Video shows police destroying rifle Kyle Rittenhouse used to kill two people in Kenosha

Police have destroyed the AR-15-style rifle Kyle Rittenhouse used to kill two individuals in 2020 at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Officers on the Wisconsin state crime lab put the gun by way of a shredding machine final month, in response to video obtained by NBC affiliate WTMJ-TV.

Mr Rittenhouse’s attorneys and state prosecutors agreed in January to destroy the gun. In courtroom filings, the teenager stated he didn’t need somebody to purchase the weapon as a trophy.

“We don’t need something to do with that,” Mr Rittenhouse stated on The Charlie Kirk Present final yr.

Beforehand, weapons utilized in high-profile killings just like the slaying of Black teenager Trayvon Martin have been auctioned off for hundreds of thousands dollars.

Kyle Rittenhouse used the weapon to fatally shoot two individuals, Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and wound a 3rd individual at February 2020 protests following the police taking pictures of Jacob Blake, a Black man.

In November, a jury acquitted Mr Rittenhouse on all prices associated to the taking pictures, which he claimed was in self-defence.

“He was chasing me. I used to be alone. He threatened to kill me earlier that evening. I didn’t need to must shoot him,” Mr Rittenhouse testified about one the shootings. “I pointed it at him as a result of he stored working at me, and I didn’t need him to chase me.”

Mr Rittenhouse, as soon as a part of a “public security cadet programme” within the Chicago suburbs, idolised police and supported Donald Trump and the Blue Lives Matter motion, earlier than heading to Kenosha, his social media exhibits.

As soon as there, he joined with different self-styled militia members to patrol exterior of native companies, at one level incomes passing thanks from cops who tossed him a water bottle and stated, “We admire you guys. We actually do.”

He was additionally recorded telling individuals he was a subject medic, regardless of having no medical coaching.

Throughout his trial, prosecutors confirmed a video from earlier than the shootings the place Mr Rittenhouse may be heard fantasising about taking pictures looters.

As he watches a gaggle of hooded people loot a CVS retailer, he tells one other individual, “Bro, I want I had my f***ing AR. I’d begin taking pictures rounds at them.”

On the time of the taking pictures, Mr Rittenhouse was 17, beneath the authorized age to purchase or possess an assault rifle in Wisconsin. A pal bought him the weapon as an alternative at a ironmongery store.