Vigilante? Militia? Confusion And Politics Shape How Shooting Suspect Is Labeled

Confusion And Politics Shape How Shooting Suspect Is Labeled Enlarge this image toggle caption Morry Gash/AP Morry Gash/AP Minds are made up about Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old gunman charged in the killing of two protesters in Kenosha, Wis. Graphic amateur video of the chaotic scene and early reports from authorities tell a partial story, and politics fills in the blanks. Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, calls the volunteer gunmen "armed vigilante groups," though he stresses that "group" is a bit of a misnomer because they're often pop-up, local factions without the organization of, say, established militias. Sponsor Message Reporters and researchers across the country are digging into Rittenhouse's background and, so far, they've come up with no clear-cut evidence of ties to antigovernment militias or to the "boogaloo boys," armed men in Hawaiian shirts calling for violent revolution. Social media accounts linked to Rittenhouse portrayed a police booster aligned with "Back the Blue," pro-cop activism widely seen as a racist response to Black Lives Matter. "I think the confusion understandably comes from different groups having similar appearances and some shared goals, especially in a moment like this," said Amy Cooter, a sociologist at Vanderbilt University who's written extensively about militias and related "Patriot Movement" groups.