Kyle Rittenhouse Brutally Mocked for Special Ops Training

Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two people and injured a third during racial justice protests in 2020, was mocked on social media on Wednesday for boasting about his Special Ops training.

Rittenhouse was 17 in August 2020 when he fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and injured a third, Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The shootings took place during protests in the city sparked by the death of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man who was seriously injured after being shot by a white cop.

The teen from Antioch, Illinois, was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and a part of a group that said they were in Kenosha to protect businesses. Rittenhouse was hit with a slew of charges, including first-degree intentional homicide, but was acquitted, arguing that he acted in self-defense.

Rittenhouse, now 21, posted a picture of him and three other people in tactical gear, holding long guns, on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday. He captioned the post: “Training with some special op guys today! Fun content coming soon!”

In a follow-up post on Wednesday, Rittenhouse posed solo, sitting down in his gear with his gun next to a cooler, and wrote: “I was exhausted after training all day! More training this week!”

Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch, a liberal news site, shared the solo picture of Rittenhouse and wrote: “Training for what?”

X user @feldcorp replied: “Welches fruit snack eating contest,” alongside a zoomed-in screenshot of a two packets of Welch’s fruit snacks that were on the ground next to Rittenhouse’s feet.

“Cosplay can be grueling. But nothing helps a guy recover quite like Welch’s Fruit Snacks and a cooler full of juice boxes,” X user @JKuenzie teased.

Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman and current CNN senior political commentator, also homed in on the fruit snacks, responding to Filipkowski’s post, “Ready for that war as long as the Welch’s plant stays operational.”

Following Rittenhouse’s acquittal in November 2021, conservatives celebrated the verdict, with Republican Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona wanting “to get dibs” on Rittenhouse as an intern, while liberals decried it, including Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who called it a “miscarriage of justice.”

Days after his acquittal, Rittenhouse said he supported the Black Lives Matter movement in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

“This case has nothing to do with race,” he told Carlson. “It never had anything to do with race. It had to do with the right to self-defense. I’m not a racist person. I support the BLM movement.”