Rittenhouse and his largely conservative supporters argued that he acted in self-defense, while prosecutors and the primarily liberal crowd who wanted to see him punished argued that he was a vigilante who had been spoiling for a fight.
The sharp divide in public perception of Rittenhouse has led to the proliferation of false claims that support the view of either the right or left. We recently wrote about one such claim circulating on left-leaning social media accounts. Another widely shared claim, which we’ll address here, has been circulating on right-leaning accounts.
The post has been copied and shared thousands of times, according to data from CrowdTangle. It makes numerous claims – several of which are true, or at least partly true, and some which are inaccurate.
Here are the facts relevant to each claim in the post:
Claim: “Until I watched the trial for myself, I didn’t know the gas station where it all started and where Kyle stayed up until they started attacking him, is owned by his grandparents. They came on to his property to attack him.”
Facts: This is false. Rittenhouse testified that he had seen videos on social media showing destruction of property at Car Source, a dealership in Kenosha, during protests on the evening of Aug. 24. The following day, he had gone to Kenosha and volunteered to “help watch over” the business, he said.
Two brothers whose family owns Car Source testified that they didn’t ask Rittenhouse, or anyone else, to guard the business. But...
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