Figure guilt or innocence, not if ‘victims’ exist

By: 
Lee Pulaski
City Editor

The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the man accused of killing protesters in Kenosha in the wake of Jacob Blake’s fateful police encounter in August 2020, is underway, but it seems the verdict on political correctness has already come down.

Judge Bruce Schroeder ruled on Oct. 25 that prosecutors cannot call the people shot by Rittenhouse “victims,” according to an article on National Public Radio’s website. The judge claimed that such a label would presuppose Rittenhouse’s guilt and said that even saying “alleged victim” would do the same thing. He informed prosecutors that they could refer to the people Rittenhouse shot as complaining witnesses or decedents.

When I read this part of the story, I had to facepalm myself. We’ve become a society so triggered by words that we try to soft pedal the truth and sugarcoat bad situations in order to feel good about ourselves — the verbal equivalent of a participation trophy. These people were shooting victims, and there’s no getting around that. Whether the bullets came from Rittenhouse’s gun is for prosecutors to prove and for a jury to determine.

Then came the other shoe dropping. Prosecutors can’t refer to the three people shot as victims, but Rittenhouse’s attorneys are free to call them arsonists, looters and rioters. Hmmmm. Who precisely is on trial at the moment?

When police shot Blake over a year ago, it further ignited a national furor over people of color being gunned down instead of being arrested and tried for crimes, and it happened close enough to our backyard to make it particularly uncomfortable for Wisconsinites. The Blake shooting took place three months after George Floyd had been killed by police officers, but the big difference is that Blake survived his encounter with police.

There was plenty of damage and destruction in the days that followed, but there was no loss of life before Rittenhouse showed up, crossing state lines with an AR-15 in response to a call from a Kenosha-based militia vowing to protect businesses from those who were rioting in the streets. Whether he’s a cold-hearted killer or just someone defending himself from a mob, it’s abundantly clear he was not supposed to be there as Kenosha burned.

Yet now that the trial has started, we’re more worried about what we’re going to call Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz than we are with determining Rittenhouse’s guilt or innocence. I can see not prejudicing the jury with derogatory terms against Rittenhouse, but when we’re more worried about whether victims are victims or not, it’s clear the legal system is not running on all cylinders.

This is a trial that everyone is going to be watching with bated breath. We saw how peaceful protests devolved into angry mobs looting and setting fire to everything in sight on several occasions, before any justice was meted out. I can only imagine what happens once the verdict in the Rittenhouse trial comes down.

Yet we’re more focused on the word “victim” than anything else? That’s ridiculous, and if defense attorneys have a case for proving that Rittenhouse was more victim than perpetrator, they should focus more on the evidence than whether the people who were shot and/or died were victims.

Let’s look at the definition of the word “victim.” The dictionary says that one of the definitions is “a person harmed, injured or killed as a result of a crime, accident or other event or action.” Maybe Rittenhouse shot them by accident. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe someone else pulled the trigger that caused bullets to enter the bodies of those three people. However, you still can’t escape the fact that the two dead men and the third one who was shot and survived are victims — classic textbook cases of victims, at that.

Are we going to suddenly stop calling people who suffer beatings, assaults and attacks from domestic violence victims, while we’re at it? By the judge’s narrow terminology, we should call them “emasculators,” “unfortunate spouses” or “convenient punching bags.” Where do we draw the line and tell political correctness to take a flying leap?

The focus of this trial, the only focus, should be about whether Rittenhouse is guilty of murder and recklessly endangering the safety of others. If there’s evidence of his innocence, that should make the decision easy. If there’s evidence of his guilt, same thing. The use of the word “victim” is not going to tip the scales.


Lee Pulaski is the city editor for NEW Media. Readers can contact him at lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com.