The girlfriend of one of two men shot and killed by Kyle Rittenhouse at a Black Lives Matter protest in Wisconsin last year says she has 'a lot of sympathy' for the teenager who killed her boyfriend because he was swept up in his own fantasy.
Hannah Gittings, 25, says she went to the protest with her boyfriend Anthony Huber because he was a friend of Jacob Blake, the black man whose police shooting triggered the unrest.
She says Huber was not looting or causing any trouble, but was instead there to film the protest. He hit Rittenhouse with a skateboard, who then shot and killed him.
'This kid was walking around like hot s***, looking for a reason to say, "Oh I gotta do something about this,"' Gittings told the New York Post.
'I do have a lot of sympathy for this kid because he is just a kid to me, so it was just like a really dumb*** kid who unfortunately became the figurehead for this,' she said.
Hannah Gittings says she feels 'a lot of sympathy' for Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed her boyfriend Anthony Huber, right, on August 25, 2020
Hannah Gittings, left, says she went to the protest with her boyfriend Anthony Huber because he was a friend of Jacob Blake , the black man whose police shooting triggered the unrest
'It was just like a really dumb*** kid who unfortunately became the figurehead for this,' she said
Jurors in Rittenhouse's trial ended their third day of deliberation on Thursday.
The jury has now been out since Tuesday morning, wrestling with the guilt or innocence of Rittenhouse, who shot Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum and injured a third during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August 2020.
He faces life in prison.
Huber, 26, has been portrayed as a violent man who once threatened to murder his family during Rittenhouse's ongoing murder trial.
According to criminal complaints quoted by defense attorney Corey Chirafisi, Huber once 'hurled a chair' and, armed with a butcher knife, told his brother he would 'gut him like a pig.'
Chirafisi stated, 'Huber told his brother he would kill him. Huber put a knife to his brother's stomach saying he was going to gut him like a pig.
'Huber grabbed his brother by the neck, dug his nails in and choked him for approximately ten seconds. He put a knife to his brother's left ear and his brother felt it cut.
'He said, 'I'm going to burn the house down with all you f*****s in it.'
On another occasion he kicked his sister in her right hip, causing her pain and to fall.
Chirafisi added: 'They're saying this is a peaceful man. If you're saying that's peaceful this is the [material] we will want to admit.'
Rittenhouse's defense has portrayed Huber as violent, saying he once 'hurled a chair,' and armed with a butcher's knife told his brother he would 'gut him like a pig'
Despite Huber's past, Gittings says it was Rittenhouse who was out looking for trouble that night.
'If these people had just done what they said they were going to be doing, standing outside of the property making sure nobody was ruining these buildings and businesses whatever, that's cool, but you weren’t,' Gittings told the Post.
She added that Kenosha should be held responsible for allowing armed militias and other groups that oppose Black Lives Matter and the night's protest to wander around town.
In August, Huber's parents sued Kenosha County Sheriff's David Beth; former Kenosha Police Department Chief Daniel Miskinis, Kenosha Acting Chief of Police Eric Larsen, as well as the City of Kenosha and Kenosha County.
They sued on 15 counts, including wrongful death; conspiracy to deprive of constitutional rights; conspiracy to obstruct justice; deprivation of due process; intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and negligence.
Jurors ended their third day of deliberation on Thursday. Above, Rittenhouse in court Thursday
'You are not going to tell me that these motherf****** did not know that this militia was here. You're not gonna tell me that,' she said.
'They gotta put some heat on this kid because if they let him completely off the hook, then they have to totally take responsibility for allowing what happened to happen.'
Gittings said her boyfriend was friends with Jacob Blake, a black man who was shot by a white police officer in Kenosha in August 2020 while he was being arrested over an active warrant for sexual assault, trespassing and domestic abuse.
Blake was left partially paralyzed.
'The outcome of this trial, it could go literally anyway in the world, good or bad for us and it still would not change any of this for us,' Gittings, right, said
During the August 25 protest, Rittenhouse was walking around with an AR-15 style rifle.
She pointed to the differences between the pair.
'One of them goes out, taking advantage of a vulnerable situation so that he can live out his fantasy of being king of the world and one of them out there doing absolutely nothing, nothing f****** wrong and being presented with yes, an active shooter situation and leaping into action without a second thought of his own safety,' Gittings said.
She rejects Rittenhouse defense team's claims that Huber was a rioter or a looter.
'There’s no proof of that anywhere, and I was with him that entire night. We were not doing anything like that,' Gittings told the Post.
'The outcome of this trial, it could go literally anyway in the world, good or bad for us and it still would not change any of this for us.'
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