COLUMBUS, Ohio — After deliberating for three and a half days, Kyle Rittenhouse was found "not guilty" on all charges.
“I was shocked, I was shocked, it's a horrible day in our country,” said Nana Watson, President of the Columbus Chapter of the NAACP. “It just goes over and over and over again and I don't know when it's going to stop.
The two men killed as well as the man injured were all white, but Watson says there's still a double standard.
“If the role was reversed and had that been a Black person going to a peaceful protest and shooting at people, they would have been jailed, they would've been found guilty,” Watson said.
But Ric Simmons, a law expert at Ohio State University says it was up to the prosecutor to prove Rittenhouse guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Simmons says the laws are similar in Ohio as they are in Wisconsin when it comes to proving and disproving self-defense.
“One of the issues is you have to believe that your life is in danger and you have no other option but to use deadly force. But then there is ‘who's the aggressor?’ …a lot people still believe he was the initial aggressor because he went to this protest with a gun. But under the law of Ohio or Wisconsin, that alone doesn't make him the initial aggressor,” said Simmons.
But for Watson, this proves "our justice system is broken."