Teen in Kenosha protest deaths used pandemic funds for gun

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — An Illinois teenager who is charged with shooting three people, including two fatally, during a Wisconsin protest over police brutality, said he used pandemic relief funds to pay for the assault-style rifle that a friend purchased for him.

Kyle Rittenhouse spoke to The Washington Post by phone from a juvenile detention facility. He told the newspaper he was on furlough from the YMCA and used the $1,200 he got from coronavirus Illinois unemployment to buy the gun.

Rittenhouse is charged with fatally shooting Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz in Kenosha.

Rosenbaum’s fiancee told the Post that he had just been released from a psychiatric hospital that day.