, Antioch, Ill., which is about 30 minutes southwest of the protests in Kenosha, just over the state line.
Multiple posts on his social media accounts proclaim support for pro-police causes like the Blue Lives Matter movement and Humanize the Badge, a nonprofit that he ran a Facebook fund-raiser for on his 16th birthday.
His posts also suggest a strong affinity for guns, with videos showing Mr. Rittenhouse taking backyard target practice, posing with guns and assembling a weapon.
But many details about both his background and his motivations for walking around the Kenosha protests carrying a military-style semi-automatic rifle are still emerging.
About two hours before the first shooting, the producer of a video livestream interviews Mr. Rittenhouse at a Kenosha vehicle dealership.
Mr. Rittenhouse is there at the same time as several other armed men. Some of them are positioned on the building’s roof overlooking the parking lot where vehicles were burned the day before.
In a brief exchange on the livestream, he identifies himself as “Kyle.”
Tracking the Suspect in the Fatal Kenosha Shootings (Published 2020)
Footage appears to show a teenager shooting three people during protests in Wisconsin. We tracked his movements that night.
www.nytimes.com