Prosecutors in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, have asked a judge to issue a new arrest warrant for Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teen charged with shooting three people, killing two of them, during unrest in August 2020 in Kenosha.
The prosecutors have asked the judge to order Rittenhouse to update his address “immediately,” issue a warrant for his arrest, and boost Rittenhouse’s bail by $200,000.
The motion indicates that prosecutors learned Rittenhouse was no longer living at his Antioch, Illinois, address after the court mailed him a notice and it was returned as undeliverable and, on Feb. 2, Kenosha police visited the address Rittenhouse had filed with the court only to be greeted at the door by someone else. The man residing at the address told police he had been living in the rented apartment since mid-December 2020.
Rittenhouse attorney Mark Richards filed a response to the prosecutors’ motion on Feb. 3, saying the teenager and his family are at an undisclosed “safe house” due to death threats. Richards said he offered to give prosecutors the new address in November 2020 if they would keep it secret, but they refused. He said Rittenhouse has remained in constant contact with him.
The teenager is accused of fatally shooting Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz during a demonstration on Aug. 25, 2020, days after the police-involved shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha.
Rittenhouse told police he was attacked while he was guarding a business and that he fired in self-defense. He faces multiple charges, including intentional homicide, reckless endangerment, and being a minor in possession of a firearm. If convicted, Rittenhouse faces up to life in prison.
His case has taken on political overtones, with supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement painting Rittenhouse as a trigger-happy white supremacist, while conservatives upset over property destruction during protests have portrayed him as a patriot exercising his right to bear arms during unrest.
