You are confused.
Kyle loved Kenosha. He worked there, he had relatives there his father lived and worked in Kenosha. Kyle spent an awful lot of time in the city. The filthy rioters were burning down the town Kyle loved.
He knew the National Guard had been stood down by the feckless Governor, the Police had stood down as there was nobody else working to quell the fires and destruction so he took to putting out fires where he could. He was threatened and attacked for doing so. He was pursued and chased around and he knew nobody was coming to help him. Once cornered he fought back, rightly so. It is called the Right to Self Defense.
I am not denying what each person knows is or was their intent.
What I am blaming for the deaths was the lack of agreed process of law enforcement.
Had all participants been required to sign agreements to COMPLY with laws and authorities, and follow uniform protocols, then no violence would have occurred or else it would be properly contained and addressed.
These people were set up to fail, enticed and invited to this chaotic dangerous environment.
As for Kyle Rittenhouse, 17 is too young to even train for military or police duty. All he knew was to defend himself from attack, but was not trained to de escalate or apprehend people safely as police have standard protocol they are required to follow.
I sympathize with him and his situation, and hold the city officials and law enforcement equally responsible as the people calling for protest. Knowing there were threats of violence, looting, vandalism and other crimes, the community leaders and officials should have met in advance, identified which leaders and groups were responsible for following agreed protocol, and asked all participants to either sign an agreement to follow the same process, or else protest in designated public areas that would be monitored for anyone refusing to sign. This would have organized the peaceful lawabiding protestors from any outside infiltrators or instigators not agreeing to follow civil laws authorities and protocols.
Back in 1997, I helped a coordinator of a rally in Houston who managed the crowd control by meeting with police and city officials in advance: we co wrote a pledge that each participant was required to sign, including agreements not to bring or consume alcohol or drugs, not to cause harm to any person or property, and to refrain from any conduct that would invoke arrest. Similar advance planning was done between LA police and protestors for the Ferguson/Michael Brown case where protestors set up a process with police to communicate which people were outside instigators and reporting any such threats that were not part of the peaceful demonstration.
This agreed protocol and meeting of organizers with local officials and law enforcement helps deter, reduce and prevent chaos and criminal violence due to lack of crowd control.
There are ways to set up security in advance.
Neither Kyle nor any of the others coming in as volunteers were trained or identified in advance, to address such a chaotic situation safely. It was like going into a war zone with no agreed rules of engagement, and no agreed identification for people acting as security.
Kyle is lucky to be alive, as well as the third man who survived getting shot.
Two lived and two died.
They all could have died given the chaos.
Just a mob going after anyone.
Rittenhouse would have to be trained and have backup, and still could have suffered the same ambush.
The failure was in not setting up safe agreed protocol between the city officials and leader organizers. That makes all the difference in keeping law abiding peaceful citizens safe and separated from anyone with ill intent to violate laws.
I feel equally for Rittenhouse as I do for the people shot and those killed.
They were all set up to fail. And Kyle is lucky to be alive and survive without major injury as the other survivor who lost use of his arm.
I sympathize with all of them.
Given this chaotic situation, the mob mentality makes people act beyond normal ability to reason. People just go mad and are not thinking rationally.
Nobody is safe in that kind of chaos.
This can be prevented with advance planning.
As for the people attacking Kyle:
One witness reported that one of these men chased after Kyle for putting out a fire that man started. The witness testimony and video show Kyle being chased extensively and people calling to go get him or kill him like a mob.
Again, I do not deny any of these reports that support Kyle's self defense position.
What I blame is the entire set up that allowed all this to occur.
If you are going to blame the city and police for negligence, then all the protestors are equally negligent for shared failures to set up agreed protocol in advance. Everyone is guilty of negligence if you are going to start blaming people.