Past hoax · Filed Oct 16, 2026
Rittenhouse Hoax
Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an illegal gun and murdered protesters.
The claim
Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines with an illegal gun and murdered protesters.
What it was
The gun was legal in Wisconsin. He lived nearby. A jury acquitted him on self-defense.
Timeline
Aug 25, 2020
Kyle Rittenhouse shoots three men in Kenosha, killing two. The next morning he is a white supremacist who crossed state lines with an illegal gun to hunt protesters.
The video
He lives about twenty minutes away. The rifle was already in Wisconsin. Rosenbaum chased him. Grosskreutz pointed a gun at him.
Nov 19, 2021
A jury acquits him on the killings as self-defense.
The gun count
The judge dismisses the claim that the rifle was illegal. “Crossed state lines with an illegal gun” does not get retired with the acquittal.
What aired
Kyle Rittenhouse was introduced as a white supremacist who crossed state lines with an illegal rifle to hunt protesters in Kenosha. The two men he shot were treated as murders from the first morning. His age, his gun, and the state line were the biography.
The record
He lived in Antioch, Illinois, about twenty minutes from Kenosha. The rifle was already in Wisconsin. It was not illegal for him to possess it there. Joseph Rosenbaum chased him. Gaige Grosskreutz pointed a handgun at him and was wounded. A jury in November 2021 acquitted him on the killings as self-defense. He was not a militia soldier who had driven in to pick targets.
Left out
Left out was the video, which existed from the first night and showed the chases. Also left out was the ordinary geography of a metro area that straddles a state line. “Crossed state lines” sounds like a federal plot. It was a teenager driving to the next town, where the gun already was.
Why it stuck
It stuck because the first biography was simple and evil, and the trial was long and full of Wisconsin jury instructions. People who had posted the biography did not sit for the trial. The acquittal reached them as a controversy about the verdict, not as a replacement for the facts they already thought they had.