Kenosha shooting suspect attended Trump rally in January: report

Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teen charged with fatally shooting two people at a Black Lives Matter protest Tuesday night in Kenosha, Wis., appears to have attended one of President Trump’s campaign rallies in January.

A TikTok video on an account that appears to belong to Rittenhouse shows the teen standing in the front row of a Trump rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 30, BuzzFeed News first reported.

A review of his other social media accounts appears to show he is a supporter of Trump and the pro-law enforcement “Blue Lives Matter” movement. 

On Tuesday, Rittenhouse showed up with his rifle to the third night of Black Lives Matter protests in Kenosha after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man.

The 17-year-old from Antioch, Ill., was charged as a fugitive from justice. He faces a charge of first-degree intentional homicide in Kenosha for allegedly shooting and killing two people and injuring another. He is expected to be extradited to Wisconsin, where he will face trial. 

The Grayslake Police Department told BuzzFeed that Rittenhouse was a member of its Public Safety Cadet Program, a youth program that “offers boys and girls the opportunity to explore a career in law enforcement.”

On his now-deleted Facebook page, Rittenhouse posted images with his firearms and repeatedly voiced his support for law enforcement, according to BuzzFeed.

Facebook took down Rittenhouse’s page, the page of a group called Kenosha Guard and an event called Armed Citizens to Protect our Lives, which encouraged an armed response to the protests. 

The Kenosha Guard said it did not know whether Rittenhouse had any connection to its page.

In a statement to The Hill, Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said the president “repeatedly and consistently condemned all forms of violence and believes we must protect all Americans from chaos and lawlessness.”

“This individual had nothing to do with our campaign and we fully support our fantastic law enforcement for their swift action in this case,” Murtaugh added. 

Trump has previously called demonstrators protesting police violence “terrorists” and shared similar pro-law enforcement rhetoric as Rittenhouse did on his social media accounts.

Updated: 8:09 p.m.