Sept. 23, 2020 12:15a
(WGTD)---A civil rights lawsuit has been filed in federal court in response to armed militia members who confronted Black Lives Matter protestors in Kenosha on the night that two were killed and a third wounded.
The defendants include former Kenosha Ald. Kevin Mathewson, who organized a right-wing militia group called the Kenosha Guard, then through Facebook, invited armed individuals to come into the city.
Two of them--Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teenager who allegedly fired the fatal shots, and another militia member, Ryan Balch, are also named as defendants, as is Facebook itself, for being too slow to pull Mathewson's pages.
The plaintiffs include two protesters and a live-streamer who say the defendants, through alleged harassment and intimidation, infringed on their right to peacefully congregate and protest. One of them, a Black woman from Milwaukee, said she and her friends were forced to flee the city but not before having to fix the tires on their vehicles which had been slashed.
The fourth plaintiff is Hannah Gittings, the partner of Anthony Huber, the skateboarder who was the second to die when he confronted Rittenhouse following the night's first fatal shooting.
The lawsuit, filed by two out-of-state attorneys, argues that the defendants conspired to deny the plaintiffs of their rights under the law. "These reconstruction era provisions were designed precisely for the scheme that was violently executed in Kenosha, Wisconsin--a repetition of horrific violence we now experience across the entire country--where white racist militias use Facebook to broadcast and publicize a 'call to arms' for untrained private citizens to travel across state lines to the peaceful protests advocating for racial justice in America with assault rifles, tactical gear, and militia grade equipment."
The suit seeks injunctive relief and damages.
Rittenhouse is also facing criminal charges. He's fighting extradition from Illinois.
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