Video posted Friday shows a Wisconsin state crime lab technician shredding the assault-style rifle that Kyle Rittenhouse used to shoot three people during a racial injustice protest in Kenosha two years ago, NBC News reports.
The video, obtained by NBC affiliate WTMJ-TV, shows the technician feeding the AR-15-style rifle into a large mechanical shredder after a judge ruled in January that the gun could be destroyed.
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A lawyer for Rittenhouse, Mark Richards, had requested that it be done after Rittenhouse said he didn’t want it to be sold and used as a trophy.
The agreement had called for the process to be recorded.
Rittenhouse, 19, was acquitted of homicide charges last year in the fatal shootings on Aug. 25, 2020, of Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26.
He was also acquitted of an attempted homicide charge for severely wounding a paramedic, Gaige Grosskreutz.
The protest occurred after the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a Kenosha police officer prompted nationwide calls for police accountability.
Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, had traveled to Kenosha after a local militia sought help to protect local businesses from protesters.
During testimony in the highlypolarizing case, Rittenhouse said he’d used the rifle to defend himself.
The shooting and its aftermath turned Rittenhouse, then 17, into a celebrity among right wing fans who praised him for standing up to protesters and helped raised $2 million for his defense — even as critics called him an out-of-town vigilante and domestic terrorist.
An all-white jury cleared him on Nov. 19.